Green Options

I read an article today about a major shortfall in the Kenyan wheat harvest that will drive the need for major imports to meet food needs.  There were three major factors behind this disappointing harvest.  Tight credit and high energy prices kept some growers from even planting.  The rains were not well timed to achieve good yields.  Also a new strain of a very serious wheat disease, UG99 Stem Rust, further reduced yields.

This news has nudged me to write a series of posts about wheat because as a crop, it has a lot more problems than one bad harvest in Kenya.  The Kenya example just stands as an example of the vulnerability of this extremely important world food crop-a crop that is really an “orphan” in today’s agricultural scene.

Draws upon a recent news reports in Science about the stem rust fungus, Ug99, that is sweeping the globe and threatening to decimated the world’s wheat harvests. Also, the politics behind some nation’s reluctance to give full access of their seed banks (which may possess genetic varieties of these crops that can withstand this and other diseases) to other nations.

Kenya’s government has decided to allow free import and sales of maize to ensure there are enough supplies to get the drought and violence hit country through the next few months.

In Kenya there’s a quiet disaster happening, and it’s reaching epidemic proportions …