SYDNEY (March 13 2004): Four recent Australian wheat shipments to Pakistan may have been contaminated with a fungus, but not Karnal bunt as alleged by Pakistani cargo inspectors, a senior wheat industry source said on Friday.

Pakistan rejected the 150,000 tonnes of wheat last month, despite Australian claims that it is disease-free. Australian Prime Minister John Howard wrote to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf on Friday, requesting an independent test.

Australian wheat officials said for the first time that the rejected wheat may have carried fungal spores, but they increased the stridency of denials of Karnal bunt infection.

"The dispute is not over whether they have found (fungal) spores or not (in the wheat). We agree that they have found spores. The dispute is over whether those spores are Karnal bunt," a senior wheat industry source told Reuters, on the condition that he was not named.

The stakes are big, with Australia the second-largest wheat exporter in the world after the United States, which does have Karnal bunt in its wheat and is required to certify that particular shipments are free of the disease.

Karnal bunt creates foul-smelling off-colour wheat, which is typically rejected by importers, halting trade.

"Most likely they (Pakistan) have found rye grass bunt (in the Australian wheat). What we're saying is that they haven't followed the internationally accepted protocols," the wheat industry source said.

Rye grass bunt, present in both Australia and the United States, looked very similar to Karnal bunt and was being found in samples in Australia, this source said.

But this species of fungi, although closely related to Karnal bunt, was blown into the wheat, did not grow on the wheat and did not infect the wheat, he said.

Spores in samples were all within an accepted three- percent limit, meaning there was no quality impact, he said.

Australia presently enjoyed a big advantage over US wheat in not having to certify that its wheat shipments were Karnal bunt free, he added.

The Australian industry and government are adamant that the country does not have the disease and that tests of samples from the shipments in Australia, New Zealand and Britain have shown the wheat to be Karnal bunt-free.

This week the Pakistan government ruled out more tests.

An Australian agriculture department spokesman said, "We will extremely, jealously, guard...our enviable and hard-earned clean and green disease-free reputation," he said.

Courtesy Business Recorder