Taking stockAgroterror overview
The vast dispersion of the American agriculture industry makes prevention of agroterror difficult; the best approach is a tracking and mitigation regime that prevents infection after an attack; GIS technology, matched up with RFID tags and sensors, is the most likely solution
As the attacks of 9/11 showed, terrorism is in large part theatre, so it is natural that attention of security planners should focus most immediately on threats that would satisfy terrorists’ desire for spectacle. Yet not all terrorists are like al-Qaeda, and even that group, it is fair to assume, can change its tactics and goals. At the same time, most of the technology developed in the post-9/11 world has focused on these larger threats — airplane hijacking and radiological bombs first and foremost. The result is an overemphasis on these threats to the near exclusion of others. Of these under-considered vulnerabilities, food safety tops the list.
Unlike a dirty bomb attack, which is much easier to prevent than to mitigate, agroterrorism is best approached as a problem to be stopped after the attack itself has been completed. Due to long supply and manufacturing chains, there are just too many areas of vulnerability to ensure security on the front end. Consider the milk sold in the supermarket. After being extracted from the cow — who we hope has not been in some way poisoned — a delivery truck, after making all of its rounds for the day, carries it to the production plant where it is treated and homogenized. Then it is bottled and distributed, often across state lines. Should a terrorist desire to infect the milk supply with ricin, he could do so at various points in the process. Most worrisome of all, if he poisoned the delivery truck, it would be impossible to trace the original source.
A chilling story this week from Canada provides another example. After syringe casings were repeatedly found touching meat at a plant operated by Toronto-based Maple Leaf Foods, the processing giant was forced to recall large shipments of ham and turkey products. Although no illnesses have been reported, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it suspects some meat products may have been tampered with an exposed to an ”unknown contaminant.” In the case of Maple Leaf, the contamination was easily located because the culprit left behind evidence. Yet had the casings gone unnoticed, and had illness resulted, it might have been impossible to tell whether the processing company or the original meat supplier had been at fault. Defending food lines is critical, but it is not anywhere near as easy as defending an airport.
The problems are further compounded by the vastness of
