Government to Pay Millers to Use Wheat With Fungus

WASHINGTON — Hoping to avert a shortage of pasta in grocery stores and to prevent mill shutdowns, the government will pay flour millers to use wheat from parts of the Southwest where a rare wheat fungus has been found, officials said Wednesday.

U.S. Department of Agriculture and wheat industry officials said the government will pay millers $35 a ton to cover the increased costs of processing durum wheat from Arizona and other states in the Southwest infected with the Karnal bunt fungus.

The loss of the Southwestern durum wheat would hit flour and pasta producers hard this year, given the already short supply of wheat in the United States and other parts of the world.

The rare fungus is not harmful to humans, but it can lower the amount of wheat harvested from plants and make flour smell bad and taste unusual if the infestation is bad enough.

Industry officials welcomed the government’s move, which they hope will prevent major disruptions in the milling industry.

“All indications so far are that this will be a big help,” said Paul Drazek, senior aide to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and the official in charge of the plan.

Officials had warned of widespread durum mill shutdowns or bankruptcies if aid was not provided to cover the extra costs of handling the wheat from the fungus-affected areas.

“This won’t cover all the costs,” said Jim Bair of the Miller’s National Federation, a trade group. “We’re optimistic in the sense that it may avert a major shutdown, but there will still be an economic loss.”

Karnal bunt was discovered for the first time in the United States earlier this spring in Arizona durum wheat fields. The fungus was traced to parts of California, New Mexico and Texas, and stricter rules for harvesting and processing wheat have been put in place in parts of those states and all of Arizona to prevent the spread of the fungus.

Durum wheat is used to make pasta, and Southwestern growers provide millers with the first crop until the Northern durum crop is harvested in the fall. Southwestern durum accounts for almost a third of the durum wheat used every year in the United States to make pasta products.