America’s Fragile Food Supply Chain, Part V: Conclusion
Part V: What Do We Do?
This series has examined America’s fragile food supply system including an introduction and overview to the vulnerabilities in the food and agriculture sector, naturally occurring threats vs. Agroterrorism, the food production level, and the food delivery system. This final chapter of the series will wrap up the discussion, offer some solutions, and discuss the future for our food chain.
In this series vulnerabilities with the food supply and delivery chain were discussed. Points were made concerning the food delivery chain as a system
of systems and each node in the system is a point of vulnerability. The goodnews is that while the nature of this multi-faceted system offers vulnerabilities it is also what makes the system resilient. It is difficult to disrupt the entire food delivery system by exploiting one node in the system because there are a thousand other nodes just like it.
The real threat to the food and agriculture industry in the United States is the scenario of a foreign animal disease outbreak, whether naturally occurring or act of Agroterrorism, in livestock. The experts are in agreement the worst case scenario for the U.S. is a large-scale outbreak of foot-in-mouth (FMD) disease. The federal government via the USDA and APHIS have comprehensive plans in place for responding to an FMD outbreak. States like my home state of Florida also have extensive plans, protocols, and response capabilities in place for dealing with disease outbreaks. However, a review of the literature finds that vulnerabilities exist within the industry. These include lack of biosecurity practices, lack of security mindset on part of owners and producers, intensive farming practices where stockyards can have up to 30K head in close proximity, overuse of antibiotics, and a dearth of veterinarians trained in foreign animal diseases.
Some steps that could mitigate these vulnerabilities include education for F&A sector owners, producers, members, and stakeholders regarding foreign animal diseases. Requiring biosecurity measures by law including access control and mandatory short-term quarantines when new livestock are introduced to an existing herd. Increased training for vets. The best solutions going forward probably lie in technology – the future for agriculture defense.
A couple of years ago the USDA instituted the National Animal ID System as part of a national, comprehensive biosurveillance system. The purpose of the NAIS was to establish a livestock tracing system wherein all livestock would be required to be individually ear tagged with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip and registered in the national database. This
would have created the capability to trace back the source of a disease outbreak in livestock within 48 hours significantly aiding in response and containment to a potentially disastrous outbreak. Unfortunately the RFID requirement was killed off and really this was the best part of the system. With an RFID tag on a cow tied into a database an operator at a 30,000 head feedlot in Kansas could scan a cow’s ear with a handheld reader and instantly have the entire history of that animal.
There is so much more potential for using RFID technology with livestock. The key factor for determining animal health in most cases is temperature. Technology is being studied and implementedfor using RFID and wireless
sensor networks to monitor body temperature and heart rate in cattle. With this technology an operator of a feedlot or grazing pasture with hundreds or thousands of animals could be alerted electronically the moment an animal becomes sick and quickly zero right in on that specific animal.
RFID is certainly not a new technology and it is not even new in the F&A sector. RFID is commonly used in shipping for tracking commodities in transit. For several years companies have offered RFID solutions capable of tracking fresh produce from the farm to the plate as illustrated in the diagram below. In the event of a food contamination the origin of a
particular shipment could quickly be pinpointed. One of the incidents discussed in a previous chapter was the salmonella outbreak in 2008 which was originally thought to have been from Florida tomatoes, but after months of investigation and tracking back samples it was found to be from Mexican peppers. This is an example where use of cheap, readily available technology could have been used to avert $100 million in economic damage.
Other technologies include development of rapid on-site disease testing for veterinarians in testing for foreign animal diseases. There is still no good, fast, simple testing solution for a suspected FAD. The samples have to be sent to the national lab. This gap is often discussed in the literature so a
solution may be on the horizon. In the crop production sector satellites are being used to view large swaths of cropland for identifying early signs of crop disease outbreaks for more rapid intervention.
Addressing the vulnerabilities associated with a foreign animal disease outbreak such as FMD should be addressed, not just as an agriculture sector issue, but as a homeland security issue. The USDA was unsuccessful in passing rules requiring RFID tracking for all livestock, however if this were addressed as a homeland security threat perhaps there would be more traction. The consequences of an FMD outbreak would not just affect the livestock industry it would affect everyone in this country in one way, shape, or form. Consider that the economic damage resulting from the largest FMD outbreaks that have occurred in the world such as in the U.K. in 2001 and Taiwan in 1997 exceeded the damages caused by all of the world’s largest terrorist attacks with the exception of 9/11. This includes the 2005 London mass transit attacks, the 2004 Madrid train bombing, and the 2002 Bali attack. The estimates for the long-term economic damage from a widespread outbreak of FMD in the U.S. exceed even the horrendous costs resulting from 9/11.
A critical factor that makes addressing enhanced security costs in the food and agriculture sector different than any other type of homeland security spending is that in the F&A sector any spending enhances our defense against both naturally occurring and intentionally caused threats. For example with FMD any money spent to enhance security measures or response capabilities to an outbreak enhances and provides benefit from both types of causation. This differs from increasing spending on defense against airline hijackings or train bombings or active shooter threats. There are no naturally occurring hijackings or bombings so there is no other cross benefit.
A key element to understanding the vulnerabilities in the food supply chain is to maintain calm and the proper perspective. There will never be a 100% solution and we will never be able to stop all threats and all outbreaks. The way forward is to have an understanding of the systems within the food chain and the systems within those systems to be able to identify the worst of the vulnerabilities and apply reasonable mitigation solutions. America still has one of the safest food supply systems in the world. So fear not, Keep Calm and Nosh On!
Links to previous chapters in this series on America’s Fragile Food Supply Chain
Link to Part I: Introduction to Agriculture in the United States
Link to Part II: Agroterrorism vs. Naturally Occurring Threats
Link to Part III: The Food Production System
Link to Part IV: The Food Delivery System
