‘Super wheat’ resists devastating rust

Published in SciDev Net

by Naomi Antony

 17 June 2011 | EN

http://www.scidev.net/en/news/-super-wheat-resists-devastating-rust.html

Stem rust can destroy wheat crops

Flickr/CIMMYT

‘Super varieties’ of wheat resistant to the deadly stem rust fungus Ug99 could replace wheat in affected areas in as little as two years — if farmers can be persuaded to adopt them, according to a wheat rust expert.

First discovered in Uganda some 13 years ago, Ug99 is increasingly virulent. It is spreading throughout East and Southern Africa, and spores have also reached as far afield as Iran and Yemen. Wheat breeders had been working on promising resistant varieties in Njoro, Kenya, in the hopes that one of them could combat the fungus.

Now they have bred new varieties with good resistance and with up to 15 per cent better yields than today’s varieties, said Ronnie Coffman, head of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat Project at Cornell University, United States.

Stem rust, also known as black rust, is even more damaging than stripe (or yellow) rust which has wiped out about 40 per cent of harvests in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

The new varieties, developed by wheat breeding expert Ravi Singh and colleagues at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico, are resistant to both rusts. They were unveiled at the 2011 Borlaug Global Rust Initiative’s Technical Workshop in Minneapolis, United States, this week (13–16 June).

The varieties were developed by combining several plant resistance genes, which individually give low levels of resistance but when found together in the same plant make it more difficult for the Ug99 pathogen to unravel their combined defences, providing better resistance.

“We’re trying to raise awareness of these materials and convince farmers that they should adopt them before [wheat rust] grows endemic — especially in countries such as Ethiopia,” said Coffman.

Coffman said that the two most critical countries to tackle are Ethiopia and Yemen. However, as Yemen’s political unrest has impeded anti-wheat rust efforts — material recently sent to the country by CIMMYT perished in customs — breeders are initially focusing their efforts on Ethiopia.

“We believe that farmers in Ethiopia will accept the new varieties,” he said. “There is a major outbreak of yellow rust (stripe rust) there. It is not nearly as devastating as stem rust, but it’s significant and farmers want something resistant to it.

“These new varieties are resistant to both rusts so we’re hopeful that the incidence of yellow rust will cause them to accept the new varieties. Unless farmers have an incentive that they can see, they don’t tend to accept new varieties.”

He said that if the incentive works, the whole of Ethiopia could be growing resistant strains in just two years — and this same timetable could apply to the entire East African region. “But it’s a big if,” he added.

Singh said: “We need to see national governments making the investments in seed systems development, including seed production and distribution. In many areas there will need to be support and leadership from wealthy countries and international institutions to carry these innovations into farmers’ fields.”

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U.S. Announces Support for the Africa-led Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 10, 2011
Public Information: 202-712-4810

www.usaid.gov

LUSAKA, Zambia – The United States announced today that it is committing $12 million for aflatoxin control in Africa. The announcement was made during the tenth annual Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum in Lusaka, Zambia. The funds will support the objective of the African-led Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa (PACA).

Dr. Julie Howard, Deputy Coordinator for Development for Feed the Future, confirmed the commitment during a plenary session on food security at the forum. “This investment will boost the PACA’s ability to mitigate the dangerous consequences aflatoxin presents to both consumers and to African economies,” said Howard. “Aflatoxin control is also paramount to ensuring global food security efforts are successful and sustainable, which is a major objective of Feed the Future.”

Scientifically known as Aspergillus flavus and commonly referred to as “killer maize,” aflatoxin is a highly poisonous cancer-causing toxin produced by a fungus, which, according to the United Nations, affects 25 percent of the world’s agricultural production. The fungus infects crops before harvest in the field and spreads as a result of poor drying and storage, particularly in maize and groundnuts, which are highly susceptible. An estimated 4.5 billion people in the developing world are chronically exposed to dangerous levels of aflatoxin through diet, which contributes to chronic health problems and food insecurity. Animals fed with contaminated feed have low productivity, while major agricultural commodities containing aflatoxin above permissible limits are often denied formal trade opportunities.

