Rome, Italy
February 5, 2007
Farmers across the Indian
Sub-continent will be watching their wheat harvests anxiously
this summer. Scientists have confirmed that a new, highly
virulent strain of stem rust known as Ug 99 has jumped the Red
Sea from East Africa to Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula and is
expected to spread even further east. Unlike previous races of
the pathogen, the wind can carry spores of Ug 99 for thousands
of miles, sparking the risk of a global pandemic.
Wheat is the world’s second most important crop. Approximately,
75% of the world’s population eats wheat every day. A global
outbreak of stem rust could have devastating consequences for
food security and rob poor farmers of their livelihoods. Experts
estimate that initial losses in wheat yields could reach more
than US$1 billion.
Serious outbreaks of stem rust have occurred before. In the
1950s the disease caused huge losses in wheat yields to
countless farmers in Mexico and North America, leading to severe
food shortages and even famine. The solution came when Norman
Borlaug, father of the ‘green revolution’, found resistance
genes in farmers’ varieties and wild relatives.
For over fifty years, this resistance protected farmers against
different strains of the disease. But Ug 99 has broken through
and can spread easily across great distances. The solution will
in all likelihood be found, once again, in the rich diversity of
wheat and its wild relatives.
Bioversity International has
been working on a global project to protect important and
threatened crop wild relatives since 2004. Armenia -- one of the
five countries involved in the project -- is an important center
of diversity for wheat with about 13 wild wheat species and more
than 360 cultivated varieties.
“Armenia is home to important wild wheat species “said Annie
Lane, Coordinator of the Crop Wild Relatives project. “The
solution to Ug 99 might be right there, in Armenia.”
Farmers and plant breeders have long looked to nature and wild
relatives of crops to find solutions to their problems (see
previous item). Wild relatives offer a critical source of genes
that can provide resistance to a wide range of diseases, pests
and environmental stresses. And yet, over-exploitation, habitat
loss and climate change threaten this vital resource.
“Armenia is aware of its responsibilities” said Lane. “One of
the Reserves was created specifically to protect wild wheat and
other cereals.”
Bioversity and its partners are working to protect crop wild
relatives by encouraging their in-situ conservation -- in
farmers’ fields and in the wild -- thereby ensuring that they
are available to meet agricultural challenges like that posed by
Ug 99.
“Good protection of crop diversity and wild relatives is the
best insurance policy we can have,” said Emile Frison, Director
General of Bioversity International. “You never know what the
next problem will be. But whatever it is, agricultural
biodiversity is likely to provide the solution.”
Bioversity International is the executing agency for the
UNEP-GEF funded Crop Wild Relatives project and five other
international organizations are partners in the initiative: the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Botanic
Gardens Conservation International, the United Nations
Environment Programme’s World Conservation Union, and the
Information and Coordination Centre for Biological Diversity
(IBV). |
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