Wheat Worries: Standing guard over future pandemics

Wheat blast is a fast-acting and deadly fungal disease that threatens food safety and security in tropical areas in South America and South Asia. Wheat blast can damage the grain in less than a week from the development of the first symptoms, leaving farmers no time to act.
The fungus thrives in warm and humid regions thereby posing a serious threat to wheat production. In 2016, it first entered Asia through Bangladesh and has impacted around 15,000 hectares of land in eight districts, reducing yield on average by as much as 51% in the affected fields.
Since then, Wheat Blast has drawn increasing attention, considering its potentiality of further spreading to neighbouring countries, namely, India, Pakistan, and China, which are all major wheat producers and where wheat is used as one of the major staple food crops for billions of inhabitants.
The period of that wheat holiday has come to an end in India. But even now the state agriculture department is not in favour of resuming wheat cultivation in these areas.
According to international scientists, the consequences of a wider outbreak in South Asia could be devastating to a region of 300 mn malnourished people, whose inhabitants consume 100 million tonnes of wheat each year. Crores of people can reach the brink of starvation due to this and in such a situation, efforts should be made to eliminate this pathogenic wheat blast before it is too late!

Down to Earth is Science and Environment fortnightly published by the Society for Environmental Communication, New Delhi. We publish news and analysis on issues that deal with sustainable development, which we scan through the eyes of science and environment.

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