It's probably more about the havoc of a tangle of red tape than contamination.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/anc...0-1226072873010 Rust strain in wheat begining to spread. Could be a bad year for wheat farmers and the knock on effect on world food production.

The problem is very real LR as the e-coli that is producing this very potent toxin that has caused all the illness and some deaths is a genetically combined form of E-coli with genes from an African phenotype and a European type of e-coli.
It is also quite resistant to most of the antibiotics and other control methods which really makes it a potentially very dangerous type of organism as E-coli of many genetic types, most are quite benign, is universal in the guts of nearly every living organism.

So a gene swapping E-coli bacteria for it is now known that genetic exchange is common in bacteria and viruses an etc, that genetically has changed to be even more indiscriminate in it's swapping of genes with other e-coli genotypes could lead to the rapid, widespread development of a quite toxic e-coli which with our now world wide food trade could spread at lightning speed across the entire world.
It is something along these lines, the completely unexpected disease or a toxic bacteria or genetically unstable and toxic e-coli that will come out of left field that will lead to the next great world wide pandemic in which this time hundreds of millions might die.

The great Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 infected about one third of the global population of 1.5 billion people or about 500 million people. Of these it took the lives of an estimated of 50 million people and that was in the space of only 6 months.
Thats a death toll of 3.3% of the global population at the time.
The same percentage number of deaths from a modern pandemic of a similar virulence would amount to close to 230 millions or close to a quarter of a billion people. Ten times the population of Australia, 2/3rds of the population of the USA dead in 6 months if the pandemic followed the extremely virulent path of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.

For the most part we just live along with all those tiny critters such as the e-coli but like every living organism from the tiniest most simple life forms through to humans they are always trying to expand their empire and so some times they get through the defenses of the organisms they are associated and live with on and inside of and cause all sorts of grief until the other organisms find the means to fight back and the peace and calm of a temporary truce where the forces are balanced is again in place.

This form of highly toxic E-coli has been seen before in Europe but only very rarely so it's sudden widespread appearance has caught everybody on the hop. [ literally in most cases unfortunately ]
The actual source of the outbreak is still unknown and has ranged from Spanish cucumbers, since cleared amongst some very, very pissed off spanish farmers plus an equally pissed off spanish government to bean sprouts in Germany itself which is now also doubtful.
If there has been a genetic shift in the genes of this e-coli type making it much more virulent and therefore very dangerous as e-coli is so universal in their dispersal in the guts of of every life form on earth then we could be seeing the first signs of a new global pandemic as I described above.

One of the best plant geneticists in Australia and regarded as being amongst the top food crop geneticists in the world, a quiet, very likable little guy that nobody particularly the self important academics in the big universities would look at twice and who formerly worked in Horsham at our grains research centre and now is in Adelaide, told me a year or so ago that quite fortuitously Australian wheats are fairly resistant to the Ug99 strain of wheat stem rust that is now sweeping across central Asia.
It is a very virulent strain first found in Uganda in 1998 in rust test plots there as Uganda for reasons I haven't caught up with is regarded by wheat breeders as the hot spot for the emergence of new strains of [ fungus ] Wheat Rust genotypes.

Yesterday Judith Curry on her blog had a posting on world food supplies and the ability of or not for the world's farmers to meet future demands for increased food production but interestingly with all the rather academic types that inhabit her blog with all their solutions practically none of them seemed to realise or know that governments around the world have cut back drastically in financing research into new types of crop varieties and into disease resistance and insect resistance in the world's basic food crops.

Lots of money for research into climate change and some ringing of the hands as to what climate change will do to crop yields which is sweet ------ all as farmers and crops adapt to weather conditions magnitudes larger in size than any climate change each year and season although the " academic experts" and "climate change scientists" in their comfortable cozy city offices don't seem to get this at all.
The publicly financed resources are simply no longer in existence to be able to throw the maximum of effort at trying to find plant variety resistance to this new rust strain.
And even now in the last five years we are starting to use fungicides every year to stop fungal diseases such as new strains of wheat rust from devastating the crops, something that in the previous 50 years of my farming life we rarely ever had a need to do.
Australia's crop breeders right through the middle parts of the 20th century put enormous effort into finding resistance in plants from across the world to the various crop fungal diseases and for the most part they were extremely successful but now ??

