Already, people are starving. Some analysts anticipate a global food crisis. But the food supply could get even leaner if a new wheat fungus lives up to its potential.

The fungus, Ug99, first discovered in Uganda in 1999, is known as African rust and is highly lethal for wheat crops. Unlike many other crop diseases that merely reduce crop yields, Ug99 can cause total crop loss.

It took Ug99 a long to time spread beyond Uganda. This year, though, Kenya and Ethiopia have reported epidemic levels of fungal infection. The disease was also recently discovered in Yemen, and now Iran. Fungus spores are spread by wind, so preventing its spread is difficult. The United Nations fears that the upcoming monsoon season could spread the fungus all the way to Southern Asia, Pakistan and India.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 65 million hectares of wheat, about a quarter of global production, is at risk.

And African rust could spread even further. Nearly two thirds of North American wheat strains would be vulnerable to the disease if it were to somehow cross the Atlantic.

Twenty percent of global calorie intake comes from wheat. Crop loss on such a major scale would lead to enormous famine. Food reserves are already at the lowest level on record, and there are global shortages of other staple foods, such as rice.

Should a wheat famine strike, bread would shoot up in price—and in some cases be unavailable. Recent rises in rice prices do not affect many Westerners nearly as much as a rise in wheat prices would, since bread is a key part of the Western diet.

Still, the developed world would not be hit anywhere near as badly as poorer nations. Nearly 50 percent of wheat production takes place in these countries. They lack the resources to fight off the fungus in the short term, or to develop resistant strains of wheat in the longer term. African rust could cause a disaster that would take years to recover from.

Bible prophecy tells us the world will soon be afflicted by devastating famine. Crop epidemics like Ug99 could do much to contribute to that crisis. To learn more about the prophesied global famine and food shortages, read The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.