Global Wheat Crop Threatened by Rust Fungus - African Seeds May Offer Hope
You may not have heard of Ug99 yet, but, if its rapid spread continues unchecked, chances are you will not only be hearing about it, but you’ll be paying for it too. That’s because this fast-spreading strain of the fungus that causes stem rust–a seemingly unstoppable plant disease–and is now spreading around the globe and threatening to devastate the world’s wheat harvest.
One hopeful remedy may in fact lay in certain native, durum wheat species (”landraces”) found only in certain African nations–in particular, Ethiopia–which are believed to possess “slow rusting” genes. These native durum wheats are stronger (durum is Latin for “hard”) than7 other strains and originally evolved under much different environmental conditions than European and Western Hemisphere varieties. These durum landraces have most likely evolved slight gene variations as a result. These variations in gene sequences (and/or their expression in the wild), it is believed, can confer survival advantages to the plants when transplanted in a different locale.
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Currently, as reported in Science (June 12 , 2009), at least one plant geneticist–Francis Ogbomaya of ICARDA {International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas) in Syria–is using “gene mapping” to validate this claim (i.e., that they possess genes that resist stem rust disease). The seeds he is using to do this come from ICARDA, but ICARDA’s collection of durham wheat seeds is limited, unlike Ethiopia’s Seed Bank which is believed to house the greatest collection of native wheat varieties.
Puccinia rust on triticum wheat leaf
According to the Science magazine report, Ethiopia (and a few other nations) are becoming more adverse to readily sharing their seed collections with many of the other 120 signatories to the treaty. The government agencies that control access to these seed banks state that they are not being justly compensated for their help–help that often results in assisting the agricultural wealth of wealthier nations, at the expense of the poorer ones (who happens to have precious seed stocks). This is becoming a more common complaint heard at international meetings on the subject.
In 2004, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, went into force, guaranteeing free and prompt access to seeds by all signatories. But at least five nations–China, Ethiopia, India, Iran, and Turkey–have been generally restricting access to their seed banks. This policy decision, as well as recent epidemics of blights and plant diseases, has prompted the treaty’s governing body (the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO) to meet and work out policy implementation, gene patent rights, and funding requirements, and so also hopefully persuade donor nations to share more of their seeds. Also, the UN is urging all member nations to contribute (with seeds and money) to the Svarlbard, Sweden “Dooms Day Vault” (a seed collection of 64 staple crops deemed necessary to secure the world’s core food needs).
Ethiopian agriculture has given the world precious varieties of coffee, barley, and wheat, and yet it has lagged well behind most Western and European nations, it terms of its economic growth and wealth. Indeed, according to a claim stated in the same Science report, the North American barley crop, which was being decimated by a yellow dwarf virus in the 1980’s, was rescued by the substitution of an Ethiopian barley landrace. For this and other reasons, they believe that they should be compensated for the custodianship of the seeds, and for the continuous cultivation of their landraces to maintain the ICARDA collections. This reasoning is too difficult to argue with, but many officials and organizational leaders assert that the benefit of the present system is non-monetary–it’s inestimable benefit is insuring access to all varieties of native crop seeds by any nation, for free.
At the recent meeting in Tunis, treaty signatory members were, however, able to reach accord on the need to establish a fund for the support of traditional farming practices, which are the basis of many nations’ preservation of their native crop varieties. The same Science report quotes Francisco López, of the UN FAO, offering this sobering forecast: “There won’t be any agriculture in 50 years unless we have exchanges of germ plasm.”