The general public are probably not aware that there is a world wide crop plant variety exchange system in place amongst practically every food producing nations on earth. Even the Arab nations researchers very quietly deal with the Israelis as an example but everybody keeps their head down and away from the big boys at the top who scrap amongst themselves and look like they will start another war before breakfast.
Here in Horsham we have one of the two specialised crop collection centres for grain crops in Australia. The other is in Sydney.
Just a few seeds of each of the enormous number of varieties and species are kept in airtight sealed foil packets on hundreds of racks under refrigeration down to about minus 20C which ensures they will remain viable for perhaps a minimum of at least 20 years or far more.
A lot of these crops are grown out every few years to get fresh seed for storage and further distribution across the world.

Each seed variety in it's little packet of only maybe a half dozen seedsand sometimes only 2 or 3 seeds and that is all that may exist of that particular genotype in the world has all it's known characteristics recorded on an international linked computer base so when a breeder is looking for a particular characteristic then he consults the computer based data, [ The curators of these collections all know one another pretty well and try and make it to a common and exclusive seminar somewhere at least every few years to get to meet and know one another personably ] may locate a particular seed collected and stored in say Syria, sends the request for a few seeds, perhaps two or three and the little packet will turn up a week or so later.
Thats the way the international crop genetic exchange system works and thats the way the breeders can find and access genetic breeding material that will / might have the genetic resistance required for a new disease resistant variety of crop.
And nearly all of it is done under the radar of the various customs and import / export bureaucracies although the more senior execs are well aware of how the system operates and why.

And here in Australia, grain farmers are required by legislation to contribute 1% of their gross farm gate earnings from a particular crop such as wheat into a government matched research fund that then allocates these monies to further research.

Saw this earlier today . thought I'd post it here but you're all on the ball!

Ancient wheat plague threatens world

I have been on the farm since 1992 and last year was the first time we had to spray the crops for rust due to the wet spring though we have had hot spots previously it just wasn't economical for the minimal damage.
My father had to spray the crops back in 1974 due to wet conditions again.
This year and going forward we will spray for rust mid season as the chemical we will use gives 3month protection for rust and another big disease problem yellow leaf spot which reduces yields aswell in the end more expense which we pray ends up to be more returns at harvest.
We have had small infestations of rust for the last atleast 6 years and seems to be getting worse leading to the decision above.

i use rust preventative in the fertilizer fluturifol gives protection till about sept but of course main crunch time is shortly after that.
roves rust has been found in the riverland already, my agronomist from dodshunmedlin ag management one of which resides in loxton told me that about two weeks ago.
guess im proactive rather than reactive and it diesnt cost the earth anymore plus it helps with root diseases

Hi there FW my chemical provider has been trying to get me to use that but we haven't yet, we use 2L/t dividend on the seed to help with root disease and with rust generally not a problem up here as its mostly dry always we have gone the way we have not suprising to hear rust around already though.
Last season we ended up getting 2 planes in to spray which worked out well all done in under 2 days and that was 16000 acres we would do it again if we got out again.
By the way hows the early part of this season shaping up for you its getting dry again here with barley grass and turnip starting to turn blue just cant get down to the moisture and no good rains in the last 3months its getting a little worry some but one good rain will change things just hope its very soon.

roves everything is stressed with below average for april/may and june
looks similar to some previous years good start and bugger all from june onwards
you finished?
Id say 60% finished around here and nearly all by end of next week, were done and only dramas is with canola emerging on sand.

