Indian wheat producers warned about deadly fungus

New York, March 6: The United Nations has warned wheat producing countries in Asia, including India and Pakistan, against the possibility of a new dangerous fungus which has the ability of destroying entire crop fields.

Up to 80 per cent of all Asian and African varieties are susceptible to the fungus which has been detected in Iran.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports that wheat stem ruse, whose spores are carried by wind across continents, was previously found in East Africa and Yemen. But now it has moved to Iran where its presence has been confirmed by laboratory tests in some localities in Broujerd and Hamedan in the country's west.

Major wheat-producing nations to Iran's east, including Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, should be on high alert, FAO said.

"The fungus is spreading rapidly and could seriously lower wheat production in countries at direct risk," said Shivaji Pandey, Director of FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division.

He urged the control of the rust's spread to lower the risk to countries already impacted by soaring food prices.

Iran has said that it will bolster its research capacity to tackle the new fungus and develop wheat varieties that are rust-resistant.

The disease, called Ug99 as it first surfaced in Uganda and subsequently spread to Kenya and Ethiopia with both countries experiencing serious crop yield losses due to a rust epidemic last year. Also in 2007, FAO confirmed that a more virulent strain was found in Yemen.

The world agency appealed to countries to bolster disease surveillance and step up efforts to control it.