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.
Disease Destroys Crops on Small Farms; Profits on Large Farms
Published November 17, 2008
Kenyan farmers who can not afford pesticides watched wheat whither in the fields as a new strain of stem rust drained the plants of nutrients. Now families who counted on the wheat for a living are begging friends for loans and selling the last of their hens to buy beans, corn and other bare essentials. On larger farms, chemicals helped to control the disease which slowly is spreading beyond Kenya. Still, profits and yields dropped dramatically.
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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.
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Grantee
Through mid-2007, Sharon was a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, most recently as a foreign correspondent. She currently writes for the innovative news site MinnPost.com. In 2003,...
