Food Industry Tightens Security
Like any farmer, Duane Chamberlain has worries aplenty. The biggest right now is getting the alfalfa baled before rain hits his 5,000-acre Central Valley spread.
But shoved in a dark subconscious corner is a concern Chamberlain has just begun to confront: the unthinkable prospect that his peaceful farm, with its 550 munching Holstein cows and green fields, could become part of a new battleground in America’s war on terrorism.
“I’ve got so much ground here, there’s no way I can guard my cows,” Chamberlain said one morning as he edged his pickup out among the grazing herd. “Some nut wants to bring a disease in here, there’s not much I can do about it.”
From agricultural land to the grocery store shelf, the risk of an attack on America’s $1.3-trillion food web has never seemed greater, experts say. Across the nation, food producers are on alert, taking unprecedented steps to guard against tainted crops, sickened livestock or poisoned grocery products.
Food plants have hired extra guards. Grocery industry chiefs are talking counterterrorism. There are even worried whispers about tamper-resistant packaging for the vegetable aisle.
Given existing safeguards and the country’s new, war-level vigilance, an agroterrorism attack--targeting crops or livestock--would not be easy to pull off, experts say. But even the most optimistic concede that the nation’s vast food production and distribution network--employing 24 million people for everything from picking row crops to flipping hamburgers--remains vulnerable to some level of sabotage.
Unlike the split-second horror of a suicide hijacking, an agroterrorist attack would probably be a slow and subtle crisis designed more to unsettle consumers and the economy than to claim human casualties. As the recent rash of anthrax poisonings demonstrates, only a few deaths might whip up widespread apprehension. And although the fearful among us can avoid air travel or opening suspicious mail, we’ve all got to eat.
An attack could come in any number of scenarios. It might be a willful effort to strike California’s $3.7-billion dairy industry with foot-and-mouth disease. An assailant could attempt to contaminate supermarket produce with biological or chemical poisons. A sophisticated terrorist might try lacing farm fields with pernicious fungus that can make crops wither and die.
So far, no specific threats have been reported, and some experts question whether the criminal network of Osama bin Laden would settle for an assault so lacking in sensational pyrotechnics.
But the recent attacks demonstrated that “we can no longer assume what terrorists will and will not do,” said Peter Chalk, a Rand Corp. terrorism expert in Washington. At the very least, he added, agroterrorism may prove attractive “as a form of supplemental aggression” to undercut the nation’s economic and political stability.
Tommy Thompson, the president’s Health and Human Services secretary, made a pitch last week for more federal food inspectors. The American Farm Bureau has called for an agroterrorism expert in the new office of homeland defense. Midwestern members of Congress are pushing anti-terrorism funding. In California, Gov. Gray Davis’ anti-terrorism task force is looking at beefed-up food-chain precautions.
All across the U.S., people involved in growing and distributing our nation’s groceries are on alert as never before:
* At some low-tech packing sheds and slaughterhouses, security cameras have been installed. Food-processing plants are keeping closer watch on assembly-line workers.
* Several produce firms have increased testing for potentially lethal pathogens. Long-ignored silos are suddenly under closer scrutiny.
* Crop-dusting planes are locked down in off hours. Fertilizer and chemical sale outfits are on guard.
* California’s sprawling dairies, which stepped up biosecurity precautions amid last spring’s foot-and-mouth outbreak in Europe, remain on heightened alert.
“There’s a lot of safeguards, a lot of firewalls already built into the system,” said Kevin Herglotz, a U.S. Agriculture Department spokesman. Pulling off a successful biological attack on any segment of the food web “would be a tough task.”
The sprawling nature of the nation’s food industry in one respect would make it difficult for even a clever assailant to strike over a vast area. But that size also makes it hard to protect all the fields, packing sheds and food-loaded semitrucks.
Consider the sheer physical limitations Chamberlain faces trying to safeguard his grassy expanse in the center of California’s agricultural breadbasket.
Paved country roads ring fenced pastures, putting any motorist within reach of animals and crops. Chamberlain began locking his pastures two years ago to keep out hunters. But keeping an eye on everything, he said, is flat impossible.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) notes that at least one of the terrorists on the FBI’s most wanted list has agricultural training. Roberts, who is pushing for $1.1 billion next year to fight agroterrorism, worries that Russian stockpiles of crop- and animal-killing biowarfare agents could fall into the hands of terrorists or rogue states.
Among the agroterrorism weapons perfected by the Soviets were African swine fever, foot-and-mouth disease and anti-crop agents like wheat rust and rice blast.
Although the U.S. considers its food safety efforts among the best in the world, only 1% of all imported food and a similarly small percentage of domestically produced items are inspected each year.
“The consumer is the canary in the coal mine,” concluded Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “There are lots of gaps through which contaminated food can reach consumers, either unintentionally or intentionally.”
