Fungus

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

USDA Wheat Disease Reaction Faulted
Growers Say the Spread of Karnal Bunt Fungus Could Be Crippling

By Roxana Hegeman
Associated Press
Sunday, June 24, 2001; Page A02


ANTHONY, Kan. -- Bureaucratic bungling by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture has allowed the spread of a plant disease that could prove
as devastating to wheat exports as foot-and-mouth disease has been to
European livestock, farm groups said.

Wheat growers in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas say the USDA responded too
slowly to an outbreak of Karnal bunt at the southernmost edge of the
nation's wheat belt just as harvest season was getting underway.

Karnal bunt is a fungus that is harmless to people but sours the taste
and smell of flour made from infected kernels. It also slightly cuts
production in infected fields. The disease's main impact is economic:
80 countries ban imports of wheat grown in infected regions.

That could be as crippling for American growers, who last year
produced nearly $6 billion of wheat, as would be the discovery of
foot-and-mouth disease in U.S. livestock, said Brett Myers, executive
vice president of the Kansas Wheat Growers Association.

Europe's foot-and-mouth outbreak has cost millions of dollars for the
slaughter of some 3 million animals and a ban on exports.

The suspected Karnal bunt contamination was first reported to the USDA
on May 25, said Michael Bryant, co-owner of the elevator in Olney,
Tex., that found it.

But it was seven days before the USDA's Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed the finding, and 15 days passed
before it quarantined the first affected counties.

"Their reaction to the situation was not as timely as we would have
liked," said Kansas Agriculture Secretary Jamie Clover Adams.

Charles P. Schwalbe, deputy director of APHIS's plant protection and
quarantine program, said his agency sent the sample away for testing
at a national lab instead of using a local one to make sure it had
accurate and legally defensible information before taking action.

"The decisions that emerge . . . mean livelihood to people from time
to time," Schwalbe said.

The Karnal bunt found in Throckmorton and Young counties in Texas were
the first confirmed cases in the nation's wheat belt, an area
extending from central Texas to Alberta, Canada.

On June 19, concern grew as the USDA added neighboring Archer County
to the quarantined area, followed by Baylor County the next day. One
elevator has also been quarantined in Fort Worth, about 150 miles
southeast.

Karnal bunt, which originated in India, was first detected in the
United States in 1996 in Arizona and California. It has since spread
to southern Texas and New Mexico.

In Arizona, the amount of land used to grow wheat dropped almost 50
percent after a quarantine was imposed in 1996 in four counties,
according to the Arizona Agricultural Statistics Service.

But Arizona is a minor durum wheat producer, and U.S. wheat growers
have reassured overseas buyers that the disease was far from the
nation's major winter wheat producing region. Winter wheat, which is
planted in the fall and harvested in the spring, accounts for about
two-thirds of U.S. wheat and is used primarily for bread. Durum wheat
is used for pasta.

With half the winter wheat going to the export market, the discovery
of the disease at the southernmost edge of the nation's breadbasket
just as the wheat harvest was moving north sent shock waves through
the wheat belt.

State regulators feared that custom harvesters -- cutters who follow
the ripening wheat harvest from Texas to the Canadian border -- would
spread the fungus.

Oklahoma, just 50 miles from the two Texas counties where the disease
was first discovered, immediately closed its borders and ordered
combines coming into the state to be blocked and inspected. Harvesters
from infected areas without a USDA certification of cleanliness were
turned back.

"We need to preserve our heritage and our wheat industry. The spread
of Karnal bunt in Texas should be considered a threat to Kansas
wheat," said Kansas Gov. Bill Graves (R). Kansas is the nation's
biggest wheat producer, with a $1 billion crop and nearly 10 million
planted acres.

Rep. Frank D. Lucas (R-Okla.) has been pursuing the issue after a
request from growers for a congressional investigation into the USDA's
handling. His office said he has not decided whether to ask for an
inquiry.