The persistent threat of emerging plant disease pandemics to global food security

Abstract

Plant disease outbreaks are increasing and threaten food security for the vulnerable in many areas of the world. Now a global human pandemic is threatening the health of millions on our planet. A stable, nutritious food supply will be needed to lift people out of poverty and improve health outcomes. Plant diseases, both endemic and recently emerging, are spreading and exacerbated by climate change, transmission with global food trade networks, pathogen spillover, and evolution of new pathogen lineages. In order to tackle these grand challenges, a new set of tools that include disease surveillance and improved detection technologies including pathogen sensors and predictive modeling and data analytics are needed to prevent future outbreaks. Herein, we describe an integrated research agenda that could help mitigate future plant disease pandemics.

Keywords: emerging plant disease; food security; plant pathology.

Fig. 1.

Several important emerging plant diseases that threaten food security, including (A) late blight of potato caused by P. infestans, (B) coffee rust caused by H. vastatrix, (C) Panama disease caused by F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense (TR4) on banana, and (D) cassava mosaic disease caused by East African CMV.

Fig. 2.

Critical components and data analytics needed for an emerging plant disease surveillance network. Data include predictive data such as transportation and trade networks, geography, weather and climate parameters, and early detection data such as DNA sequence data, pathogen detection from sensors, text mining of historical and social media data, citizen science data, and identification applications. These data can be used to model spread of plant diseases and predict future spread. Enhanced monitoring and proactive mitigation strategies can be deployed in forecasted future hotspots. Early detection of plant diseases leads to more timely deployment of mitigation strategies.

Fig. 3.

Reports of late blight caused by P. infestans on potato and tomato in the United States mapped using geospatial analytics. Data are analyzed from USABlight (2011 to 2019). The total number of outbreaks and the number of states and counties reporting over 9 y are shown. Most of the reports were from tomato and the top 10 states that were hot spots of disease in the eastern United States are indicated.