2017 Saarc Wheat Rust Surveillance and Monitoring workshop started in Kathmandu bringing scientists from South Asia to foster regional collaboration and equip a new generation of scientists with the tools and knowledge to manage the threat of wheat rusts.

The week-long workshop is being held at Hotel Annapurna and the Nepal Agricultural Res-earch Council’s (NARC) Khumaltar Research Station in Lalitpur.

“Stem rust re-emerged as a threat to the world’s wheat crop in Uganda in 1998. The threat to wheat production has increased by new races of stem and yellow pathogens that have been evolving in East Africa, Asia and Europe since then,” said Maricelis Acevedo, associate director for science of the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project at Cornell University, USA. “Outbreaks of wheat rust diseases pose a threat to global food security.”

“Under the DGGW, collaborative agreements with national governments and agencies are in place to improve the in-country capacity to screen thousands of wheat samples from every continent to identify disease- and heat-resistant lines,” said Acevedo.

“Resources are also being invested to strengthen the pipeline to train young scientists on surveillance of wheat diseases in at-risk countries, both men and women. The 2017 SAARC course is an excellent example of this.”