HOLLY NOTE: We have posted articles continuously for the past year detailing depletion of US and global grain reserves to record lows, grain thefts in Kansas, food shortages, rising food prices and resulting food riots, in hopes that you are getting this message: As tough as it might be right now, this is definitely the time to purchase significant food stocks. If you have missed any of these articles, please check the Food & Water ARKives for 2008 and 2007. This issue is too vital for you not to get the entire picture.

The Midwest is at the heart of our wheat and corn production. All it will take is one bad drought - which Iowa expects - and now possibly a global drought - and our food supplies will take a serious hit. With escalating fuel costs, there will come a point when truckers are unable to make a living and simply have to shut down.

Now the latest attack on food is a disease that could destroy most of the world's wheat. Consider everything you eat that's made with wheat... How would you have to change the way you eat and cook? No hamburger buns, certain cereals would disappear from grocery shelves, no crackers/cakes/cookies/waffles, no "staff of life", in short, most of your baked goods would vanish.

It's not enough that a huge portion of our grains goes to biofuel, tenuous crops are further impacted by a higher global demand for wheat-based foods on dinner tables. If drought, as addressed above, hit's America's read basket our remaining crops will be in deep weeds.

Stock up now - buy in bulk - and pack for long-term storage any grain products and foods you regularly consume. It's easy, it's great insurance and will save you loads of money in the long run. The longer you delay, prices are only going to escalate, your options will dwindle, along with selection. Please do this before your options close.

When reading news articles, it is our hope you'll read beyond the headlines and hear the unspoken message - a quiet urging to prepare.

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March 13, 2008

By Charles Clover, Environment Editor

UK Independent

The strain of stem rust, known as UG99, because it emerged in Uganda in 1999, spreads thousands of miles on the wind and it is thought it may have arrived in Pakistan.

Photo: Grain being used to produce biofuels is having an effect on prices

Scientists who met in Syria this week have been discussing emergency measures to prevent the strain getting to India's breadbasket, the Punjab.

The concern is that it might progress from there to China making worse the shortages of wheat which emerged last year as a result of the Australian drought and the use of grain in America to make biofuels.

It is feared that poor countries could not afford to buy in wheat at the prices it made last year, twice that of the year before.

Lesley Boyd of the John Innes Centre and Institute of Food Research in Norwich said: "These diseases are wind borne so it is only a matter of time before they get all over the world."

Scientists hope to stem the spread of the disease, which has the potential to wipe out 40-70 per cent of wheat yield, by spraying fungicide and stopping farmers planting wheat in the spores' path.

The arrival of the disease in Iran, after hitting Yemen last year, means it is a step ahead of where it was expected to be by now, according to New Scientist.

The only certain remedy for farmers in poor countries who cannot afford to use fungicides is new wheat varieties, but these may not be available for five years.

Scientists in Britain and South Africa are examining more than 300 African varieties of wheat for resistance to fungal disease. One of particular interest is an old European variety, Capelle Desprez.

Europe is too cool to support the disease, at least at present, according to Dr Boyd.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/13/eawheat113.xml

www.standeyo.com/NEWS/08_Food_Water/080314.wheat.disease.html