Plot Device
03-11-2010, 10:48 PM
I got this one from Wired (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_ug99_fungus/) magazine.
Okay, guys, backstory time .... Of all the cereal grains out there (rice, oats, rye, barley, corn, etc), wheat is the only one worth making bread out of. It's the only one that REALLY rises well into nice fluffy loaves. Cakes also benefit from it. And hey -- the ol' "staff of life" expression can't be wrong, can it?
Anyway, an ancient fungal disease called "stem rust" which had plagued wheat farmers for the past 6,000 years was recently (in the past century) beaten to the punch via modern agriculture's many nifty little high-tech tricks. Stem rust is virtually a thing of the past.
Until now .....
A mutant strain of stem rust has been incubating in Uganda for decades now. And in 1999, this new fungus was discovered there and identified by scientists as a very powerful and highly resistant threat to the future of wheat.
The fungus, called UG99, might not pose such a threat if we stlll had several thousand different strains of wheat for the fungus to try its hand at. However, due to monoculture, this UG99 stuff only needs to make an attempt at assailing six or seven key wheat strains, and that'll be it for the entire planet-wide wheat crop.
Pass the corn bread.
Red Menace: Stop the Ug99 Fungus Before Its Spores Bring Starvation
By Brendan I. Koerner February 22, 2010 | 12:00 pm | Wired March 2010
...
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 (http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=10787), 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.
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.”
.
Okay, guys, backstory time .... Of all the cereal grains out there (rice, oats, rye, barley, corn, etc), wheat is the only one worth making bread out of. It's the only one that REALLY rises well into nice fluffy loaves. Cakes also benefit from it. And hey -- the ol' "staff of life" expression can't be wrong, can it?
Anyway, an ancient fungal disease called "stem rust" which had plagued wheat farmers for the past 6,000 years was recently (in the past century) beaten to the punch via modern agriculture's many nifty little high-tech tricks. Stem rust is virtually a thing of the past.
Until now .....
A mutant strain of stem rust has been incubating in Uganda for decades now. And in 1999, this new fungus was discovered there and identified by scientists as a very powerful and highly resistant threat to the future of wheat.
The fungus, called UG99, might not pose such a threat if we stlll had several thousand different strains of wheat for the fungus to try its hand at. However, due to monoculture, this UG99 stuff only needs to make an attempt at assailing six or seven key wheat strains, and that'll be it for the entire planet-wide wheat crop.
Pass the corn bread.
Red Menace: Stop the Ug99 Fungus Before Its Spores Bring Starvation
By Brendan I. Koerner February 22, 2010 | 12:00 pm | Wired March 2010
...
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 (http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=10787), 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.
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.”
.