A new worry on your plate: agroterrorism - www.philly.com

[Guest guest]

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/15274474.htm

 

A new worry on your plate: agroterrorism

 

Representatives of area agencies learn at an exercise how vulnerable our

food supply is. They looked at the milk-supply chain.

By Harold Brubaker

Inquirer Staff Writer

 

A day before the world learned that containers of liquids might be used

by terrorists as weapons, a group of Philadelphia-area security experts

were learning about the terrorist threat to milk.

 

The "agroterrorism" exercise organized by St. Joseph's University gave

representatives from law enforcement, public-health agencies, emergency

management, and business a "cow-to-carton" demonstration "of how

vulnerable our food is," said Bob Tucker, an inspector with the

Philadelphia Police Department's counterterrorism division.

 

"There's no way to eliminate all the vulnerabilities" on a farm, said

Paul L. DeVito, a psychology professor at St. Joseph's University who

helped design the program. "It's just too wide open."

 

For example, the Penn View Farm in Perkasie, a Bucks County dairy that

bottles its own milk and was a stop on the tour, has little security. It

is the same at most dairy farms.

 

Employee Rich Wendig said a list of the ways to harm the farm, such as

contaminating the 800-gallon raw-milk tank or poisoning the farm's three

wells, would probably run 3-1/2 pages, "and there's not much you can do

about any of them."

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said weaknesses in the milk-supply

chain include easy access to bulk tanks where raw milk is stored on

farms, lack of detailed employee background checks, and the absence of

seals and locks on tanker trucks.

 

The FDA has offered guidelines for fixing those problems, such as

locking the milk house and tagging tanker trucks between farms to detect

tampering, but they are not required.

 

More broadly, the federal government has boosted defenses against

attacks on agriculture and food, mainly in the Public Health Security

and Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2002.

 

That law expanded the authority of the FDA over food manufacturing and

imports, tightened controls over biological agents and toxins, and

required better supply-chain records from food companies.

 

And in January 2004, President Bush directed a large number of federal

agencies to coordinate their efforts against agroterrorism.

 

Even so, in December 2004, outgoing Secretary of Health and Human

Services Tommy Thompson alarmed some by saying he did not understand

"why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so

easy to do."

 

Since then, the issue of agroterrorism has fallen off the public radar,

likely because concrete threats have not materialized - or at least have

not been publicized. Government agencies continue to move ahead with

plans, albeit slowly. For example, the Department of Homeland Security

said last week that it had whittled the list of potential sites for a

proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility down to 18 from 29.

 

The biggest security crackdowns in agriculture have come against avian

influenza in the poultry industry.

 

Experts remain concerned. "I don't think the risk has really gone down

much," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center

for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group in Washington.

 

The large number of government agencies - federal, state and local -

involved and the openness of farming, with cattle often right next to

roads, make it difficult to quickly put measures in place to secure the

food system.

 

"You can't expect a dairy farmer to wall up his farm," said Tom Kennedy,

director of the M.B.A. program at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown.

Kennedy led the tour last week from Delaware Valley's dairy farm on its

Doylestown campus to Penn View and then to the Acme in Doylestown.

 

The first phase of the St. Joe's training program, funded by the

Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, required participants to

complete eight Web-based courses on aspects of food security.

 

The second phase was a "tabletop" exercise last month at St. Joe's.

Participants from law enforcement, public-health agencies, and business

sat at separate tables and worked through a response to a

milk-contamination incident.

 

The goal was to get the different groups, each with its own emergency

procedures, to talk to one another. Eventually they did, talking, for

example, about how to handle criminal evidence that is also a health

hazard, participants said.

 

The produce industry is also working on responses to terrorist attacks.

In May, there was an agroterrorism exercise in California involving

bagged salad, said Kathy Means, spokeswoman for the Produce Marketing

Association in Newark, Del.

 

Industry can take significant steps to reduce risk, Means said, but

completely securing the food supply is impossible. "That would lead us

to have no food or food that is so expensive that no one could afford to

eat it," she said.

Contact staff writer Harold Brubaker at 215-854-4651 or

hbrubaker (AT) phillynews (DOT) com.

[Guest guest]

Highlights the inherent problems of centralization. Contaminate one farm -->

damage thousands of people. If everyone grows their own food any attack

would only affect that farm. So why would anyone bother?

