Stem Rust UG99 Savaging Kenya Wheat and is Spreading

Stem rust has returned with a vengeance 50 years after it was thought to eradicated, and now called UG99, it is decimating wheat in Kenya and going viral by spreading to other countries surrounding Africa.

The diseases came back in 1999, and skipped across the Red Sea to Yemen in 2006 and was discovered in Iran last year. Crop scientists say there is no defense at this time to stop its spread and are growing frustrated in their work on developing resistant strains. In about a year it can grow to huge levels under particular weather conditions.

After last year's food shortage caused partly from corn being diverted to ethanol and acreage used to grow other grains got taken up by corn, it resulted in food riots last year, the growing epidemic shows the vulnerability of the food supply in poorer countries.

Scientists were shocked in 1999 when it was discovered that wheat bred to resist stem rust fell to the fungus. That was the first sign something was wrong.

Researchers in South Africa and Minnesota recently found out why it was true. In the biological churning that constantly endows old pests with new genetic combinations, stem rust had acquired a scary power to break through the resistance that had guarded wheat for decades.

Close to eighty percent of Asian and African wheat varieties are now susceptible to the disease, and so is barley. Scientists dubbed the new threat Ug99 for its discovery in Uganda in 1999. But they say more than likely started in Kenya, where a lot more wheat is grown.

Almost a year ago the FAO confirmed that the fungus had spread to Iran and reported that "Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, all major wheat producers, are most threatened by the fungus and should be on high alert."

Contrary to regular rust infestations, which reduce but do not completely destroy yields, stem rust can eradicate a whole field.

Throughout the developing world, hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers are the most vulnerable.

Wheat experts from around the world have mobilized to fight the rust. Headquarters for the effort is the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute's station near the village of Njoro.

Norman Borlaug, who is credited with breeding the rust-resistant wheat that saved millions from hunger decades ago, was taken in 2005 by the Kenyans to look at the new stem rust damage and challenge.

Because the last stem rust outbreak was about 50 years ago, not many know the damage it could cause and so Borlaug recruited scientists from other wheat-producing countries and raised funds to underwrite their work. Foundations in the United States and Japan also got involved, as did the governments of Canada, India and the United States.

Researchers have been working stedfastly to find new resistant plants to UG99, but after numerous trials, plants have been losing the battle, as farmers around the world fear the right conditions will devastate their crops.

Most of the trials in the U.S. are being conducted in labs in Minnesota and Winnepeg, Canada in order to reduce effects if the virus escapes the labs somehow, as the brutally cold weather offers another layer of protecion if something goest wrong.

While there's a lot fo concern, at least scientists are working in ways that aren't going to cut corners, and are methodically taking the steps needed to fight the UG99 that will last.