Agroterrorism

Summary: Agroterrorism is a term used to describe attacks on crops or livestock, rather than directly on human beings, that are designed to induce uncertainty about food safety and to cause economic damage to the agriculture industry.

US government agencies, particularly the Department of Defense, have been well attuned for decades to the dangers of biological warfare. Much of this focus, however, has been directed at the protection of military forces and installations. For those in the US commericial sector within American borders, such awareness is not as developed.

While closely related to some forms of biological warfare, agroterrorism has been treated as a separate threat. There have been no confirmed cases of agroterrorism demonstrated in the United States. Nevertheless, the US Agriculture Department and the Customs Service both identified the prospect of spreading plant and animal diseases as a distinct threat that could easily be carried out by terrorists or other groups. Government officials warned that a successful agroterrorist attack could create havoc in the agriculture industry far beyond, and long after, the exact site of an assault because of damaged public confidence in the safety of meat and plants.

"Agroterrorism" describes potential efforts to poison or destroy the food supply or agricultural production by introducing diseases affecting livestock or plants. The term gained currency after the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, which caused the Department of Agriculture and the Customs Service to increase inspections and record-keeping to protect livestock and edible plants in the United States, as well as agricultural imports, from an assault by terrorists.

In agroterrorism, the immediate aim is to infect animals or plants, which, in turn, would then harm human beings as well as undermine public confidence in the food supply. Agroterrorism differs from biological warfare, where the aim is to make a direct assault on human beings, such as spreading anthrax spores among human beings. Under most theoretical scenarios for an agroterrorist attack, perpetrators introduce an infectious disease into the food chain, particularly livestock, with the result that the disease spreads rapidly. Analysts from the Agriculture Department and elsewhere have theorized that attacks might be directed at concentrations of animals, such as cattle or swine in feedlots or concentrations of poultry in a handful of states. Such an attack could be devastating since many infectious diseases, such as hoof-and-mouth disease, have been eradicated in the United States, leaving animals without antibodies to fight against an infection.

The prospect of agroterrorism and proposals to guard against attacks gained particular political currency in agricultural regions following the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In addressing the issue, the government lists both food safety and the adverse economic impact as possible results. Economic impacts include both the value of destroyed crops or livestock and the future loss of confidence in the safety of food, which might divert consumers to other foods (for example, away from beef products in cases of infected cattle). Some studies have included lost tourism earnings in the potential cost of agroterrorism.

Antiterrorism officials site as precedents naturally-occurring outbreaks of disease. In 1983-1984, for example, an outbreak of avian influenza in Pennsylvania and surrounding states cost $63 million for federal efforts to control the disease. The incident also drove up poultry prices for consumers by an estimated $350 million. After a case of mad cow disease was found in a single cow in the United States in 2003, American meat products were banned by dozens of countries. Five years later, long after any incidence of mad cow disease in the United States, proposals to ease such a ban were an issue in a mass anti-government demonstration in Seoul. Contamination with dioxin found in chickens and animal feed in Belgium in 1999 forced the resignation of the prime minister and the banning of most Belgian livestock in Europe and Asia at a cost to the economy of $1 billion.

Agroterrorism is also relatively easy to carry out undetected. Pathogens, such as hoof-and-mouth disease, could easily be smuggled into the United States and spread by a terrorist by simply approaching animals grazing near a roadside fence. The natural spread of such diseases among herds - or even just a few animals - could have a severe impact on whole industries even without a single human being affected. Even if terrorists were apprehended, the penalties for killing animals are far less severe than for attacking human beings directly.

Countermeasures. Agroterrorist acts are extremely difficult to prove since most outbreaks could also occur naturally. Security experts have focused on four main areas to defend against agroterrorism: (1) developing resistance by plants and animals to known diseases; (2) monitoring farms, including feedlots, and animals to enable authorities to track immediately any infected animal to its origins; (3) wholesale monitoring and prevention techniques applied to whole sectors of the agriculture industry; and (4) policies designed to minimize the impact of an agroterrorist attack.

