Ug99, a virulent fungal disease, could create a major food security crisis by attacking the world's second largest crop, wheat. After the disease was discovered in Uganda in 1999, its spores took to the wind, hit fields in Kenya and Ethiopia, jumped the Red Sea to Yemen and turned up this year in Iran.
Nerinx Hall High School, St. Louis - Food Insecurity Event, 9/30
Published September 30, 2009
Event date:
September 30, 2009 - 7:00pm
Wednesday, September 30 at 7:00 p.m.
Nerinx Hall High School
530 E. Lockwood Ave.
Webster Groves, MO 63119
Phone: 314-968-1505
Please join us for an evening discussion of the mounting threats to the global food production system and the challenge of reporting them. Journalists will present new documentary footage, featuring reporting from Nigeria, India and East Africa.
Fred de Sam Lazaro, Project for Under-Told Stories, PBS/NewsHour special correspondent
Sharon Schmickle, MinnPost.com, Washington Post, International Affairs and Science
Presented by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in partnership with the Project for Under-Told Stories, Nerinx Hall High School and Civitas Associates
Project
As scientists make progress against Ug99, a fungus that threatens wheat crops worldwide, new methods to produce and distribute disease-resistant seeds must also be developed.
Ug99, a fungal disease known as wheat rust, could destroy 80 percent of all known wheat varieties. Scientists in Kenya's Rift Valley are joining a global fight against it.
