
New wheat disease threatens Europe’s crops - HarryHirsch
http://www.nature.com/news/deadly-new-wheat-disease-threatens-europe-s-crops-1.21424
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david-given
If ever you feel that your day is too cheerful, go read John Christopher's
_The Death Of Grass_ ; it'll sort you right out.

[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/941731.The_Death_of_Grass](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/941731.The_Death_of_Grass)

In it, a rice virus mutates and wipes out all grass crops in Asia and Europe
--- rice, wheat, barley, oats, you name it.

tl:dr: it doesn't go well.

~~~
lightsighter
To be fair, as someone with Celiac disease, living in that world might be a
little easier for me than living in present day America (minus the obvious
implications for the end of society as we know it).

~~~
cpursley
Doubtful, because the demand for calories would shift to other sources (the
sources you currently consume) and increase the price substantially. Also,
I've found that the United States is one of the best places at accommodating
alternative diets.

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briantakita
Another reason to use polycultures & a more ecosystemic approach (restoration
agriculture) to growing food, custom to each region. There's disease
resistance by design & the ecosystem is improved.

Small scale farming also focuses the population on improving the biosphere,
whereas the technosphere has dominated our cultural attention.

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dmichulke
Two related thoughts:

\- A potential European famine won't happen because the lacking quantities of
food will be imported, to the detriment of all with less purchasing power and
no sufficient own production (read Africa)

\- Is there some principle similar to "financial diversification" applied in
Agriculture to obtain a Portfolio with low risk? I could imagine to use some
"genome distance" instead of asset correlation.

~~~
ratacat
It's called genetic diversity. Look at traditional methods of potatoe farming
in Peru and the Andes. They breed thousands of varieties. Look up some
pictures, it's crazy. Our modern method of high input, high petroleum
leveraged mono cropping is highly susceptible to blight.

~~~
shawn-butler
First, mono-cropping generally refers to single crop, year-on-year. It does
not mean single, variety/hybrid as you suggest.

Second, your assertion regarding agriculture in the US just doesn't really
match reality. USDA data[0] in 2014 indicated that only 16 percent of corn, 14
percent of spring wheat and 6 percent of soybean acreage is continuously
planted with one crop over a three-year period. More recent data is available
feel free to validate it for yourself.

Duo-cropping or a 3-crop rotation is the norm.

[0]: [https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-practices-
management/cr...](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-practices-
management/crop-livestock-practices/soil-tillage-and-crop-
rotation.aspx#.U1_tG_ldWSo)

~~~
jacobolus
You’re missing the point. Nearly all the corn grown and sold in the USA is a
few varieties, and one goal of industrial agriculture is perfect uniformity of
output. If you go look at Mexican peasant farms from 50+ years ago (and going
back millennia), you’ll see corn of every conceivable size and color,
differing broadly from region to region, and locally matched to each
particular micro-climate. Same story for all crops grown traditionally in
their regions of origin, which usually have thousands of varieties with
diverse traits.

Whether they are planted continuously, or rotated with other crops, etc.,
doesn’t change the fundamental lack of genetic diversity in our modern
industrial agriculture system.

~~~
searine
> If you go look at Mexican peasant farms from 50+ years ago

The goal of modern agriculture shouldn't be to produce like peasants.

Their output was low, product homogenous, and crop was prone to catastrophic
failure. All very bad things.

>e the fundamental lack of genetic diversity in our modern industrial
agriculture system.

Diversity is a renewable resource. Even despite that, there already exists an
incredible library of diversity breeders use to create yearly hybrid crops.
The reason only a few types are planted each year is because they are
optimized for that season.

Stop assuming modern farmers don't know what they are doing, and stop leaning
on an authenticity bias of yesteryear.

~~~
jacobolus
I never said modern farmers don’t know what they’re doing. They’re very good
at maximizing revenue (via crop uniformity and yield, marketable plant
attributes, intense land use, efficient distribution, maximizing government
subsidies, etc...) while minimizing input costs (especially labor).

This has been fantastic at reducing the number of people required to work in
agriculture, and at producing more food than ever before on the same amount of
land. It’s fair to say that our current world population would be entirely
unsustainable without industrial agriculture.

There are big systemic risks and unaccounted external costs though (to farms
and ranches, to the local environment, to people living nearby, and to the
planet), in e.g. using water from aquifers at above-replacement rate; topsoil
erosion at faster than replacement rate; large-scale use of a tiny number of
plant varieties; widespread use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers
which run off into local waterways; promoting crops with less nutritional
value because they have improved size or durability or prettier appearance;
feeding animals large quantities of antibiotics and potentially breeding
resistant bacteria; et cetera.

(P.S. we owe an awful lot to hundreds of generations of Mexican peasant
farmers. Corn, tomatoes, squash, pinto beans, chilies, avocados, chocolate,
tobacco, ... they ate a substantially healthier diet than most people in
Europe at the time and supported larger cities and higher population density,
despite the lack of draft animals.)

