WASHINGTON, July 27 (UPI) -- The United States Department of Agriculture has announced an initiative to collaborate with other all level government agencies and private businesses to protect the nation's food supply from terrorism.
Jeremy Stump, the USDA's homeland security director, said Tuesdfay that the USDA was in a unique position to coordinate this type of initiative within the federal government.
"Our technical expertise is going to be a great attribute to us as we work with our federal partners in fulfilling this initiative," he told United Press International.
Other agencies participating in the project, the Strategic Partnership Program Agroterrorism Initiative, include the Department of Homeland Security, the FDA and the FBI.
Stump told UPI that each agency provides crucial expertise on some point of the security of food supply chain, making cooperation between them a vital part of the endeavor.
"This is from farm to fork; we want to make sure that it run the spectrum of the food continuum," Stump told UPI. He added "The goal is to make sure that we are doing as much as we can to provide the protection of this sector from an intentional act ... this improves the coordination that I think a lot of folks are looking to us to provide."
The USDA's announcement notes that this program is the second major collaboration on agrosecurity between these agencies. The first was an International Symposium for Agrosecurity hosted by the FBI with the support of the USDA, FDA and DHS.
Several research institutions have joined the Department of Homeland Security to run the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, which aims to coordinate efforts in government, academia and the private sector to secure the food supply chain.
"If one gets down to calculating how significant a terrorist act would be against the food system it is quite unnerving," Dr. Frank Busta, the Director of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense said.
The Center has been running for a year and funded by grants from the Department of Homeland Security. It has a budget of $5 million a year for three years, said Busta. Operations are based at the University of Minnesota, although eight other research teams and 25 projects are involved.
Busta's work at the Center involves research projects ranging from detecting biological and chemical agents in food processing facilities to decontaminating areas that have been exposed to these agents, to working with private companies -- such as 3M and McDonald's -- to identify vulnerable points on the food supply chain.
The agriculture industry, says Busta, is a soft target, meaning that unlike a military facility or well-surveilled building or monument, it is relatively unguarded. His overall goal for the center's research, he said, is "make the food system an unattractive target."
Trent Wakenight is an education coordinator at Michigan State University, one of the center's partner organizations. "We recognize that while we do have one of the safest food supplies in the world, we also recognize that at various points along the supply chain there are areas of concern, from the farm environment through processing through retain and through transportation," he told United Press International.
"We know that any food product will change hands many numbers of times and go through many different channels before it ever ends up at our dinner plates. Our concern with the educational component is providing the knowledge and skills so that those operating at all the different points along the food supply chain are equipped with what they need to keep the food supply protected," he said.
Most organizations involved in the project were reluctant to describe specific scenarios in which a terrorist could affect an element of the food supply. Busta said, however, that food products which are not cooked right before eating, or that have a short shelf life and were therefore difficult to track and recall were particularly vulnerable to tampering. A situation in which a terrorist used a crop duster to spread biological or chemical agents would probably be more dangerous to the perpetrator than the victims, he said.
Local governments will be carrying out many of the initiative's plans for raising awareness among food producers.
Carl Stafford, a cooperative extension agent for Culpepper County, Va., works with federal agencies and state universities in Virginia to raise farmers' awareness of potential security threats. Through direct mailing and education meetings, Stafford's department urges farmers to have "heightened awareness about people visiting, that animals are where they're supposed to be, that feed supplies are secured, that pesticides are secured," he said.
Stafford's outreach efforts are mainly directed towards preventing animal-borne illnesses. But these diseases, he says, are as much as much of a security risk as a public health issues because of the widespread economic effects of agricultural problems.
Wakenight pointed out that 18 percent of the workforce is involved in handling food, and that raising their awareness about preventing agroterrorism would be a difficult but vital task.
"One of the greatest weapons against terrorism is an educated mind, and we know that building that educational capability, building that expertise is one way of combating potential threats to our food supply," said Wakenight.
