Real-time and seasonal forecasting of wheat rust epidemics to inform surveillance and control: Ethiopia as a LMIC test case

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Wheat rusts are fungal diseases that can cause devastating losses to wheat crops. The fungal spores are dispersed by the wind with the potential to cause a rapid spread of a wheat rust outbreak. Whilst fungicides to control the spread of wheat rust are available they need to be applied in a timely manner in order to be effective. Failure to do so can lead to the loss of crops with the added economic costs of wasted fungicide. Wheat rust infects the crop causing the death of the plant and therefore a reduction in the wheat produced in a region; this affects both an individual growers livelihood and on a wider scale the costs incurred as a government imports wheat to supplement in-country wheat produce.Wheat is a staple food in Ethiopia, as it is in many countries in the world. Ethiopia is also the major wheat producer in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, outbreaks of wheat rusts have a major impact on the wheat available in the region. The Government of Ethiopia has committed to becoming self-sufficient in wheat by 2020. To meet this policy goal and ensure food security, production losses, such as those due to wheat rusts, must be minimised. The proposed work aims to contribute to this goal by implementing a wheat rust forecasting system in collaboration with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR).The proposed work will combine expertise on modelling plant diseases at the University of Cambridge, expertise on modelling releases of particles into the atmosphere at the UK Met Office with expertise within Ethiopia at CIMMYT and EIAR to develop a world-leading, wheat rust forecasting service. Information on the location of initial sites of wheat rusts in Ethiopia will be sent to the UK Met Office. This information will be collated from surveillance surveys and from farmer reports using mobile smart-phone technology. The UK Met Office will use forecast data from its state-of-the-art global weather forecast model together with the source information and protocols for spore dispersal developed with the University of Cambridge to forecast the large-scale wind-dispersion of the wheat rust spores. The University of Cambridge's epidemiological model will use the outputs to model the smaller-scale spread of the rusts. This, together with an assessment of the suitability of an area for wheat rust, will be used to produce a forecast risk map (where is the pathogen likely to occur?) and a hazard map (how rapidly will it spread and cause losses once introduced).The development of products, such as wheat rust forecast risk maps, will be done in consultation with EIAR to ensure that they contain the most useful information for their onward use. EIAR will develop methods to make best use of the forecasts for advising the Ethiopian Government and farmers in order to prepare for potential wheat rust outbreaks and to enable them to take action to prevent the loss of crops. The proposed work includes workshops, exchanges and training to aid capacity building and exploitation of the wheat rust forecasting service. In doing so, strong links between the Ethiopian and UK organisations will provide a basis for further development to support other wind-borne agricultural diseases and demonstrate the value of such a system for other counties.