Scientists at a British research institute have developed a variety of genetically modified wheat which they claim could save the Indian subcontinent from an approaching disaster that could kill tens of millions of people.
Since 1999, a new strain of stem rust, a fungal disease that destroys wheat, has been spreading from Uganda, where it originated. It is now established on the Arabian peninsula and it is only a matter of time, say crop researchers at the John Innes Centre near Norwich, before it starts to devastate the wheat fields of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India — a vast swathe of arable land that feeds nearly a billion people.
“If it reaches the Punjab, which grows 19% of the world’s wheat, we face a looming humanitarian