Agriculture industry starved for ways to reduce terrorism targets

The war against terrorism may be focused mostly in the Middle East, but people also should pay attention closer to home — especially to the U.S. agriculture industry, according to Dr. Jerry R. Gillespie, director of the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security. There is a huge exposure to bioterrorism through America’s agricultural system that, if attacked, would cause “economic and emotional upheaval,” he said.

The United States largely is a net importer of food, and less than 20 percent of food that is imported is inspected because of a lack of resources, Gillespie noted.

“Our agriculture system is probably more shaky than most of the public really knows,” he said. “Destroy the agriculture infrastructure and you can’t produce food. You could put something noxious in the food that causes death or illness … just say you did something and it will bring the industry to its knees.”

Agroterrorism, Gillespie said, is an international criminal act perpetrated on some segment of the agriculture industry and/or the food system, intended to inflict harm through a public health crisis or economic disruption, and to achieve the objectives of the terrorist. Many different plant or animal pathogens can cause damage or loss of production, he said. Food and water can carry diseases, poisons and toxins to people, causing illness or death.

Agroterrorism can cause:

• Consumer illness or death;
• Economic loss to the industry (community, state and nation);
• Undermined confidence in government;
• Fear within the population; and
• A collapse of the food systems.

The U.S. food system is attractive to terrorists because the country is dependent on the agriculture industry to keep itself safe, Gillespie said, but America lacks adequate resources to secure the food system. In California alone, “the state is so overwhelmed with Medicare and other issues, that food safety is way down on the list,” he said.

“For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do,” he added, quoting Tommy Thompson, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “The idea that grocery stores are not vulnerable to mischief is just nuts,” Gillespie said. “An attack might only affect 50 people in New York, but don’t think that it doesn’t have the potential to destabilize the entire agricultural system. All agroterrorism will cause significant psychological impact.”

An economic and emotional toll
For example, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) wiped out Great Britain’s tourism industry, Gillespie said. During the two and a half years the disease forced farmers to destroy their cattle, the country’s suicide rate increased 17 percent, he said.

Another virus that could have equally damaging effects is foot and mouth disease, a viral infection that affects cloven hoofed animals, Gillespie said.

To prevent the virus from spreading, farms that have animals with the disease would need to be isolated, and the infected livestock would be slaughtered, burned or buried. The University of California-Davis estimates that the cost of the disease in California would range from $4.3 billion to $13.5 billion.

“Can you imagine going up Highway 99 or I-5 [and seeing thousands of burning cattle?” Gillespie asked. “You think there’d be a ruckus? If you have to put cattle down by burning them, the air and water quality people won’t be happy. It’ll have an emotional toll.”

Furthermore, isolating farms is becoming unrealistic because of the size of farms, Gillespie added. “Kansas says it would be lucky to stop the disease at the border,” he said. Well over half of the United States has expanding populations of wild pigs. “If the disease were to reach the wild boar population, the idea of killing off all of the cattle would be futile.”

Agroterrorists also could strike food processing or storage systems. “Dairies are very vulnerable,” Gillespie explained.

Dairies have large storage tanks, each holding about 8,000 gallons of milk. A vial of botulinum toxin that could fit in a person’s hand would be enough to contaminate one tank, he said. “At that dose, the milk delivery would provide more than 1.2 million lethal doses.”

According to Gillespie, California produces 20 percent of the milk for the entire country, and most milk rooms are unlocked.

Complicating the issue of unsecure food systems, he said, is the fact that 40 to 80 percent of the farm work force are immigrant laborers who don’t speak English. “The Department of Homeland Security trains in English,” Gillespie said.

Of the 1.6 million agricultural work force nationwide, more than half are not legally authorized to work in the United States. “If you’re an illegal immigrant and see something not right, are you likely to stop and report an intruder?” Gillespie asked. He recommended the agriculture industry reach out to its labor pool, train workers, and encourage them to tell someone if they see something amiss.

Appropriate response
To help train workers and combat agroterrorism, WIFSS has developed a preparedness curriculum. The program covers understanding dangers; team preparation and prevention; national incident management and risk communication; detection and diagnosis strategies and technologies; and response and recovery.

Key to an anti-agroterrorism strategy is developing front-line responders, Gillespie said. That group should include community members who will play a vital role in prevention and/or response to an agroterrorism event, local emergency teams (i.e. police, fire) who will be called in to assist with an emergency, and food and agriculture industry representatives, both the private and public sectors.

“Local political leadership and designated agencies need to understand what agroterrorism in food looks like,” Gillespie said. “Designated communications authorities and agencies need a lot of education. Then there are local emergency teams, the agriculture and food sector, and local public health groups.” The insurance industry should be at the table “because [its members] understand risk.” Finally, it’s important to “sustain the team” so that knowledgeable people can train and help others in the industry, he said.

“There’s no one paying people in agriculture to get trained like firemen,” Gillespie said.

Gillespie was an instructor at the Insurance Skills Center’s 19th Annual Agribusiness Conference.

Topics California Catastrophe USA Natural Disasters Agribusiness