Cassava

"I yam what I yam." - Popeye

Twice this week I've come across a reference to cassava, a yam like vegetable that is rarely seen in America (except as tapioca) but vitally important in other parts of the world. The cassava, also called a yucca, is an odd food that contains nearly the maximum theoretical concentration of starch on a dry weight basis among food crops. Fresh roots contain about 30% starch plus calcium, phosphorus and vitamin C but very little protein or anything else useful. It can be poisonous with traces of cyanide that must be removed when preparing. Nutritionally it's like eating unenriched white bread.

And yet the cassava has fed South America for thousands of years and is today either the primary or secondary food source in the humid and sub-humid areas of tropical Africa and vital to sub-Saharan Africa. It is a vital staple for about 500 million people and is grown in India and across Asia into Thailand, Vietnam and China. On reason for its popularity is its hardiness. Cassava thrives better in poor soils than any other major food plant and rarely needs fertilization. Cassava is very drought resistant and very tolerant of neglect; it can be left for up to three years in the ground before harvesting. So if a farmer catches malaria and is laid up for a month or two, the crop won't care. In additional the cassava leaves contain protein and vitamins.

My first encounter with cassava this week was in a TED talk describing an attempt to genetically alter cassava to contain vitamin A (like a yam) to improve the health of millions. The second encounter was no so positive, there is a global virus infecting cassava crops. “Even the pigs refuse [to eat] this,” said one farmer. Some are comparing this to the great potato famine of the 1840s that caused starvation in Ireland and resulted in mass migration of Irish to the US. Fortunately the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (yes the Bill Gates of Microsoft) is spending tens of millions of dollars to find a cure.

Bottom Line

Hopefully a cure to the cassava virus will be found soon and starvation will be prevented. In the meantime the Gates Foundation is teaching farmers how NOT to spread the virus.

See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava

Possible Wheat Shortage?

“Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.” - Adlai E. Stevenson, US Ambassador to the United Nations (1961-65)

According to an LA Times science story, there is a new wheat stem rust called the Ug99 fungus that is highly contagious and very deadly to wheat. “Crop scientists fear the Ug99 fungus could wipe out more than 80% of worldwide wheat crops as it spreads from eastern Africa.” [LAT] The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico is less pesimistic and estimates that “only” 19% of the world's wheat is in “imminent danger.”

"It moves in the air, it can move in clothing on an airplane. We know it's going to be here. It's a matter of how long it's going to take." - Jim Peterson, professor of wheat breeding at Oregon State University [LAT]

Fungus fear has caused price spikes on world wheat markets.

"A significant humanitarian crisis is inevitable" - Rick Ward, coordinator of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. [LAT]

After years of research, scientists have found a “cure”, a half-dozen genes that will protect wheat from Ug99. Now they have two options, genetically alter wheat to add the “good genes” or try to breed the new genes into the plant “naturally.” Many countries and people are opposed to genetically modified grains but the natural method will required 9-12 years for each species of wheat around the globe.

Bottom Line

Historically wheat rust is a plague of blibical proportion (recall the seven lean-years in Egypt). But modern scientists thought they had it under control. “Stem rust destroyed more than 20% of U.S. wheat crops several times between 1917 and 1935, and losses reached nearly 9% twice in the 1950s. The last major outbreak, in 1962, destroyed 5.2% of the U.S. crop.” [LAT] In fact scientists thought they had defeated wheat rust and moved their research to other crop diseases. Ug99 popped up in Uganda in 1999 and was not taken seriously until crops in Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen were devastated.

If you store wheat in your food storage or are thinking about storing wheat, consider stocking up now before prices spike higher during a wheat shortage. Prices have mostly recovered from the global price rise in 2008 but appear to be moving upwards again.