We will finish tonight at midnight though my brother is only just past halfway and neighbours around 75% done I haven't had time to look further a field but I think most would all but finished elsewhere in the district.
What fertilizer do you use and do they put the chemical on for you before you get it? we use croplift19 18-13-0-10 Zn 1%.

fert rates are on the crops following medic pastures 40 map
cereals and canola on stubble ground get 70 kg 27:12

then sand is topped up with 40 kg soa and canola gets 70kg soa

medic country may get 40 kg urea but not always

yeah i get fert fron dfi and its applied in adelaide but many do it themselves and save a bit money.

weve gone away from high rates of fert up front to feeding the crop, am i right of wrong who knows.

and ps havent spread any extra soa yet and if year turns bad canola will be the only thing that gets a top up.

sometimes uan is used as well but im very aware that urea can be lost in our envioornment were it can be weeks or months between rain events soa isnt as volitile.

Yea right you have a bit of variety there our ground which is mostly sandly loam with some stone flats and a few rises and we only grow wheat because soil snd rainfall only allows that.
I use 50kg/ha of the croplift at sowing time, rises get up to 80kg and we double sow a few of them stone 40kg not that we have in the past but we will give a top up mid season if needed though its not looking to bright just yet.

Dry land farming next to the river? Are we living in the age of absurdity where common sense is some distant memory. In a time when your children used their legs to get the 300 meters to school.
In an age of risking, what is becoming clear, an abundant underground water supply through mining and its accompanying cocktail of hazards, to feed a couple of generations of hungry materialists, yet deny our farmers the abilty to improve intensive agriculture. Our childrens future sold to mostly foreign interests.
And of course we now live in an age whereby a trace chemical element is deemed a terror threat to life on earth.
Perhaps politicians should go on the watch list!

Farmers say no to land buyback
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/farmers-say-no-to-land-buyback/17903

Residents of the flood devastated town of Benjeroop, in northern Victoria, look set to largely reject a land buyback scheme proposed by the Victorian Government.

At a community meeting last night, most landholders indicated they wanted to stay in Benjeroop and continue farming.

Under the lower Loddon irrigators' recovery package, farmers can get compensation for switching to dryland farming, get bought out at pre-flood market values or receive assistance to build levees to protect their homes.

However, many Benjeroop residents say the Government is not listening to them because they want money spent on implementing existing flood plans and they want to continue irrigating.

Regarding this new e-coli strain in Europe:



Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ecoli_bioengineering.html#ixzz1QvKfx2DW

[quote]Now, remember: All this is happening on the heels of the EU ban on medicinal herbs and nutritional supplements -- a ban that blatantly outlaws nutritional therapies that help keep people healthy and free from disease. Now that all these herbs and supplements are outlawed, the next step is to make people afraid of fresh food, too. That's because fresh vegetables are medicinal, and as long as the public has the right to buy fresh vegetables, they can always prevent disease.

But if you can make people AFRAID of fresh vegetables -- or even outlaw them altogether -- then you can force the entire population onto a diet of dead foods and processed foods that promote degenerative disease and bolster the profits of the powerful drug companies.

It's all part of the same agenda, you see: Keep people sick, deny them access to healing herbs and supplements, then profit from their suffering at the hands of the global drug cartels.'

PROBLEM REACTION SOLUTION and making a quid from all 3

It is a now a well known although only recently realised fact that bacteria exchange genes on a very regular basis. Nor are bacteria the only life forms to do this as viruses are now somewhat notorious for exchanging genetic material.
We see this in the ever changing cold viruses from one year to the next so our immune systems have to learn all over again how to combat the new virus with it's different genetic make up.
Like wise wheat rust genotypes change from year to year some by sexual transmission but some now suspected gene exchanges in the field.

The E-coli O157:H7 isolate which is just one of about 700 serotypes of ecoli which has caused the alarm over it's toxic attributes has been known since about the early 1980's. It's genes are a combination of some genes from an African isolate of E-coli and a European isolate. It also has many more genes, about a 1000 more than the usual run of e-coli.

