Agro Terrorism: A Global Perspective

The global food supply chain remains a significant target for those who want to cause fear, harm or destruction to our sustenance of life and liberty. When naturally-occurring animal outbreaks, such as foot and mouth disease, avian influenza, chronic waste disease, swine flu, or the many animal and crop diseases and pathogens are added to the list of potential security concerns and threats, biosecurity and bioterrorism assume a greater significance in a nation’s effort to effectively secure their homeland. Information and intelligence gathering, policy decisions, target hardening, and resource allocation become linchpins for effective homeland security. This paper discusses global agricultural security risks within the milieu of agro terrorism as a threat to biosecurity. It briefly presents the disease agents which potentially undermine public health and social, political or economic stability of given regions throughout the globe, threaten a society’s confidence in their government, disrupt the food supply chain, or create fear and panic. Finally, the effect of various outbreaks and attacks are presented as case illustrations.