Why the heck isn't this bigger news??

[dianeduane]

It's not quite like finding yourself stuck in the plot of No Blade of Grass. But bad enough.

Billions at risk from wheat super-blight

An infection is coming, and almost no one has heard about it. This infection isn't going to give you flu, or TB. In fact, it isn't interested in you at all. It is after the wheat plants that feed more people than any other single food source on the planet. And because of cutbacks in international research, we aren't prepared. The famines that were banished by the advent of disease-resistant crops in the Green Revolution of the 1960s could return, Borlaug told New Scientist.

The disease is Ug99, a virulent strain of black stem rust fungus (Puccinia graminis), discovered in Uganda in 1999. Since the Green Revolution, farmers everywhere have grown wheat varieties that resist stem rust, but Ug99 has evolved to take advantage of those varieties, and almost no wheat crops anywhere are resistant to it.

...Argh.

Comments

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

Isn't this how The Trouble with Tribbles got started? Blight on someone's crop required importation of massive amounts of quadrotriticale?

I just started reading the first three Rihannsu books, btw. CURSE YOU I CANNOT PUT THEM DOWN. ::fistshake::

[hrrunka]

I fear a large part of the reason it's not bigger news is that it's primarily affecting sub-Saharan Africa at present...

[kellan_the_tabby]

...oh, yeah. That'll be _great_.

[a-muse-d.livejournal.com]

i wonder if that's why the price of bread has gone up lately in the grocery store.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

so, we've got War on terror,
Bird flu pandemic
Now this super rust blight...

I don't think I want to be around when the next Horseman turns up!

[wyrmwoud.livejournal.com]

If not for the extremely serious nature of this (what with all the bees dying off too), I would have almost had a heart attack that one of my favorite authors just referenced my favorite book by one of my other favorite authors...

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

Didn't someone do a StarTrek novel about this...? (I'm pretty sure it wasn't you or Peter, though. You two don't tend to put sex in yours.)

[gmh.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, that was one of the books I picked up at P-Con...

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

The Novel "Death Of Grass" Springs to mind.

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

Probably people have had their fill of Tabloid headlines like "Bird Flu To Kill Millions" or "BSE - We're ALL Infected!"to care. And, sadly, it's not really going to be big news until either (a) Michael Buerk does a heart-rending article on its effects for the 6-o'clock news or (b) it starts attacking crops in Europe and/or the USA. :/

[sibylle]

Also, "Nordenholt's Million" by JJ Connington.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking me - holy hannah!

[occams_pyramid]

It's simple. Everyone is concentrating on the important stories.

All the newspapers, the television, all the religious leaders, everyone is focused on the one single overwhelmingly important topic: What people get up to in their private bedrooms. Nothing else can possibly be as vital.