In 2005, the Agriculture Department proposed the National Animal Identification System as a means of tracing a sick animal to the farm where it originated within forty-eight hours. The system assigned a unique fifteen-digit identification for every head of cattle-or, in the cases of pigs and chickens, an ID for groups of animals - as well as an identification number for each farm where they are raised. The tags were able to be scanned so that animals could be traced each step of the way from farm to slaughterhouse. In cases of outbreaks of a contagious disease, such as "mad cow disease," the government could quickly trace a stricken animal to its origins. The program was initially proposed to be mandatory when it was to be inaugurated in 2005. The proposal engendered significant opposition in the livestock industry, partly on grounds of cost and partly on grounds that it seemed to intrude on privacy. The Agriculture Department retreated and made it voluntary.

Background

Although agroterrorism became an issue in law enforcement and in the food industry after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the term had been used before then, notably in cases of extortion or actions by groups opposed to genetically modified plants. The term is also used to describe government (including the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan) research and use of biological agents dating from World War I. The United States carried out research into biological weapons as recently as 1969. In 1972, the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, and Canada agreed to a Biological Weapons Convention that barred acquisition or use of biological weapons. The United States destroyed its stockpiles of such weapons by 1975.

During World War, II the United States, Britain, Canada, the Soviet Union, and Japan all studied the use of animal and plant diseases for offensive purposes. Since World War I, only ten instances of "agroterrorism" have been recorded:

1915-1917: German spies tried to infect draft animals intended for use by the Allied military with anthrax.

1943: A British naturalist alleged that Germany dropped cardboard bombs containing Colorado potato beetles. Other experts have challenged the assertion, claiming instead that the insect's appearance in England at the time was from natural causes.

1950: The East German government accused the United States of spreading Colorado potato beetles over its potato crops.

1952: Kenyan nationalists, the Mau Mau, poisoned thirty-three steers using a plant called African milk brush.

1962-1966: Cuba accused the United States of attacking its animal and plant populations on several occasions by spreading such diseases as Newcastle Disease (poultry), African swine fever (pigs), tobacco blue mold disease, and sugarcane rust disease. Other experts said outbreaks of these diseases were caused by natural events.

1982-1984: The Soviet Union was accused of spreading pathogens to kill horses used by anti-Soviet Mujahideen.

1983-1987: A Tamil rebel group threatened to attack the crops of Sinhalese farmers in Sri Lanka; there was no evidence that the attack was carried out.

1984: The premier of Queensland state in Australia received two threats to infect wild pigs with foot-and-mouth disease unless prison reforms were implemented. One writer was later identified as a convicted murderer in prison; the second threat was not identified.

1996-1997: Cuba alleged that the United States used a crop duster airplane to spread the insect thrips palmi on Cuban fields. An investigation by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention into the complaint found the evidence to be inconclusive.

2000: Palestinians accused Israeli settlers of releasing sewer water into agricultural fields as a means of forcing Palestinian farmers off their land on the West Bank.

The US. federal government's responsibility for inspections to assure food safety dates from the early twentieth century. During the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act established the principle of government oversight. Until 2001, the principal focus of government food inspection programs was the detection of naturally occurring diseases. After the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, the focus came to include the deliberate introduction of chemical or biological agents into the food supply as a weapon of terror. Agroterrorism remained a threat in the twenty-first century, with experts claiming that while it may not be a terrorist weapon of choice, the impact of an agroterrorist attack would have far-reaching implications and could affect millions of individuals.

Bioterrorism Efforts in the 2020s: Prior to 9/11, the sparse number of bioterrorism efforts that existed were uncoordinated. Shortly after the attacks and the stand-up of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), security oversight for the bioterrorism mission fell under the overall purview of DHS. This is a shared responsibility as other agencies also have a part in this mission. These include organizations such as the following:

• US Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
• US Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

DHS routinely enters into partnerships with academic organizations to provide solutions to this national security threat. In 2024, one such effort involved Texas A&M University (TAMU). DHS commissioned TAMU to investigate potential threats to America's agricultural food supply chains from cross-border threats. TAMU's investigative project sought to identify different aspects of agricultural security, the impacts of threats, and the development of data bases to further research.

Bibliography

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