02/04/2017. | 12 35> 12:38

Written by: Hina

http://hr.n1info.com/a177617/Svijet/Svijet/Nova-vrsta-bolesti-prijeti-usjevima-na-cijelom-Mediteranu.html

A new, highly destructive type of disease which last year hit crops in Sicily could expand in the 2017 thru Mediterranean and threaten yield and the lives of small farmers, warned Friday the experts.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) urged the countries of Europe and North Africa to work on the prevention of the disease of cereal rust does not develop into an epidemic that decimates food production.

Last year, the disease had affected thousands of hectares of wheat fields in Sicily, which is one of the largest cereal rust outbreaks in more than 50 years, scientists reveal.

"We have not seen anything like that in five or six decades," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation expert from the International Centre for Maize and Wheat (CIMMYT) David Hodson.

Analysis of CIMMYT and the University of Aarhus in Denmark, published Thursday in the journal Nature, showed that the epidemic has caused a new kind of cereal rust, a fungal infection that in a few weeks can destroy entire crops if it does not stop in time.

"It is very aggressive," warns Biagio Randazzo, an agronomist who first noticed the disease, adding that in Sicily affected by different types of durum wheat used for pasta production, as well as some other types of wheat, and oats.

Cereal rust spores are transferred to the wind, and in 2017 these mushrooms could hit crops in neighboring countries such as Greece, Albania, Libya and Tunisia, experts say, but point out that it is not certain whether the contagion to expand because it is possible that these organisms have not survived low winter temperatures.

Plant pathologist from FAO Fazil düşünceli points out that the disease especially threatens small farmers in North Africa whose production is the highest in the region.

Experts point out that the key to preventing epidemics early administration of fungicides, but small farmers often lack the money or expertise for their effective use, hard düşünceli.

An additional risk is the recent emergence of two new species of yellow rust of wheat in some parts of Europe, Africa and Asia, although their risk has not been established.

"It is more important than ever that experts from international institutions and countries that produce wheat work together to stop these diseases," the düşünceli.

In developing countries, more than one billion people depend on wheat as food and financial source, said FAO.

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Guess what Monsanto thinks about this. Now that the wall is rolled back.

IZAKOVIC