FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
December 1, 2004
Contact:  Lindsay Law
(202) 225-3772
 

Delegation Requests Emergency Funds to Protect Arkansas Farmers from Asian Soybean Rust Disease
 
(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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