In response to the threat of aflatoxin in Africa, government, private sector and civil society leaders from across Africa endorsed a comprehensive, sub-Saharan-wide approach to aflatoxin control through the establishment of the PACA in March 2011 during the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program’s (CAADP) Partnership Platform. The PACA is focused on improving food security, public health, and trade in Africa and works through CAADP to raise awareness and create an effective regulatory environment; better coordinate existing efforts to control aflatoxin; and increase investments in agricultural extension, management, and scale up of effective mitigation activities.

This effort will draw upon the long history of the U.S. government research, including bio-control methods that have successfully prevented high levels of aflatoxin contamination in maize and peanuts in the United States and Nigeria, as well as crop management and post-harvest technology programs implemented across Africa.

The $12 million investment announced today will link directly with country-driven priorities to help countries sustainably transform their own agricultural systems, which is a key objective of Feed the Future, the U.S. global hunger and food security initiative. It will also leverage commitments from other donor and stakeholder groups to support PACA’s leadership in aflatoxin control.

Upon the announcement of the $12 million commitment, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission, H. E. Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, thanked the U.S. Government and other partners for their support of the PACA.

“The U.S. commitment will enable PACA to advance growth and prosperity in Africa,” she said. “This commitment, along with ongoing support from other important partners including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, signals that the global community recognizes the importance of aflatoxin control efforts on public health, nutrition and food security.”

Commissioner Peace also noted that African Union intends to support aflatoxin mitigation activities in collaboration with its Member States and Regional Economic Communities to spur healthier trade and consumption patterns within Africa. Two critical goals for African agriculture, she said, are to significantly increase production and supply of safe food staples within Africa and to explore new solutions for aflatoxin control to boost African Agriculture’s trade potential.

For more information about Feed the Future, please visit www.feedthefuture.gov

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Feed the Future Initiative

Fact Sheet

The Norman Borlaug Commemorative Research Initiative:
Leveraging U.S. Research to Reduce Hunger and Poverty

Investing in agricultural research today contributes to the growth and resilience of the food supply tomorrow. When combined with other agricultural investments, improved technologies and practices can meet the need to feed an ever growing global population with less land, less water and a less certain climate. The U.S. has a unique role as a leader in agricultural science and technology, spanning early support for the Green Revolution up through the application of modern biotechnology.

Under Feed the Future, research investments will focus on priorities that:

• Advance the Productivity Frontier: A focus on breeding and genetics of staple crops and livestock to address major production constraints of pests, diseases, drought, and other risks to small scale producers as well as reach into the future to enhance yield potential.
• Transform Production Systems: In priority geographic areas where the poor are concentrated, integrate global technology advances with applied research on conservation of soil and water resources, extension and market access opportunities. This means taking a systems research approach to “sustainable intensification” of key African and Asia production systems on which the poor and hungry depend, linking research advances to national partners and programs.
• Enhance Nutrition and Food Safety: A focus on increasing productivity of grain legumes, reducing mycotoxin contamination of staples, biofortification of staple crops and increasing availability of animal source foods to improve dietary diversity and health, particularly in women and children.

As part of Feed the Future‘s strategy to help achieve these three objectives, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will partner to create the Norman Borlaug Commemorative Research Initiative. The Borlaug Initiative will leverage one of the world’s largest public research systems, spanning the USDA’s research agencies, increasing its relevance and impact on problems and opportunities faced by smallholder farm families in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This expanded relationship will add to USAID’s partnerships with U.S. universities, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the private sector, and research organizations in developing countries.

The Borlaug Initiative envisions building on research supporting U.S. agriculture in a variety of ways. USAID will provide targeted support to USDA’s in-house research to enhance its benefits for achieving food security objectives in developing countries. USDA will realign some of its research investments in support of the strategy. Through its work with USDA’s research agencies, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Agricultural Research Service and the Economic Research Service, USAID will expand and deepen collaboration between USDA and U.S. university scientists with counterparts in developing countries. By building on both USDA’s in-house and competitive research programs, USAID and USDA will multiply our investments and bring the best of U.S. science and technology to bear on reducing hunger and poverty in support of the Feed the Future Initiative.

