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

小麦锈病是一种真菌病害，可给小麦作物造成毁灭性的损失。真菌孢子被风吹散，有可能导致小麦锈病暴发的快速传播。虽然可以使用杀菌剂来控制小麦锈病的传播，但它们需要及时使用才能有效。如果做不到这一点，可能会导致农作物损失，并增加被浪费的杀菌剂的经济成本。小麦锈病感染作物，导致植株死亡，从而导致一个地区的小麦产量减少；这既影响到个别种植者的生计，也影响到更广泛的政府进口小麦以补充国内小麦生产所产生的成本。小麦是埃塞俄比亚的主食，在世界上许多国家也是如此。埃塞俄比亚也是撒哈拉以南非洲的主要小麦生产国。因此，小麦锈病的暴发对该地区的小麦产量有重大影响。埃塞俄比亚政府承诺到2020年实现小麦自给自足。为了实现这一政策目标并确保粮食安全，必须将小麦锈病等产量损失降至最低。这项拟议的工作旨在通过与埃塞俄比亚农业研究所(EIAR)合作实施小麦锈病预报系统来促进这一目标。拟议的工作将结合剑桥大学在模拟植物疾病方面的专业知识、英国气象局在模拟向大气中释放颗粒物方面的专业知识与埃塞俄比亚CIMMYT和EIAR的专业知识相结合，以开发世界领先的小麦锈病预报服务。有关埃塞俄比亚小麦锈病最初发生地点的信息将发送给英国气象局。这些信息将从监测调查和使用移动智能手机技术的农民报告中整理出来。英国气象局将使用其最先进的全球天气预报模型的预报数据，以及与剑桥大学共同开发的孢子传播的来源信息和协议，来预测小麦锈菌孢子的大规模风力传播。剑桥大学的流行病学模型将使用这些结果来模拟较小规模的锈病传播。这与小麦锈病适生区的适宜性评估一起，将被用来制作预测风险图(病原体可能出现在哪里？)以及一份危险地图(一旦引入，它将以多快的速度传播并造成损失)。产品的开发，如小麦锈病预测风险地图，将与EIAR协商，以确保它们包含最有用的信息，供未来使用。EIAR将制定方法，以最大限度地利用预报，为埃塞俄比亚政府和农民提供建议，以便为潜在的小麦锈病暴发做好准备，并使他们能够采取行动，防止作物损失。拟议的工作包括讲习班、交流和培训，以协助小麦锈病预报服务的能力建设和利用。通过这样做，埃塞俄比亚和英国组织之间的牢固联系将为进一步发展支持其他风媒农业疾病提供基础，并展示这种系统对其他县的价值。

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.