 

On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 19:03 -0400, Pandu (das) BMS (Gita Nagari, PA - US) <

Pandu.BMS (AT) pamho (DOT) net> wrote:

>

> http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/15274474.htm

>

> A new worry on your plate: agroterrorism

>

> Representatives of area agencies learn at an exercise how vulnerable our

> food supply is. They looked at the milk-supply chain.

> By Harold Brubaker

> Inquirer Staff Writer

>

> A day before the world learned that containers of liquids might be used

> by terrorists as weapons, a group of Philadelphia-area security experts

> were learning about the terrorist threat to milk.

>

> The "agroterrorism" exercise organized by St. Joseph's University gave

> representatives from law enforcement, public-health agencies, emergency

> management, and business a "cow-to-carton" demonstration "of how

> vulnerable our food is," said Bob Tucker, an inspector with the

> Philadelphia Police Department's counterterrorism division.

>

> "There's no way to eliminate all the vulnerabilities" on a farm, said

> Paul L. DeVito, a psychology professor at St. Joseph's University who

> helped design the program. "It's just too wide open."

>

> For example, the Penn View Farm in Perkasie, a Bucks County dairy that

> bottles its own milk and was a stop on the tour, has little security. It

> is the same at most dairy farms.

>

> Employee Rich Wendig said a list of the ways to harm the farm, such as

> contaminating the 800-gallon raw-milk tank or poisoning the farm's three

> wells, would probably run 3-1/2 pages, "and there's not much you can do

> about any of them."

>

> The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said weaknesses in the milk-supply

> chain include easy access to bulk tanks where raw milk is stored on

> farms, lack of detailed employee background checks, and the absence of

> seals and locks on tanker trucks.

>

> The FDA has offered guidelines for fixing those problems, such as

> locking the milk house and tagging tanker trucks between farms to detect

> tampering, but they are not required.

>

> More broadly, the federal government has boosted defenses against

> attacks on agriculture and food, mainly in the Public Health Security

> and Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2002.

>

> That law expanded the authority of the FDA over food manufacturing and

> imports, tightened controls over biological agents and toxins, and

> required better supply-chain records from food companies.

>

> And in January 2004, President Bush directed a large number of federal

> agencies to coordinate their efforts against agroterrorism.

>

> Even so, in December 2004, outgoing Secretary of Health and Human

> Services Tommy Thompson alarmed some by saying he did not understand

> "why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so

> easy to do."

>

> Since then, the issue of agroterrorism has fallen off the public radar,

> likely because concrete threats have not materialized - or at least have

> not been publicized. Government agencies continue to move ahead with

> plans, albeit slowly. For example, the Department of Homeland Security

> said last week that it had whittled the list of potential sites for a

> proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility down to 18 from 29.

>

> The biggest security crackdowns in agriculture have come against avian

> influenza in the poultry industry.

>

> Experts remain concerned. "I don't think the risk has really gone down

> much," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center

> for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group in Washington.

>

> The large number of government agencies - federal, state and local -

> involved and the openness of farming, with cattle often right next to

> roads, make it difficult to quickly put measures in place to secure the

> food system.

>

> "You can't expect a dairy farmer to wall up his farm," said Tom Kennedy,

> director of the M.B.A. program at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown.

> Kennedy led the tour last week from Delaware Valley's dairy farm on its

> Doylestown campus to Penn View and then to the Acme in Doylestown.

>

> The first phase of the St. Joe's training program, funded by the

> Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, required participants to

> complete eight Web-based courses on aspects of food security.

>

> The second phase was a "tabletop" exercise last month at St. Joe's.

> Participants from law enforcement, public-health agencies, and business

> sat at separate tables and worked through a response to a

> milk-contamination incident.

>

> The goal was to get the different groups, each with its own emergency

> procedures, to talk to one another. Eventually they did, talking, for

> example, about how to handle criminal evidence that is also a health

> hazard, participants said.

>

> The produce industry is also working on responses to terrorist attacks.

> In May, there was an agroterrorism exercise in California involving

> bagged salad, said Kathy Means, spokeswoman for the Produce Marketing

> Association in Newark, Del.

>

> Industry can take significant steps to reduce risk, Means said, but

> completely securing the food supply is impossible. "That would lead us

> to have no food or food that is so expensive that no one could afford to

> eat it," she said.

> Contact staff writer Harold Brubaker at 215-854-4651 or

> hbrubaker (AT) phillynews (DOT) com.

>

>

>

>

>

>

>