A maize crop with a fungal infection (Picture: CIMMYT/Flickr)
In another sign of climate chaos, fungal attacks on some of the world’s most important crops threaten the global food supply. Global warming is fuelling a sharp increase in fungal diseases in wheat, corn potatoes and rice, a new report from scientists warned on Wednesday.
Fungal attacks already destroy between 10 and 23 percent of crops every year—and another 10 to 20 percent after harvest. That’s enough crops to feed four billion people 2,000 calories a day for a year.
The scientists warn of a “global health catastrophe”. Co-author Professor Sarah Gurr of the University of Exeter said the TV show The Last of Us—where fungi infect human brains—had brought fungi to people’s attention.
“While that storyline is science fiction, we are warning that we could see a global health catastrophe caused by the rapid global spread of fungal infections,” she said. “The imminent threat here is not about zombies, but about global starvation.”
The authors write, “Addressing the greatest threats to food security—and so to human health—must include tending to the devastating impacts fungi are having, and will keep having, on the world’s food supply.”
On top of global warming, industrial farming methods make a perfect storm for fungal disease. Capitalist agriculture relies on “mono cultures”—huge swathes of land given over to one crop species—to maximise profits and they make it easier for crop diseases to spread.
The world’s largest monoculture is a field of more than 56 square miles of genetically uniform wheat in Canada. And farms such as this are a breeding ground for fast-evolving fungal pathogens.
Fungi are incredibly resistant and their spores can travel huge distances in the wind—up to 8,400 miles in a week. Rising global temperatures have allowed certain fungi—which once were confined to warm, southern areas—to migrate north at a speed of seven kilometres a year.
Wheat stem rust infections, normally found in the tropic regions, are now affecting crops in England and Ireland.
Hotter climates create the ideal conditions for the emergence of new fungi variants. And, with rising temperatures, more common extreme weather events such as drought and storms can lift and spread the fungi spores easily.
Alongside crop failure, this is having a direct impact on public health. Fungal pathogens kill at least 1.5 million people annually—and the World Health Organisation warns they are becoming “increasingly common and resistant to treatment”.
The root cause is a capitalist system, which subordinates the needs of people and planet to the logic of profit-maximisation.
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