Agriculture is considered a “vulnerable” target when it comes to terrorism threats by enemies of the U.S.

Stephen Goldsmith, an FBI management and program analyst, and Scott Mahloch, an FBI special agent in the Milwaukee field office, warned attendees at a recent workshop that farms, agribusinesses and the food supply are all at risk of being attacked in one way or another by people with nefarious intentions. They cited the intentional introduction of contagious diseases, attacks on biotechnology research and contamination of the food supply as being among the most serious concerns.

“If it scares you, it scares me, but you have to tell my why you’re scared,” Goldsmith said during his presentation. “If you see something that looks suspicious, you need to call local authorities immediately.”

Mahloch said the FBI can’t “go it alone” when working to protect agriculture and other sectors of the economy from terrorism threats that occur every day across the country.

“We work with our subject matter experts out in the field, with the Food and Drug Administration, law enforcement, the private sector — we all have to come together to talk about the information we have available and formulate a plan for how we’re going to address it,” Mahloch said. “You play a role. Information is key.”

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Goldmith used the example of the potential for foot-and-mouth disease to be introduced in the U.S. intentionally, which would basically cripple the agricultural economy and immediately shut off food exports to other countries.

“FMD hasn’t been in this country since 1929, but if it were to be discovered here, we would lose all trade overnight,” he said.

If FMD or some other contagious disease were to be found in multiple locations with no epidemiological link, it would suggest the disease was being spread intentionally, Goldsmith said. Even if a single case of the disease is discovered, officials would have to determine if the disease was spread by dirty boots, an animal that slipped through inspection, or if it was an intentional introduction.

Attacks against agriculture are classified by the FBI as acts of agroterrorism, a subset of bioterrorism. Agroterrorism primarily targets the economy by the intentional use of biological agents that may have no direct effect on human health and are difficult to discern from a natural or accidental outbreak. The effects are the disruption of agriculture production, export markets and food security that threaten the economic stability and national security of the U.S.

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Biosecurity concerns

Goldsmith said millions of baby pigs are raised in North Carolina each year and millions of bushels of corn are grown in Iowa, and the pork industry has determined that it makes more sense to ship the pigs to Iowa for the next phase of production rather than shipping the corn to North Carolina.

“But think of the biosecurity concerns when millions of pigs are on the road at any one time,” Goldsmith said.

As a biosecurity test, a government official visited a large farm recently, walked up to a pen of cattle and threw a towel with a rock into the middle of the pen. No one on the farm noticed, and the cattle all gravitated toward the towel to see what was in it.

“Just think if that towel would have been intentionally infected with foot-and-mouth disease,” Goldsmith said. “It could be smuggled into the country through an international airport, and it could spread quickly.”

When U.S. troops were stationed in Afghanistan in 2008, they found a floor plan of the Brooklyn Bridge — meaning it was a likely target of terrorism — as well as a schematic of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. Plum Island is a federal research facility dedicated to the study of foreign animal diseases of livestock.

“It was obvious that Al-Queda was plotting against our infrastructure,” Goldsmith said.

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The biggest threats to the U.S. come from Russia, China and North Korea, Goldsmith said, along with state-sponsored terrorists in Iran. He said threats could come from lone actors, self-radicalized extremists, or insiders such as employees, service workers or maintenance people.

“One of our biggest concerns is insider threats,” he said. “They work with legitimate access to a company’s or government’s assets and can sabotage things quickly.”

Computer hackers

Another threat to agriculture comes in the form of computer hackers who threaten to steal data and then demand a ransomware payment to prevent it from being released.

Meat processor JBS paid $11 million to hackers, while in Fort Dodge, Iowa, a cybercrime cell threatened to release New Cooperative’s proprietary business data unless it paid $5.9 million. A Russian-linked hacking group claimed responsibility for the Iowa incident.

In recent years, Chinese nationals were arrested for conspiring to steal secrets of hybrid corn seed and proprietary rice seed. Situations like those prompt FBI officials to encourage early reporting to potentially mitigate or thwart the actions.

The FBI has 56 field offices, 350 satellite offices and 67 attaches in embassies around the world to deal with threats to agriculture.

Agroterrorism is classified under the umbrella of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. For more information on the program or to report a suspected incident, contact local authorities, or Mahlock at 414-489-3541 or [email protected].