Montana Agroterrorism Briefing
A study by RAND Corporation researcher Peter Chalk focuses attention on the issue of agroterrorism − the deliberate introduction of a disease agent, either against livestock or into the food chain, to undermine socioeconomic stability and/or generate fear.
Chalk says the capabilities of foreign or domestic threat elements to exploit vulnerabilities in agriculture are not considerable. Despite the ease and implications of a successful attack, agroterrorism is unlikely to constitute a primary form of terrorist aggression because it lacks a single, highly visible point of focus for the media (a primary consideration in any terrorist attack).
However, disrupting the food sector could well emerge as a viable secondary modus operandi to further destabilize an already disoriented society after a conventional terrorist campaign. Being able to use cheap and unsophisticated means to undermine a state’s economic base gives this form of aggression a high cost/benefit payoff that would be very useful to groups faced with overcoming significant power asymmetries.
But, he says, terrorists can choose from a large menu of bio-agents, most of which are environmentally hardy, are not the focus of concerted livestock vaccination programs, and can be easily smuggled into the country. The food chain offers a low-tech mechanism for achieving human deaths. Many animal pathogens cannot be transmitted to humans, which makes them easier for terrorists to work with. Finally, because livestock are the primary vector for pathogenic transmission, there is no weaponization obstacle to overcome.
Chalk‘s Recommendations
Short−to medium−term recommendations include the following:
- Conducting a comprehensive needs analysis to determine appropriate investment requirements for the federal emergency management infrastructure.
- Increasing the number of state and local personnel with the skills to identify and treat exotic foreign animal diseases.
- Assessing how to foster more coordinated and standardized links between the U.S. agricultural and intelligence communities.
- Focusing attention on issues of law enforcement and the use of forensic investigations to determine whether disease outbreaks are deliberate or naturally occurring.
- Revisiting the effectiveness of the passive (voluntary) disease reporting system, especially in providing more consistency with indemnity payments to compensate farmers for destroyed livestock.
- Evaluating surveillance, internal quality control, and emergency response at food processing and packing plants to weigh the immediate costs of improving biosecurity against the long-term benefits of instituting those upgrades.
Over the longer term, additional effort should be directed toward standardizing and streamlining food-supply and agricultural safety measures within the framework of a single, integrated strategy that cuts across the missions and capabilities of federal, state, and local agencies.