SYDNEY (March 12 2004): Prime Minister John Howard wrote to President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday in an effort to resolve a potentially costly dispute over Islamabad's rejection of an Australian wheat shipment.

The Australian leader asked President Musharraf to have a third country test the US $23 million consignment of wheat, which Pakistan claims is carrying the fungus karnal bunt and unfit for human consumption, Howard's office said.

Australia disputes the Pakistani claim and fears the incident will undermine its 3.5-billion-dollar per year wheat export industry. Half of Australia's 10 biggest wheat markets bar imports from countries that have karnal bunt.

Pakistan initially rejected the shipment two weeks ago after local health authorities said they detected karnal bunt in the grain.

The karnal bunt fungus imparts a fishy smell to wheat that makes it unfit for human consumption.

Islamabad announced late on Wednesday that a second test carried out by scientists had confirmed that finding and a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali endorsed the rejection of the shipment.

Australian Agriculture Minister Warren Truss and Trade Minister Mark Vaile said on Thursday that Australian scientists had been present at both testing and disputed the claim of karnal bunt contamination.

Australia says it has never had the fungus, which is widespread in India and also found in other grain growing countries.

"Australian scientists participating in the re-testing in Islamabad dispute the reported interpretation of the Pakistani scientists," Truss and Vaile said in a statement.

"Testing already carried out in Australia, New Zealand and the UK has not detected karnal bunt in the consignment," they said.

In his letter, Howard reaffirmed Australia's demand that the wheat be tested again by a third country, preferably the US or Britain, using sophisticated DNA technology.

Earlier this week Vaile declined to comment on suggestions that Pakistan rejected the shipment because it has harvested a wheat crop large enough for its domestic needs and no longer needs foreign grain.

Courtesy Daily Business Recorder