Kenya's rust screening facility mitigates world wheat threat

摘要

Many small-scale farmers in Eastern Africa have given up growing wheat because of pressure from Ug99, a new strain of stem rust that turns fields of wheat into black stubble, with empty spikes that hold little or no grain.Kenyans confronted this hunger challenge head-on recently when Gideon Ndambuki, the assistant minister of agriculture, flipped the switch for a new irrigation project in Njoro that will provide water for field trials of hundreds of new varieties of highyielding, yellow and stem rust-resistant wheat."This field day celebrates Kenya's opportunity to improve agricultural productivity, profitability and farmers' livelihoods," said Ndambuki. "The adoption of new technologies will positively impact productivity."