Perhaps I could point to a couple of ancient bacterial and viral plagues.
Syphilis when it first appeared supposedly after Columbus and his crew had brought it back from South America in 1494 but which is now been possibly identified even amongst the ancient Egyptians, was absolutely deadly.
Syphilis probably went through a changed in it's genetic makeup which made it a very potent and deadly disease but as time wore on syphilis like so many extraordinarily potent and deadly diseases lost a lot of,it's potency due to the vectors still living with the less potent forms of the disease whereas the most potent types killed their carriers before they could spread the disease very much further.

Black Death also went through a similar change in it's genetic make up as did the very potent killer flu mutation that became Asian Flu. The Asian flu pandemic of 1918 which in 6 months killed an estimated 50 millions or about 3% of the global population of the times and then just as suddenly it seemed to disappear. So much so that an expedition was recently set up to go into the far north Canadian Arctic to exhume some bodies known from historical records to have died from Asian Flu to extract samples from the bodies to try and examine the genetic make up of the 1918 Asian flu.
A 3% death rate of today's global population would mean about 230 million dead or ten times Australia's current population and all within 6 months.

E-coli mutating to a different and more potent form, a form that was already quite well known for a couple of decades although rare is not at all unusual in the world of bacteria and viruses.
And in this case somehow getting into seeds for sprouting which were produced in Egypt, would only need a single person with that strain handling the seed material and maybe not even a person as e-coli is ubiquitous throughout out the guts and in many other niches in every living animal.
The seeds went to a German farm which specialised in sprouting for the no doubt "organic sprout" market and so the e-coli isolate was spread far and wide with the efects that we have sen broad cast in the news.

What I don't understand is this crazy conspiratorial and to me utterly stupid mentality that whenever something, anything causes grief and pain and sorrow somebody in some big secret government research facility that nobody has ever heard of because it is so secret has to be responsible for deliberately or accidentally releasing the nasty material into the public.

Anything and everything must be blamed on somebody else and the bigger and more secret it is supposed to be the nastier it supposedly is and the better the conspiratists feel about how right they are.
No proof of any sort needed, just a post on the internet from some out of his tree whacko is enough authority to be beyond doubt that some big nasty ultra top secret government organisation is responsible.
When somebody sane and sober and with all the qualifications comes along and says that ain't right, he is never believed as he is denying what the out of his tree expert on the internet said so he must be one of them government spin doctors who are trying to mislead the public about the top secret program to spread disease around the world so they can control everything.
I shake my head more in sorrow than anything that what I would normally class as very intelligent people should believe this absolute crap and then quote it here as if it was gospel.

If that is the version you choose to believe ROM, that's your business. For a man who appears to delve heartily into every subject thrown at him, it's surprising you so totally reject so many alternative versions with such a closed mind. I'd just point out that neither syphilis, black death nor Asian flu were resistant to several forms of antibiotic.

I have seen the conspirital mind close up in somebody who was close to me.
For many years I believed those quite sad , bad stories i was told of the misdemeanors or worse of others in our community although I had some reservations but as that person was quite close I had to believe them. Then a couple of quite personal incidents occurred and suddenly the scales fell from my eyes and I for the first time saw a pattern that went back for decades of people being accused of things they never did or actions that were blown out of all proportion usually with the accusation that an a bad intent was intended. And when I looked back I saw that a lot of quite innocent people in our community had been badly hurt by that person with their constant conspirital view on anything and everything that others did.

It sickened me both because of the closeness that had endured for many years and that so many of my other friends and acquaintances had suffered un-needingly and totally unneccessarily.
And all because of a mental state where others were always seen to be out to do harm or take advantage or were up to no good and were intent on causing grief to that person

Loopy how long has this EU ban on medicinal herbs and nutritional supplements been in place.
I was in germany sweden and denmarks exactly 11 months ago they were freely available then from super markets as i was with my wife on 3 occasions when she bought them over a 6 week period.

maybe the ban has been placed since, if so your correct.

Hi Farmweather. It has only happened recently, although the plan has been in the pipe-work for several years.

ROM, it sounds as if you've been swayed by the actions of a local gossip. Here's a truly interesting link outlining 33 proven conspiracies. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/228696...on-Should-Know- Only time will tell whether there's any substance to modern theories.