The Next Pandemic

Buoyed by climate change and global trade, pathogens that cause disease outbreaks in food crops are spreading far and wide. They are also evolving fast to reproduce quickly and infect new hosts

- Himanshu N, Kiran Pandey, Kelvin Mbewe, Mekonnen Teshome, Bennett Oghifo, Tony Males, Angela Rwabose, Newton Sibanda

FOR THE past seven years, Raizul Mondal and several other residents of Jalangi village in West Bengal's Murshidabad district have been guarding India's eastern borders. They have even sacrificed their livelihoods to prevent a catastrophe. Lurking across the international boundary in Bangladesh is an invisible enemy-Magnaporthe oryzae Triticum (MOT), a fungus that attacks wheat crops and can wipe out the entire harvest in a matter of days.

Before reaching Bangladesh in February 2016, the fungus had periodically ravaged 3 million hectares (ha) of wheat fields in South America since it was first identified in Brazil in 1985. An outbreak in 2009 had cost Brazil one-third of that year's crop. The 2016 outbreak in Bangladesh-this is when the fungus made its first appearance in Asia was equally rapid and devastating.

Estimates by the country's Department of Agricultural Extension show that the fungus caused wheat blast disease in 15,000 ha-3.4 per cent of the area under the crop in Bangladesh-reducing yield by 51 per cent in the affected fields. Since then, MOT has spread to 14 districts, including Jashore, Jhenaidah, Chadanga and Rajshahi that border India. By 2018, the fungus invaded Africa and wheat blast appeared in experimental plots and farms of Zambia.

With its presence simultaneously on three continents, MOT has emerged as a global threat to food security. The fungus' presence in South America could derail the efforts by Brazil and Argentina to tackle the global wheat supply shortage caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, while its arrival in Zambia has put southern Africa's wheat-producing countries at risk. In Asia, the Bangladesh outbreak is a grave concern as India and China are global leaders in wheat production.