Stem-Rust Resistant Wheats in the Horn of Africa and South Asia: USAID and USDA have joined forces with international partners to address this emerging threat. With potential global losses of up to $9 billion/year from wheat stem rust, and susceptibility of 80% of wheat varieties currently grown, varieties of wheat that are resistant to stem rust are critical to food security across Ethiopia and parts of the Middle East and South Asia. New resistant varieties have been developed in collaboration with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Centers, and will soon be delivered throughout the region. Continued research is critical to ensure adaptation to additional countries at risk of an epidemic. U.S. farmers will also benefit from resistance identified by the research.

Wheat rust, Puccinia graminis (Photo by Ronnie Coffman, Cornell University)

 

 Eds. note:  A workshop “IPM for Feed the Future” has been organized for Saturday, August 6, 5:30 -8:30 PM at the XVII IPPC/APS meeting  in Honolulu, Hawaii.  The objective of the workshop  is to discuss the role of IPM in the U.S. government’s Feed the Future Intitiative. Speakers include a cast of world experts in the area of plant protection in international agricultural development. If you are coming to the Congress plan to arrive in Honolulu by early Saturday afternoon at the latest so that you can participate in this workshop which has significant relevance to the role of IPM in food security and mitigating global hunger.

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Pestnet (http://www.pestnet.org): Free on-line Crop Protection and Quarantine Advisory Service

by

Grahame Jackson, Australia 

 

Pestnet (http://www.pestnet.org) is a free on-line crop protection and quarantine advisory service with more than 1000 members. Run entirely by volunteers, it was first established in 1999 for the Pacific. In 2001 it expanded to south Asia, and in 2003 helped set up CariPestnet for the Carribean. It is now open to anyone worldwide to join. Today, PestNet members come from more than 80 countries.

PestNet was established to help overcome the problems experienced by crop protection specialists, extension workers and farmers in remote locations or where agricultural services are poorly established. Pestnet addresses the constraints that are associated with sustaining agriculture and forestry-based livelihoods, particularly when pests and diseases abound and there is no advice readily available. Without fast advice, crops may be lost, or worse still, invasive organisms may become firmly established so that eradication is no longer an option.

Using the Yahoo! Group pestnet@yahoogroups.com, PestNet responds to questions on pathogens and insect pests of plants, and weeds. It provides identifications on-line, and gives out pest and incursion alerts, plant protection news and contents of journals as they become available. Since its inception, crop protection specialists and practitioners have posted more than 7500 messages, with currently up to 100 messages being posted per month.

Messages posted to PestNet are first screened by one of its five moderators (located in Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Thailand and Uganda) to ascertain the relevance of the content. Queries – often accompanied by an image of the problem – typically receive several answers within 24 hours; hence the service is a very fast means of providing information to remote places which by ‘normal’ means would take days if not weeks.

More recently, PestNet realized that it had accumulated a wealth of information, which it needed to safeguard and make available to a wider audience. Although the messages are archived on Yahoo!Groups, people have to join both PestNet and Yahoo, and then they have to search individual emails to get at the information. To make life easier, PestNet has gone through the archives, summarized the discussions and put these on the PestNet website for anyone to see (http://www.pestnet.org/Summaries/tabid/1100/Default.aspx). Periodically, the summaries are updated.

Over the years, PestNet has been supported by a number of agencies, and it is pleasing to record these in appreciation for their help. The Australian Government Overseas Aid Program (AusAID) provided support through the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry for leaflets, posters and the website; the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) gave funds to buy cameras and for PestNet to visit Pacific island countries to encourage people to join; and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation ACP-EU (CTA) assisted with the establishment of CariPestNet, as well as summarising the archive of messages.

Finally, if you would like to help out, and join PestNet, please do so. We want to expand, and that means having more experts. All you have to do is send an email to pestnet-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, saying who you are, what you do and the name of your organization. Hope to see you on-line!

Grahame Jackson
24 Alt street
Queens Park
NSW 2022
Australia

Phone: 612 9387 8030
Fax: 612 9387 8004
Mobile: 0412 994 206

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