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September 7, 2001

TFB: Address Karnal
bunt as quality issue

By Lana Robinson
Field Editor

A movement is growing among Texas wheat producers and the agricultural departments of Southern states and beyond—along with the Farm Bureau and other organizations—to deregulate Karnal bunt and address the disease as a quality issue. Last month, a group of Texas Farm Bureau leaders met with USDA officials in Washington D.C. with that mission in mind.

"We found USDA and pretty well everyone we talked to sympathetic to the issue," said George Caldwell, Texas Farm Bureau associate director of Commodity and Regulatory Activities. "They had a concern that we need to work toward some type of quarantine, but that's going to be difficult because of our trading relations with countries. We have set up this front of being a Karnal bunt-free country. Now, we've got to come back and say it's not totally sound science-based or the science has changed," Caldwell suggested. "We realize that we have convinced our trading partners that this disease is worse than it really is. It must be addressed without jeopardizing the exporting of U.S. wheat. If addressed as a quality issue, mills say they have a tolerance that they can set and it can be used and will not affect the mill quality of flour. Also, if it is addressed as a quality issue, it will be covered under current crop insurance as a quality loss, which would help our producers."

Traveling to D.C. with Caldwell were TFB Wheat Advisory Committee Chairman Michael White of Vernon; Larry Burnett, Baylor County Farm Bureau president; Larry Pratt, president of the Young County Farm Bureau; and TFB Executive Director Vernie Glasson. The delegation met with Bobby Acord, associate administrator for USDA/APHIS; Dale Moore, chief of staff for USDA Secretary Ann Veneman; and Joe Glauber, USDA deputy chief economist, the primary staff person working on compensation for California growers during the 1996 outbreak in that state.

The group also met with Brian Sweatland, director of environmental policy and a lobbyist with the National Association of Wheat Growers, to get that organization's feelings on the issue and specifically, on deregulation.

"The NAWG is supportive of the move. American Farm Bureau Federation policy also states "Karnal bunt should be immediately deregulated and handled as a quality issue," Caldwell added.

Texas counties quarantined

Karnal bunt, which cuts crop yields and discolors flour, was found in certain Texas granaries during the 2001 wheat harvest. Young and Throck-morton counties were quarantined June 8 and Archer County on June 19. Although no confirmed cases were found in Baylor County, on June 21, USDA placed it under a temporary regulated status for Karnal bunt. Portions of San Saba and McCulloch counties have been quarantined since 1997. The quarantine was extended for an additional five years when infected samples were detected there earlier this summer.

"APHIS, in all other finds of spores in Texas, attributed them to counties already quarantined and did not expand the quarantines. Their action plan is to try to test as many fields as possible next year and be able to unquarantine on a field-by-field basis. They were forced to quarantine entire counties because grain was commingled in elevators. They feel like there are large number of fields that will be able to be released when tested," Caldwell reported. "Karnal bunt spores are not as airborne as you would think. They are pretty heavy and do not have a long movement like wheat rust, which can move through the wheat belt in a season."

Dr. Travis Miller, Extension agronomist, characterized Karnal bunt as a disease with one of the least impacts on wheat of any he works with, but one of the most economically devastating, because of the export implications.

Domestically, wheat infected with the fungal disease cannot be sold for grain and must be heat treated and sold for flour or livestock feed.

"Producers' major concern in the short term is the economic hardship of seed wheat. They found some Karnal bunt spores in the seed wheat, which made that seed not usable. If it has spores, it is sellable in our trade, but nobody wants to buy it," said Caldwell, adding that fumigation is ineffective and, therefore, not an option.

Ag commissioners unite

In a July 19 letter to Secretary Veneman from NFACT, a coalition of the state departments of agriculture from New Mexico, Florida, Arizona, California and Texas, commissioners from the five states urged Veneman to "stay on course with deregulation and steady movement to treating the disease as a quality pest with established tolerances."

According to NFACT, Karnal bunt was discovered in Mexico back in the 1970s, yet a federal quarantine was not invoked until 1982. The coalition suggests that during the intervening 12 years, Karnal bunt is likely to have entered most U.S. wheat growing areas. The ag commissioners further insist that finds in the Southwest suggest it has been present since 1992. From that time until its actual discovery in 1996, NFACT believes "every state has been exposed via nursery increase programs and the movement of contaminated equipment."

Caldwell said that's why producers in the quarantined Texas counties feel they are the victims of discrimination.

"They feel the problem is more broad and that that there is not really any science to base what they (USDA) are trying to do. But producers from the Midwest have a different perspective. They see the economic hardship, and regardless of the reason, don't want that situation in their areas. They have a big concern about how we deregulate it," he noted.

USDA is holding a Karnal bunt workshop in Oklahoma City at the Waterford Marriott, Sept. 12-13. The purpose of the meeting is to review and discuss the activities and findings of the Karnal bunt program and evaluate current policies and procedures, along with possible changes, to make the Karnal bunt program effective and prevent losses associated with Karnal bunt. Registration and more information on the program can be found at: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppq/emergencyprograms/karnalbunt /kbworkshop.html.

"In meetings we've been in, USDA officials have said we're having to relearn, and rethink how we're doing this, how we're structuring our testing and our control of this issue. They are taking input. Again, that's what this Oklahoma meeting is about. They are having it there to try to include the whole wheat industry," he said.

Meanwhile, Texas producers are still in a dilemma as to whether or not to plant wheat this fall.

"A number of these producers know that through the compensation package, they are not going to be considered if they have it (Karnal bunt) again next year," said Caldwell. "So they are weighing the risk of planting and not having Karnal bunt against planting an alternative crop such as oats. But there's the concern of freeze damage. Climate wise, oats are not quite as winter hardy."