Title:
In Afghanistan, Preparing for a Threat to Wheat
Plants
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
Farmers in Afghanistan already struggle with the
effects of drought and years of conflict. Now there
is worry about a new threat headed in their
direction in the wind -- a fungus that destroys
wheat crops.
The disease is a form of stem rust named for its
discovery in Uganda ten years ago. Ug99 is now in
one of Afghanistan's neighbors, Iran. The disease
kills wheat plants by robbing them of water and
nutrients. Stem rust produces reddish-brown spots on
the stems of infected plants. The weakened stems
break easily.
The world's last major outbreak of stem rust took
place in the nineteen fifties. Agriculture --
excluding opium production -- represents about
one-third of the Afghan economy. But agriculture
employs eighty percent of the country's workers. And
almost all Afghan farmers grow wheat to feed their
families or to sell.
Afghanistan has a population estimated at almost
thirty-four million people. Mahmoud Solh directs the
International Center for Agricultural Research in
the Dry Areas, or ICARDA, in Aleppo, Syria. He says
it took a few years for Ug99 to show its destructive
power.
Then, in Kenya, it destroyed from twenty to eighty
percent of wheat crops. And before long, he says,
winds carried the disease from Kenya to Ethiopia.
Ug99 has also affected Sudan and more recently has
moved into Asia, spreading to Yemen and Iran.
Mahmoud Solh says the disease now threatens
Afghanistan and South Asia. But he also calls it a
global threat to food security. Most of the
commercial kinds of wheat are at risk from Ug99, he
says. These include varieties grown in the United
States, Canada and Europe.
The expert urges Afghan farmers to tell agriculture
officials immediately if they suspect stem rust in
their fields. He says the fields will be treated to
kill the fungus and to stop it from spreading.
Farmers will get new seeds that resist
Ug99.Researchers have developed these seeds for the
conditions in Afghanistan.
Organizations of village farmers are working to
expand the supplies of the improved seeds. They are
receiving guidance from ICARDA and money from
international groups.
The goal is to replace at least ten percent of
Afghanistan's wheat fields with the new seeds each
year. The effort will begin with areas along the
border with Iran.
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture
Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
