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Abstract
[...]the five most important calorie crops - rice, wheat, maize (corn), soya beans and potatoes - can be affected by rice blast fungus, wheat stem rust, corn smut, soybean rust and potato late blight disease (caused by a water mould oomycete), respectively. Together, the azoles, the strobilurins and the succinate dehydrogenase inhibitors (all of which are single-target-site antifungals) comprise more than 77% of the global fungicide market10. [...]between 2021 and 2028, the market for fungicides is projected to grow by around 4.9% per year - largely thanks to increasing use in low-income countries. [...]since the 1990s, fungal pathogens have been moving polewards at around 7 km per year4. Harmless endophytic fungi could become pathogenic as plants change their physiologies in response to environmental stresses11, which has been demonstrated in studies of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana12. [...]tolerance to higher temperatures in fungi could increase the likelihood of opportunistic soil-dwelling pathogens hopping hosts, and becoming pathogenic in animals or humans13.