~~~
searine
>There are big systemic risks and unaccounted external costs though

I agree. However, the solution isn't to regress or idealize antiquated
methods.

I also agree that, modern agriculture stands on the shoulders of giants, but
the way forward isn't to climb down from those heights.

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halotrope
Hopefully this is not the beginning of another science-fiction plot turning
reality. From what I can tell we are quite a few years away from the
technology of 'Interstellar'

~~~
krona
It's a similar situation with the Xylella fastidiosa bacterium.

Even if the technology did exist, it would be banned in ~50% of the EU under
GMO and 'new food' legislation.

~~~
dghughes
People seem to fall apart when GMO food is mentioned but vaccines, medical
procedures, drugs any science at all they agree with except GMO. Very useful
things I'm not slagging on them in case I'm not being clear. People are weird.

~~~
imdsm
People dislike GMO because they aren't hungry.

Wait until there is less food, and they will think differently.

Do you think people living in arid conditions said no to GMO crops that
increased their yield by whatever-hundred % it was? Did they buggery!

~~~
muninn_
Exactly. There is absolutely 0 evidence that GMOs cause any health concerns
when compared to organic food. Organic food is just for rich countries who can
afford to produce food inefficiently in order to feel good about themselves.
Now, I don't doubt their intentions, but it's not a solution to any problem,
nor is it better for you.

~~~
patall
Well, no but there are other things that are often forgotten:

\- Monoclonal cultures are highly suceptible to diseases like this one \-
there is a much higher pesticide usage associated with GMO fields around the
world (for what reason whatsoever) \- people have been sued because their
crops contained genes from GMO companies

I am not really against GMO (I studied biotechnology) but I can understand why
people have massive problems with them. And if Monsanto says that they want to
monopolize food production around the world, I will oppose them, even if they
do sometimes good things. It is not GMO that is the problem, its monopoles and
big corporations that are associated with that and thats what people fear and
rightfully fear.

~~~
tormeh
>there is a much higher pesticide usage associated with GMO fields around the
world (for what reason whatsoever)

This is because most GMO crops are designed to withstand more pesticides
rather than bettering the crop on its own. It's a kind of printer and
cartridge sales model. In Monsanto's case they want you to buy their crops and
then use more Roundup. In this way they sell seeds and afterwards they sell
more pesticide for those seeds.

~~~
ptaipale
Not really: GMO crops don't really use more pesticides. Very often less.

It's not totally a one-way street and things are complicated in many
situations, but the common public perception "GMO == pouring lots of
pesticides" is clearly wrong.

~~~
tormeh
They don't need more, but Monsanto's breeds allow you to use more, which is
something farmers want, because that means you get less weeds.

~~~
saalweachter
Herbicides, not pesticides. Also, keep in mind that "herbicide" is not a
single thing; the particular herbicide that Monsanto sells (glyophosate) is
more-or-less not toxic to mammals or insects and does not migrate to the water
table.

You can't just compare "pounds of *cide" and call it a day. It is very
important how much of which pesticides and herbicides are being applied, and
what the properties of those are (how long they take to break down, whether
they migrate to the water table, how toxic they are to different animals).

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GFK_of_xmaspast
This isn't really a "new" disease, but a new variety of Puccinia graminis.

One thing about P.graminis that's useful for us is that it overwinters on
barberry, where it does the sexual stage of its lifecycle, so if you can get
rid of the barberry you can slow down the rust's evolution significantly.
Here's a page about the eradication efforts in 20th century US:
[https://www.apsnet.org/publications/apsnetfeatures/Pages/Bar...](https://www.apsnet.org/publications/apsnetfeatures/Pages/Barberry.aspx)

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stevefeinstein
While I'm sure this is was too simplistic. Seems like it they can produce less
wheat, then maybe people will eat less wheat, and possibly the reduced carbs
will make them healthier. Win/win!

