USA: North Dakota barley producers lose US$472.04 million because of scab

Fusarium head blight (FHB),or scab, has been again a major economic problem for North Dakota producers in 2005, according to the Seedquest report of November 10. Total losses due to scab in hard red spring wheat (HRS), durum and barley are estimated at more than $162 million, according to William Nganje, North Dakota State University (NDSU) agricultural economist.

Nganje and others in the Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics have studied the economic impacts of scab since 1993."Scab remains a major economic problem, whether measured in relative terms to other crop sales or measured by overall direct and secondary economic impact," Nganje says.

"For every $1 of scab losses incurred by the producer, $2.08 in losses are incurred in other areas of rural and state economies." Nganje says that direct and secondary losses to North Dakota can be estimated at $4.49 billion from 1993 through 2005. Net farm income has decreased significantly since 1996 and losses due to scab are further depressing farm economies," Nganje says. "Scab occurs in many crop reporting districts in North Dakota that are not only reliant on agriculture, but are predominately dependent upon small-grain production."

Direct economic losses from 1993 through 2005 were greatest for hard red spring wheat ($746.16 million), followed by barley ($472.04 million) and durum ($239.84 million).

Important decreases in direct production losses from FHB were observed for HRS from 2001 to 2003 (-$34.85 million to -$10.66 million). This coincides with increased adoption of Alsen, a moderately scab-resistant HRS variety.

Adoption of Alsen for 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 (years where data was available) were 0.4 percent, 6.7 percent, 30.8 percent and 37.4 percent, respectively.

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