Oct. 13, 2006
Individual farmers and farm workers would bear major responsibilities in identifying and coping with an act of agriculture-based terrorism, according to agroterrorism experts.
The federal government has identified the U.S.’s 1,912,000 farms and 87,000 food-processing plants as critical components of the national infrastructure. In addition to providing food for the country’s 300 million people, agriculture is an economic boon for the states – creating $51 billion of economic activity in Wisconsin and $630 million in Washington County.
The local community would carry the burden of dealing with such an attack, from reporting it to authorities to repairing damage done.
Mike Sampson, an agroterrorism preparedness trainer from the University of California–Davis, visited West Bend on Oct. 10 for the first of two training sessions about the threat.
“If an agroterrorism event occurs it’s going to happen locally,” Sampson said. “We learned from Hurricane Katrina the federal government will not arrive immediately, nor will the state, so it’s up to the local communities.”
Targeting food supplies has been a war tactic since ancient civilizations burned fields and salted soil to destroy crops.
“One way of thinking is if you can starve your enemy that’s a pretty good way to defeat your enemy,” said county emergency management coordinator Rob Schmidt. “Everybody likes to eat so this one would really affect everybody.”
The economic impact could be disastorous to farmers who depend on the public’s trust to make a living.
Retiree Leo Dornacker said he never experienced anything suspicious in all his years as a dairy farmer, but that it was important to be prepared.
“It’s your own daily income and your own investment,” said Dornacker, who attended the conference as a member of the Farm Bureau’s board. “You just never know what’s going to happen.”
Shortly after the Food and Drug Administration issued a consumer warning about the possible E.coli contamination of freshed bag spinach, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced it had no reason to believe the outbreak was intentionally caused.
But the bumper crop of bacteria still drew attention to vulnerabilities in the food production system. Food could be targeted as it grows on farms, is processed at factory-like plants, shelved in warehouses and stores and served in restaurants, or while beign transported between those points.
In the case of the spinach, bacteria had to be traced through dozens of farms, processing and distribution plants. No foul play was evident in the spinach problem, but according to those with knowledge of the nation’s food supply it is surprising terrorists have not targeted it at some point in the production chain.
“My biggest concern: it’s such a wide open and easily accessible industry, somebody could do something nefarious on so many different levels,” Schmidt said.
Former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson remarked on the food supply system’s vulnerability at a 2004 press conference to announce his resignation as secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services.
“For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do,” Thompson said.
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security and increased security spending was initiated after the foreign-based attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and now dispenses some funds to defend against agroterrorism, but historically agroterrorism in the U.S. is a domestic issue.
Wisconsin saw several attacks during the 1990s, usually by extremist environmental groups and disgruntled farm workers.
In 1996 cow carcas was contaminated with the pesticide chlordane and sent to an animal rendering plant where it was added to feed. More than 4,000 tons of potentially contaminated animal feed was sent to 4,000 farms in four states, prompting a multimillion dollar product recall of dairy products and a $250 million loss to the feed company.
The culprit struck again in 1997 by adding the fungicide folpet to used restaurant animal grease, which was to be recycled into poultry feed. In 1999, investigators from 17 state, federal and local agencies tracked down and arrested the perpetrator, an owner of a rival feed company.
Also in the summer of 1999, Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the release of 3,000 mink from fur farms in Plymouth, and set a nearby feed mill on fire, causing $1.5 million in damage.