The Food and Drug Administration remains hamstrung by a shortage of inspectors, DeWaal said. Nationwide, there are about 750. Though high-risk crops are inspected annually, some food production plants can go five years between checks. Such operations, DeWaal said, “can go into business and fold before the FDA even inspects them.”
Congress is eyeing a proposal to add 400 inspectors, but DeWaal would like to see 10 times that number.
FDA officials say the best approach to the threat of food sabotage is front-end prevention, from surveillance to proper pasteurization and other practices.
The agency is also looking at high-tech efforts to more thoroughly ensure that food is germ-free. Among them: pulsed electronic fields, high-pressure vessels, ultrasound and ultraviolet light to more thoroughly sanitize products.
Some companies already use ozone to ensure purity of vegetables. To track the roots of illness outbreaks, health agencies are using DNA fingerprinting. There’s even help coming from on high: The Agriculture Department is looking to use satellites to detect troubles in the fields, from crop distress to insect infestations.
“There isn’t a silver bullet for everything,” said Robert Buchanan, the FDA’s food safety director. The best protection, he said, remains prevention.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture has diagnostic labs that give the state a better level of surveillance than many other parts of the country.
“We’re very well prepared for natural outbreaks,” said Jim Cullor, director of the UC Davis Veterinary Medicine Teaching and Research Center in Tulare. “But we’re trying to refocus our mind-set. Now we’ve got people who want to [harm the food supply] on purpose.”
Some experts say the industry needs to better scrutinize its work force and intensify background checks. But with the transitory nature of employment in food production, particularly in the farm fields and packing sheds, such efforts could prove impractical.
“That would be pretty darn tough,” said Jim Marderosian, who operates a 185,000-square-foot citrus packing plant near Fresno. He sees little threat from his 450 employees: “I’ve got a lot of workers with green cards who are flying the American flag these days. They’re not going to hurt anyone.”
Most safety experts say the greatest risk is probably among certain types of fresh vegetables, fruits, packaged produce like salad greens and fast-food condiments.
Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s food safety center, has “great confidence” in major food processors. He sees vulnerability, however, in smaller companies, which can lack effective quality controls and emergency plans.
But trouble can come on the farm.
The USDA lists a dozen foreign plant diseases that could result in quarantines and lost exports. There are two dozen lethal animal diseases.
In 1970, leaf blight in the U.S. destroyed about $1 billion worth of corn. Even a small outbreak could cause export restrictions. In 1996, the discovery of the fungus Karnal bunt in Arizona prompted trade restrictions on wheat.
Fortunately, biological attacks on plants--be it with a crop-destroying fungus or a pest like the Medfly--are among the most difficult to pull off. Mother Nature has built in effective defense systems.
Still, government budget cuts have shrunk the number of plant pathologists and field veterinarians. And authorities worry that some vets aren’t well trained in recognizing foreign diseases.
Animal viruses are among the biggest concerns. Tough border inspections have curbed the entry of diseases that bedeviled the rest of the globe. But experts worry that even a small amount of a virus smuggled into the country could create havoc.
In 1998, a mysterious outbreak of Newcastle disease, an avian virus, hit 48 backyard chickens in Fresno. The state spent $3 million to quell the outbreak.
Foot-and-mouth is the most dreaded threat. A study in California found that a broad outbreak could cost the state $13.5 billion. The study said strict quarantines could limit the ability of people to travel through swaths of the state.
Starting from a single infected animal, foot-and-mouth can fan out quickly. The evolution of huge dairies and feed lots--some with more than 100,000 animals--only exacerbates the potential for spread.
Economic ripples could extend far beyond the food chain. Cattle byproducts, for instance, are used for dozens of consumer items, from pharmaceuticals to paints and shaving cream.
Some experts are pressing for more rapid diagnostic tests and new stocks of emergency vaccines. In a sure sign of our troubled times, the USDA is looking to upgrade its elite animal disease center at Plum Island, N.Y., to study ways to counteract agroterrorism attacks.
Some people in agribusiness are hoping they can fly under the terrorists’ radar.
“These [assailants] are looking for the big score,” said Bill Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation. “Coming to Modesto and killing a few chickens doesn’t have much of an impact.”
Jack Pandol, a third-generation Central Valley grape grower, has seen the effect that a good food scare can have. In 1989, rumors of Chilean grapes laced with cyanide cost the industry $200 million.
If terrorists strike, Pandol doesn’t dismiss the possibility that sealed food packages might become the routine, in the same way drug marketers embraced tamper-proof containers after Tylenol was found laced with cyanide in 1982.
“These are grapes, not a bottle of pills with a safety seal,” he said. “It may become necessary down the road, but we hope not. “It’s a new world,” he added. “Unfortunately.”
