January 27, 2005

 

 

Brazilian lesson for persisting US soy rust

 

Just as Brazilian farmers have learnt over the past three years, how to combat the new threat of Asian soybean rust, so U.S. farmers will have to learn similar anti-rust techniques over time, said soybean specialist Dr. Michael Cordonnier, president of Soybean and Corn Advisor, an ag consulting firm in Hinsdale, Ill.

 

The main hurdles this were are in getting U.S. farmers accustomed to budgeting for anti-soy-rust treatments and learning how to respond swiftly once the disease is discovered, he said.

 

If farmers are proactive and spray fungicides on their fields when the disease has been found in their area, or spray within three days of finding it in their own field, the spread of the disease can be controlled.

 

But like the Brazilians, U.S. farmers will have their own learning curve on dealing with a threat they have never experienced, which means that the U.S. is going to experience losses as it learns to adapt, he said.

 

"With herbicides, you can take your time. You can spread the task out over a few days. But if you have rust, you have to spray today. It can drop all the leaves in seven days. It looks like a blow torch went through your field," he said.

 

Compounding the problem for the U.S. is an infrastructure that has yet to adapt to the new threat. If the fungus is discovered in a specific county in the Midwest, for instance, each farmer in the area must be pre-emptive and spray immediately.

 

In Brazil, sentinel fields - or early warning fields planted very early in the season with early maturing beans - are used for early discovery of the fungus. That strategy has given Brazilian farmers a head start against a rust invasion.

 

Farmers generally commit to expenses of US$15 to US$30 an acre every year, as "part of doing business".

 

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, the net economic losses from an outbreak of Asian rust in the U.S. would range from US$640 million to $1.3 billion "for the first year of the pathogen's establishment in this country." Analysts figure about 1 million acres of soybeans in the southern U.S. could be switched over to cotton because of the expense.

 

To add to the confusion, weather ideal for soybeans is also ideal for the disease.

 

"The market's going to have to sort out what is good weather and bad weather. People will be throwing numbers all over the place," he said.

 

But despite the learning curve, U.S. farmers still have ample advantages over their South American counterparts.

 

First, the warm, moist conditions the fungus loves are much more prevalent in Brazil. In the U.S., the harsh winters that kill the vegetation it survives on means the fungus must be reintroduced every year by southerly winds. Already, the winter cold has contained the disease in the far southern U.S. After first being discovered in Louisiana in November, rust has only been confirmed in eight other states across the southern U.S. Its arrival at the end of harvestings meant only minimal damage on the 2004-05 U.S. soybean crop. Agronomists suspect the fungus was spread by hurricane winds.

 

Also, there is only one other host plant in the U.S. that harbors the fungus - kudzu, which is a weed found all across the southern U.S. But in Brazil, there are well over 100 such plants that can provide a home for the disease, and they grow right up to the sides of the fields.

 

The U.S. also has the added benefit of watching someone else learn to combat the disease, allowing the U.S. to learn from their mistakes.

 

"We're lucky. Brazil had to go through it first," he said.