The Wheat Crop Time - Bomb

[irish daveyboy]

When I first saw this article I said to myself,

now let's see how the 'Glutenoids' cope!!

But thinking afterwards one wonders what effect this will have

on the price of other grains ??

.

Will Gluten Free grains become so expensive

that Gluten Free Products will be beyond our reach ??

.

Open Original Shared Link

.

Best Regards,

David

[ravenwoodglass]

That's an interesting article. Hopefully if wheat becomes an endangered species, so to speak, the production of other gluten free grains will increase and perhaps even drive the price down as they become more commonly and widely grown. Wishful thinking perhaps.

[mimommy]

Eh-hem...

Is this soapbox taken?

From the above mentioned article:

"A significant humanitarian crisis is inevitable," said Rick Ward...

The solution is to develop new wheat varieties that are immune to Ug99. That's much easier said than done.

"The pathogen keeps mutating and evolving," he said. "It's one of our biblical pests. This is not a small enemy."

_____________________________________________________________________

Pardon my sarcasm, but isn't a worldwide affliction auto-immune disease that affects about 1:100 people also considered "a significant crisis"? I love how the answer is always to try to control the natural environmental urge to let the strong survive by gentically altering it to suit our need/greed.

They are correct; this is no "small enemy"

Gee, I wonder who will have to pay for this "bionic grain"?

[Lisa16]

Thanks for the link!

Mimommy, maybe this is nature's way of correcting a collosal blunder we made when we decided we could eat the stuff in the first place!

[mommida]

In some respects, the Celiac community will help out the gluten eaters. We have worked out an alternative diet solution for a wheatless world.

This knowledge of, UG99, should have made it mandatory for secondary food grains to have been mass farmed already. (It could have led to a more economical gluten free diet.)

I am not a farmer, and don't really know if this is standard thinking. If a wheat farmer plants 2/3 of the wheat fields and plants 1/3 without an alternative grain source. If the worst happens and the UG99 wipes out the wheat. The damage in monitored in the other crop. A crop that does not succumb to UG99 has the potential to be the "cure" for the alternative food source or the direction of resilient cross breeding of the wheat.

[mimommy]

In some respects, the Celiac community will help out the gluten eaters. We have worked out an alternative diet solution for a wheatless world.

How's that for irony