You probably never heard of it, I hadn't until a moment ago. There's no tag for it on DKOS yet, yet... this could be brewing bigger trouble for the world food supply than anything before. A selection of stories for your information deficit....
Surely now the worst is behind us, right? Many prominent scientists throughout the U.S. and Europe are afraid not, fearing that the next market-crippling development could come from a most unlikely source: wheat.
Although most outside of Africa are unfamiliar with it, Ug99, a type of fungus commonly called 'stem rust' due to its production of reddish-brown flakes on wheat plant stalks, is a serious threat to eliminate 80% of the world's most widely grown crop. The fungus, which was first discovered in eastern Africa, has now jumped to Iran, with many crop scientists predicting that it is only a matter of time before winds carry the disease to Russia, China, and the U.S.
http://seekingalpha.com/...
"It's a time bomb," said Jim Peterson, a professor of wheat breeding and genetics at Oregon State University in Corvallis. "It moves in the air, it can move in clothing on an airplane. We know it's going to be here. It's a matter of how long it's going to take."
http://www.examiner.com/...
Then there’s those things we’re not reading about on a daily basis but with equally destructive, or even more destructive potential. Ecological disasters. Weather disasters like Katrina-style hurricanes. Massive earthquakes that can occur in surprising places—like the one that destroyed Lisbon in 1755, the huge one in New Madrid near what is now St. Louis in 1811 (the biggest ever in the continental U.S.), or the highly destructive quake centered near Philadelphia in 1737 that almost no one remembers. A red rust fungus called Ug99, now spreading from Africa to the Indian sub-continent, which experts think has the potential to destroy 80 percent of the world’s wheat crop, is also out there, and new strains of wheat that can resist this fungus could take a decade to develop.
http://themoderatevoice.com/...
To add to the world’s litany of woes, comes this story from the Chicago Tribune. I thought that any of you that eat bread at least once a day, might be interested. Any wheat farmer can tell you what rust is…and being a farm boy from Manitoba in the 1950s and 60s…I’ve seen it [and its results] first hand. Apparently there’s a new strain out known as Ug99. I know it sounds like it belongs in a version of the X-Files…but it could become a reality in all our lives some day…and it’s worth spending the one minute it will take to digest this story. The headline reads “Fungus called ‘time bomb’ for world wide wheat crop” and the link ishere..
http://www.contrarianprofits.com/...
Ok, who out there knows that St. Paul is home to a Cereal Disease Laboratory, and if so, did you know that the USDA facility (on the U of M campus) is helping combat a potentially catastropic wheat fungus, projected by some scientists as capable of demolishing most of the world's supply of the vital grain? A recent LA Times article details the threat of the fungus, called "stem rust:"
http://blogs.citypages.com/...
Coincidentally, the UN released a report yesterday....
The global financial meltdown has pushed the ranks of the world's hungry to a record 1 billion, a grim milestone that poses a threat to peace and security, U.N. food officials said Friday.
Because of war, drought, political instability, high food prices and poverty, hunger now affects one in six people, by the United Nations' estimate.
The financial meltdown has compounded the crisis in what the head of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization called a "devastating combination for the world's most vulnerable."
Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they consume fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the agency said.
"No part of the world is immune," FAO's Director-General Jacques Diouf said. "All world regions have been affected by the rise of food insecurity."
The crisis is a humanitarian one, but also a political issue.
Officials presenting the new estimates in Rome sought to stress the link between hunger and instability, noting that soaring prices for staples, such as rice, triggered riots in the developing world last year.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/...