Canada Bars Wheat From California, 3 Other States

Wheat from California and three other states was barred Wednesday from Canada as agriculture officials in several countries scrambled to contain the spread of a potentially devastating fungus that has turned up in the United States for the first time.

The fungus--called Karnal bunt and already identified in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas--now may have spread via grain truck or train to California, where the disease threatens durum growers in the Imperial Valley.

The Canadian import ban covers all durum--the only variety infected so far--from the U.S. and all wheat varieties from the four states.

There is no known treatment for the fungus, which can affect all strains of wheat. Karnal bunt, which can spread by airborne spore or contaminated equipment, reduces yields and gives flour a fishy taste and smell. The fungus poses no public health threat, agricultural officials say.

Only about 4,300 metric tons of U.S. durum were shipped last year to Canada, a tiny fraction of the overall 31.3 million metric tons exported by U.S. growers. But as the Canadian embargo shows, Karnal bunt causes great anxiety in other countries, and a spreading embargo could hit U.S. wheat farmers hard.

Farmers and U.S. agricultural officials fear the outbreak of the fungus in durum could cause foreign buyers of U.S. wheat to declare blanket embargoes, as has been the case in past outbreaks in India, Pakistan and elsewhere. U.S. wheat exports totaled nearly $5 billion last year.

Since Karnal bunt was first detected March 8 in durum seed lots in Arizona, the USDA has successfully negotiated the acceptance of non-durum U.S. wheat exports with most countries by guaranteeing that the shipments are closely inspected and free of the pest.

But several countries have not yet agreed to accept U.S. wheat, including China, which bought rights to more than a third of U.S. wheat exports this year.

Meanwhile, California wheat farmers, who are expecting record harvests starting next month, fear the potentially devastating Karnal bunt fungus could invade the state from Arizona, one of three infected states along with Texas and New Mexico.

Crops of Imperial Valley durum, a high grade of grain used mainly to make pasta, are only 50 miles from infected areas in Arizona. With more than 100,000 acres of durum planted in Imperial Valley and prices near record levels, farmers there were looking forward to a bonanza.

“I feel very concerned,” said Mike Cox, an Imperial Valley farmer who hopes to harvest his 240 acres of durum in coming weeks at the highest prices--$185 a ton--he has seen in 20 years. “It has a potential to spread throughout the wheat-growing areas of the far West.

“There’s uncertainty as to whether our sales contracts are going to be valid if this spreads here, because it could affect shipments of our wheat to other states if California is shown to have it,” Cox said.

California’s total wheat crop was worth $160 million in 1994, the last year for which figures are available. Virtually all of it was exported. The Imperial Valley accounted for 13% of the state crop.

Canada also barred the use of Canadian ports for the transport of U.S. wheat, oats, rye or sorghum shipments originating in California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, fearing such shipments could taint equipment and storage facilities.

Although the fungus has not yet been confirmed in California, the Canadians included the state on the prohibited transshipping list because it deems the state at “high risk.”

The action barring transshipments of U.S. grains through Canadian ports--about 1.5 million metric tons of U.S. wheat passed through there last year--could cause more disruption and economic loss than the actual durum embargo because many U.S. concerns send grain to elevators in Vancouver, Montreal and other Canadian sites for eventual loading onto cargo ships destined for foreign markets.

Canadian Grain Commission spokesman Paul Graham in Winnipeg said Canada’s wheat policy with the United States is more flexible than past responses because, up to now, Canada has not allowed in any variety of wheat from infected countries.

The United States is only the fifth country--India, Pakistan, Turkey and Mexico are the others--to report the presence of Karnal bunt. It is a pest that “no one wants,” said Mike Stefan, an operations officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in explaining the tough controls imposed by uninfested countries. Until this month, the closest the pest was detected to the U.S. border was on Mexican farms 150 miles south of the Arizona border.

Karnal is the name of the city in India where it was discovered. Bunt is an agricultural term for shrink or warp, referring to what the malady does to the grain.

The only way to rid infected farmland of the pest is for farmers to not grow wheat for five years, after which time the fungus disappears, according to USDA experts. Federal agricultural officials say they don’t yet know whether tainted crops in the three states will be destroyed or somehow recycled.

In a statement, Canada Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Ralph Goodale said he was imposing the restrictions as “a balanced response which protects the integrity of the Canadian grain system, recognizes U.S. measures to control the infestation and takes into account the interests of all of our major wheat trading partners.”

The infestation comes as wheat prices stand near record levels because supplies in the international market are tight due because of weather and pest problems around the globe.

While expressing concern about the disease in general, industry figures downplayed the the Canadian action.

“Given the fact they import so little wheat, it’s really not that significant,” said spokeswoman Lisa Jager of U.S. Wheat Associates, an export development group in Washington, D.C., that represents wheat growers.

But the USDA last week dispatched a crisis management team to Phoenix in a mounting effort to contain the disease. On Tuesday, the USDA quarantined wheat and wheat equipment movement in the entire state of Arizona, four counties in New Mexico and two counties in Texas in an effort to contain the effects of the fungus.

The USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Services said the fungus has infected 15,000 acres in Arizona, 2,500 acres in New Mexico, and 500 acres in Texas.