GUATEMALA CITY–Guatemala's pres­i­dent de­clared a na­tion­al emer­gency Fri­day over the spread of cof­fee rust, say­ing the fun­gus that has hit oth­er Cen­tral Amer­i­can coun­tries is af­fect­ing 70 per cent of this na­tion's crop.

Pres­i­dent Ot­to Moli­na Perez or­dered the re­lease of more than US$14 mil­lion to aid cof­fee grow­ers. He said the funds would help 60,000 small farm­ers buy pes­ti­cides and al­so fi­nance in­struc­tion to teach them how to pre­vent the dis­ease and stop it from spread­ing. "If we don't take the need­ed mea­sures, in 2013-2014 our pro­duc­tion could drop by 40 per cent," Moli­na said in mak­ing his coun­try the third in the re­gion to de­cree emer­gen­cies in re­cent weeks.

Cof­fee rust, which can kill plants by with­er­ing their leaves, al­so is af­fect­ing plan­ta­tions in El Sal­vador, Hon­duras, Pana­ma and Cos­ta Ri­ca. Mex­i­co's agri­cul­ture au­thor­i­ties said the fun­gus has been de­tect­ed there but so far has not dam­aged plants.Moli­na said the pes­ti­cides will start be­ing ap­plied to cof­fee plants in April and two more ap­pli­ca­tions will be need­ed dur­ing the year.

AP