U99- Famine on the way unless its stopped.

I wondered where to post this. It could certainly fit here, under "Global Meltdown", "Breaking News", etc. For this little fungus has the power to create widespread famine and that can effect - well - the entire planet and all the people on it.

Red Menace: Stop the Ug99 Fungus Before Its Spores Bring Starvation

Forgive me for the quote below is rather long - but needful as it sums up the situation.

The enemy is Ug99, a fungus that causes stem rust, a calamitous disease of wheat. Its spores alight on a wheat leaf, then work their way into the flesh of the plant and hijack its metabolism, siphoning off nutrients that would otherwise fatten the grains. The pathogen makes its presence known to humans through crimson pustules on the plant’s stems and leaves. When those pustules burst, millions of spores flare out in search of fresh hosts. The ravaged plant then withers and dies, its grains shriveled into useless pebbles.

Stem rust is the polio of agriculture, a plague that was brought under control nearly half a century ago as part of the celebrated Green Revolution. After years of trial and error, scientists managed to breed wheat that contained genes capable of repelling the assaults of Puccinia graminis, the formal name of the fungus.

But now it’s clear: The triumph didn’t last. While languishing in the Ugandan highlands, a small population of P. graminis evolved the means to overcome mankind’s most ingenious genetic defenses. This distinct new race of P. graminis, dubbed Ug99 after its country of origin (Uganda) and year of christening (1999), is storming east, working its way through Africa and the Middle East and threatening India and China. More than a billion lives are at stake. “It’s an absolute game-changer,” says Brian Steffenson, a cereal-disease expert at the University of Minnesota who travels to Njoro regularly to observe the enemy in the wild. “The pathogen takes out pretty much everything we have.”

Indeed, 90 percent of the world’s wheat has little or no protection against the Ug99 race of P. graminis. If nothing is done to slow the pathogen, famines could soon become the norm — from the Red Sea to the Mongolian steppe — as Ug99 annihilates a crop that provides a third of our calories. China and India, the world’s biggest wheat consumers, will once again face the threat of mass starvation, especially among their rural poor. The situation will be particularly grim in Pakistan and Afghanistan, two nations that rely heavily on wheat for sustenance and are in no position to bear added woe. Their fragile governments may not be able to survive the onslaught of Ug99 and its attendant turmoil.

Much like viruses mutate, so has this fungus. Now it once again threatens to wipe out much of the world's wheat. As alluded to above, in the wake of widespread famine often follows war, sickness, and the fall of nations.

It has already reached Iran, if it hits the Punjab (one of South East Asia's major growing areas) the results will be devastating.

The only stopping it may be scientists developing a new strain of wheat - and doing it very quickly.

It is not as flashy as many harbingers of disaster - but this little fungus has the power to unleash global famine.

Wow...nice find
A little more from same article...

"The pathogen has already been detected in Iran and may now be headed for South Asia’s most important breadbasket, the Punjab, which nourishes hundreds of millions of Indians and Pakistanis. What’s more, Ug99 could easily make the transoceanic leap to the United States. All it would take is for a single spore, barely bigger than a red blood cell, to latch onto the shirt of an oblivious traveler. The toll from that would be ruinous; the US Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 40 million acres of wheat would be at serious risk if Ug99 came to these shores, where the grain is the third most valuable crop, trailing only corn and soybeans. The economic loss might easily exceed $10 billion; a simple loaf of bread could become a luxury. “If this stuff gets into the Western Hemisphere,” Steffenson says, “God help us.”

www.wired.com...

Does it have any effect on barely, oats or other grains? It would be devastating, even if other crops could be introduced. I bet customs and immigration is stepping up questioning about visiting farms.

Go figure. We screw with nature and nature screws us back. The bad part is that we could go ahead and develop a new strain, but the disease would most likely come back in a more deadly reincarnation.

We should be working towards eradicating the disease and not having to worry about it anymore. Although, short of torching crops in a part of the world that desperately needs them, I don't know what else could really be done.

reply to post by Xcouncil=wisdom


Hmmm...

This struck me now - you mentioned that the article states it is already in Iran.

Wind patterns could soon carry it to the Punjab region on the border of India and Pakistan — one of Asia’s most crucial breadbaskets. In the next few years, the pathogen could also travel through Iran to Afghanistan.

Interesting how it is moving into the countries that currently at odds with the US. Reading more reveals..

By 2006, the pathogen had hopped over the Red Sea into Yemen, a disturbing migratory milestone. “I look at Yemen as the gateway into the Middle East, into Asia,” says David Hodson, former chief of Cimmyt’s Geographic Information Systems unit and now with the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, where he tracks global wheat rusts.

In 2005, Hodson was asked to develop a model for predicting the spread of Ug99 based on global wind patterns. The climactic data he gathered suggested that airborne particles from Yemen would inevitably alight in Iran or Iraq. And sure enough, in 2007 and then in 2009 Iran endured successive Ug99 infections, suggesting that a full-blown epidemic is possible.

I'm not saying anyone would do such a thing - but moving such a fungus into a country you are invading (or considering ) invading would be a powerful weapon.

Things that make you go hmmmmm....