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The assets of the sector are important to a mixture of the government and private industry. It is important to the private industry as the industry owns that largest portion of the sector and disruption of the sector affects the revenues of the private industry. It is important to the government as it significantly contributes to the performance of the American economy and public health. The subsectors in this sector are agricultural and food processing product distribution, supply, regulatory, oversight and industry organizations, agricultural and food supporting facilities, agricultural and food product storage, agricultural food product transportation, and processing, packaging and production.

Criticality of the Sector

This sector is a critical asset as the interruption of its operations has the potential to adversely affect the United States economy and public health. In addition, the sector contributes to approximately 20 percent of the United States economic activities. The sector is a critical asset to the United States as a fifth of the American agricultural products is exported to other countries which contribute to the growth of the economy and in creating a positive trade balance. For instance, exportation of agricultural products created a positive trade balance of approximately $40 billion in 2013 (Department of Homeland Security, 2015). The sector is important to the economy of the nation as it employs thousands of American citizens who work in stores selling groceries, restaurants, supermarkets, institutional food selling facilities and other food outlets. The sector also has a positive contribution to the humanitarian actions in the world and significantly plays a role on food security as the country provides food aid during disasters and to poverty-stricken areas around the world.

The consequences of disruption to the food and agricultural sector are that it would negatively affect the activities and performance of the United States economy and lead to the closure of food outlets in the country leading to loss of jobs to the citizens working in these sectors. Interruptions of the sector would also affect the quantity of food reserves for humanitarian activities in the world, and negatively global food security.

Sector Risks

The risks that threaten the disruption of the Food and Agricultural sector are accidental and intentional food contamination, diseases and pests, and severe weather and climate. Food contamination is a risk to the operations of the sector as it leads to illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths costing the economy billions of dollars for medical care, lost productivity and deaths. Contamination causes disruption by making food products unfit for human consumption, causes public panic, leads to a public health crisis, and causes economic losses to the supply chain of the implicated foodstuffs. The sector can also be disrupted by an attack on a critical transportation or energy node.

Crops and animals are highly affected by diseases and pests, which reduces food production in the country. The interstate movement of animals and products increases the spread of disease. Outbreaks of animal disease cost the nation billions of dollars and disrupt the sector by causing loss of livestock, production, and revenue earned from international trade.

Severe weather includes droughts, floods, and climate variability, which are natural hazards and significantly influences the production of food. Severe weather causes a significant risk to the sector due to the sector’s high dependence on climate and because weather affects the health of plants and animals impacting their production levels. Severe weather and climatic change are causing changes in crop and livestock development.

Partnerships

The security and resilience of the sector are undertaken through a partnership effort between all levels of government and the critical infrastructure owners and operators. The governmental and non-governmental homeland security programs for this sector are those undertaken by the USDA and FDA. The responsibilities of the USDA include ensuring the health of plants and animals and the safety, correct packaging and labeling of the processed poultry, meat, and egg products. These programs assess, plan and mitigate threats through undertaking research in contemporary crop technology, animal and plant health protection, and human nutrition to ensure an increase in crop yield with minimal resources.

The governmental and non-governmental programs for disaster mitigation and management for this sector are identifying and assessing current and future threats to the nation’s information infrastructure, consolidating data from surveillance systems to detect biological events that affect agriculture and food and working directly with responders and component partners across the nation.

The local, regional and national partners represent the owners and operations in the sector and collaborate with the SSA to discuss security and resilience initiatives, and provide technical expertise. The international partners manage initiatives to enhance plant and animal health, food safety, food defense, and soil and water management.

OPSEC

Operational security is an analytical process used to ensure that the adversaries do not get access to information that could compromise the secrecy of the information or the process of identifying and protecting critical information that would be used by adversaries to gain an advantage.

The countermeasures to OPSEC issues to the food and agricultural sector are actions to avoid and reduce contamination in agriculture. The countermeasures are meant to counteract the presence of radionuclides in farmed areas and reducing radiation dose in the food chain. Other countermeasures include vaccine development, disease, and pest surveillance, development of disease-resistant crops, and rapid development. These countermeasures reduce the appeal of food and agriculture as a target.

References Department of Homeland Security. (2015). Food and Agricutural Sector-Specific Plan 2015. Retrieved from https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/nipp-ssp-food-ag-2015-508.pdf Homeland Security. (n.d.). Infrastructure Security. Retrieved from department of homeland security: https://www.dhs.gov/topic/critical-infrastructure-security