Updated Friday, April 4, 2008 0:00 am TWN, Bloomberg

Gates Foundation donates to fight wheat disease

NEW YORK -- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated US$26.8 million to help fight a wheat disease that’s been known to destroy entire fields of the grain in parts of Africa and the Middle East. The Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, led by Cornell University, will be targeting Ug99, a virulent form of wheat rust that was first identified in Uganda in 1999.

Scientists are trying to develop a strain of wheat that’s resistant to Ug99, which jumped over the Red Sea to the Arabian Peninsula last year, Cornell said Thursday in a release. The goal is to protect against catastrophic losses in vulnerable regions, including India, Pakistan, China and parts of Africa and the Middle East, it said.

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