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Ag Secretary Mike Johanns Approves $1.2 Million in Soybean Rust Monitoring Funds

As soybean planting continues, growers are concerned about the pests that might attack the crop. Newest among those challenges is soybean rust, a disease that weighs heavily on the minds of U.S. farmers, and USDA wants to make sure if the disease spreads producers find out early. Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced the agency will spend $1.2 million in contingency funding to help monitor, report and manage soybean rust during the 2005 growing season.

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service officials will apply the funding to soybean rust surveillance and monitoring; predictive modeling; Web-based dissemination of information to stakeholders; finalizing fungicide criteria; and communication and outreach.

Here's how the $1.2 million will be spent:

• $800,000 will be spent on sentinel soybean plots in 35 states and Puerto Rico. Those plots were originally announced on April 14.

• $180,000 will be transferred to USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service to support mobile survey units dispatched ot states to help identify the disease and report surveillance data.

• $210,000 will be used to update and maintain the new USDA Soybean Rust Web site launched last month. The one-stop federal resources - Soybean Rust - provides information on the extent and severity of soybean outbreaks in the United States, Caribbean basin and Central America.