Saving the farmers from `wheat blast` threat

A REPORT in a local daily said that the government imposed ban on wheat cultivation in 8 districts as the crop was fungal, commonly know as ‘wheat blast’ affected in the last cropping season. The blast affected over one lakh hectares of standing wheat fields in these eight districts last year, causing upto 40 percent of crop damage. This first ever attack costs a financial loss of at least Tk 1,800 crore in terms of lost yield. Although the ban imposed this season in these districts will prevent crop damages, but it will incur huge production losses on account of keeping out the farmers from cultivating wheat crop. The consequences of a possible wider outbreak could be devastating both in money terms and loss of food grain production.

Caused by a fungus – Magnaporthe oryzae – wheat blast is one of the most fearsome and intractable wheat diseases in recent years. The blast directly strikes the ears of wheat and can shrivel and deform the grain in less than a week from the appearance of first symptoms, leaving farmers no time to act. It is really very worrying. What is more frightening is that the blast fungus normally infects rice, wheat and over 50 types of grasses. Occasionally, a blast fungus strain would jump from one host to another resulting in a new disease. Such a ‘host jump’ to wheat happened in Brazil in the 1980s. So, we cannot ignore the matter of fungus jump to be contaminated to other crops in Bangladesh. In this context, indeepth scientific study of the fungal infection is a must to save our crops from fungus infectivity.

Bangladesh has to import as high as 40 lakh MT of wheat from the international market to meet growing domestic demand. As the farmers of eight districts will remain out of wheat cultivation in this cropping season, it will obviously reduce wheat production volume hugely and in chain effect will create supply shortage. Naturally, the country will need to expend more currencies for more import of wheat from foreign countries.

The blast attack came at a time when wheat production in the country had just started picking upto 13 lakh MT in two previous years after remaining stagnant at as low as 8 to 9 lakh MT for past one decade.

The seed wheat that has been imported was, perhaps, infected with the fungal diseases as the seeds certification authority of the country don’t use ‘disease detective instrument’ to check the seeds, which is a matter of deep concern.

Government is now providing wheat seeds to sow for 29 districts across the country. It urgently requires tight screening of wheat seeds before supplying to the cultivators. The endemic form of fungus infectivity with wheat and other crops may lead to the colossal catastrophe on our agricultural production. Government must ensure that the seeds they supply is disease free and of high yielding variety and quality so as to maximise our food production basket.