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(Washington, D.C.) The Arkansas Congressional delegation today requested
$715,000 in emergency funds to help prevent further spread of Asian Soybean
Rust (ASR), a windborne fungus that could rapidly infect the state’s soybean
crop.
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Senators Mark Pryor
and Blanche Lincoln, along with Representatives Marion Berry (1st District),
Vic Snyder (2nd District), John Boozman (3rd District), and Mike Ross (4th
District), requested $715,000 from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS) Emergency Funds. They said the funds would be used
for immediate detection, training and education efforts in Arkansas to
be conducted through the University of Arkansas’ Division of Agriculture.
A portion of the letter says, “This particularly dangerous fungus has
the ability to infect our state’s entire crop in a matter of days. If left
untreated, the fungus could infect the rest of the nation’s soybean crop
within a single season. Treatments are projected to cost Arkansas producers
over $122 million in the first year alone…Arkansas is the gateway to the
Midwest. To keep Soybean Rust from devastating the bulk of the US soybean
crop, we feel the fight against it must be rapidly and massively fought
in Arkansas. Due to early work of the Southern Pest Detection Network,
Arkansas has the unique ability to conduct an effective holding action,
if appropriate federal assistance from APHIS is made available on a timely
basis.”
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the introduction
of the disease is likely related to the busy hurricane season, which is
believed to have moved the airborne spores of the soybean rust fungus over
long distances to the United States. In addition to Arkansas, soybean
rust has been discovered in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Alabama,
Missouri and South Carolina. |
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