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Studies in Conflict & Terrorism

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Current Trends in Agroterrorism (Antilivestock, Anticrop, and Antisoil Bioagricultural Terrorism) and Their Potential Impact on Food Security

Joseph W. Foxell Jr

To cite this article: Joseph W. Foxell Jr (2001) Current Trends in Agroterrorism (Antilivestock, Anticrop, and Antisoil Bioagricultural Terrorism) and Their Potential Impact on Food Security, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 24:2, 107-129, DOI: 10.1080/10576100151101623

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10576100151101623

Published online: 06 Aug 2010.

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Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 24:107–129, 2001 Copyright © 2001 Taylor & Francis 1057-610X/01 $12.00 + .00

Current Trends in Agroterrorism (Antilivestock, Anticrop, and Antisoil Bioagricultural Terrorism)

and Their Potential Impact on Food Security

JOSEPH W. FOXELL, JR.

College of Staten Island New York, NY, USA

The relatively indirect and indiscriminate nature of an agroterror attack meshes perfectly with the perceived shift in terrorism goals, which have ostensibly veered away from attempting to achieve specific political results and instead increasingly seek the destruction of “enemy” societies. This article presents the case specifically that access to agroterroritst weapons, the vulnerability of the agricultural infra- structure, the lack of reporting requirements for outbreaks of plant diseases, and a general shift in the motives of terrorists and the purpose of terrorist acts, all com- bine to make agroterrorism an increasingly likely threat.

Agroterror’s Threat to the Security of the Food Supply

One threat that terrorism currently presents, and that has been seriously underrated until only very recently, is the potential for agroterrorism (i.e., attacks on a society’s agri- cultural infrastructure). Such attacks could be accomplished by concentrated viral, ento- mophilous (spread by pollinating insects), botanical, or bacteriological germ warfare– style assaults against U.S. poultry, livestock, agricultural produce, animal feed, and cereal grain crops. This has happened once before in U.S. history—but on a very mundane level. During World War I, Imperial Germany undertook a covert program of bioagricultural warfare, using anthrax and glanders, directed against horses and mules being shipped overseas from America to British and French armies. The program was operated in the United States from 1915 to 1917 by Anton Dilger, an American-born graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School. Dilger had brought cultures of these two animal diseases with him on a return trip from Berlin, and grew them in an improvised bacteriology laboratory in his suburban Washington, D.C. dwelling. He then carried out a series of agroterrorist attacks in Baltimore against shipments of draft animals heading for U.S. allies in Europe. The animal victims were pricked with contaminated needles to start a round of infection that then spread through the herd via natural means (e.g., fecal matter, coughing, or na sal disc harges). M ore than 3,500 horses w e re infec te d a nd re nde red

Received 30 March 2000; accepted 7 July 2000. Address correspondence to Joseph W. Foxell, Jr., Ph.D., 41 Tanner Drive, Princeton, NJ

08540-9488, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

108 J. W. Foxell, Jr.

useless for wartime service. Other German agents used similar agroterrorist techniques to introduce anthrax and glanders into French cavalry horses, Romanian sheep, and Argen- tinean livestock earmarked for use by Allied forces. A modern day agroterrorist might just as easily use fumonosin, a mycotoxin (poisonous substance produced by fungi or molds on agricultural crops)1 that causes liver and brain damage in horses, or a wide range of lesser known pathogens (infectious or toxin-forming microorganisms causing disease).

In light of the ease with which Dilger’s scheme was accomplished, as well as sun- dry other theoretical and practical examples, an exponential growth in terrorism’s poten- tial for mass-scale, economically motivated violence may soon occur, as terror groups of all stripes come within striking distance of obtaining some form of agroterrorism capa- bility that will threaten U.S. food security. For purposes of this work, food security means the ready availability of nutritious, adequate, and safe food, without having to resort to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other desperate strategies. Agroterrorism is defined as the intentional introduction of animal or plant pests or the cultivation or production of pathogenic bacteria, fungi, parasites, protozoans, viruses, or their toxic products for the purposes of causing poultry, livestock, crop, soil, or human disease, poisoning, or death. This could occur through introducing pests intended to kill food crops, spreading a virulent disease among confined feedlots where animals are given high protein rations to prepare them for slaughter, poisoning civil or agricultural water sources or food supplies, or using food-borne pathogens to cause human disease. Food-borne pathogens are microorganisms that cause illness through the ingestion of food. The most frequently occurring are: salmonella, staphylococcus aureus, campylobacter jejuni, yersinia enerocolitica, listeria monocytogenes, vibrio cholerae non-01, vibrio para- hemolyticus, bacillus cereus, escherichia coli—enteropathenogenic, and shigella. These pathogens are most often found in contaminated meat, poultry, shell eggs, dairy prod- ucts, and seafood.

Access to Weapons

Worryingly, exposure might increase after the first few agroterrorist incidents, as copy- cats discover that agricultural terrorism entails minimal startup effort and is relatively simple to carry out. Source materials for agroterrorism are easy to come by as a wide range of plant and animal infective agents occur naturally on farms or in the wild. In addition, because many animal pathogens are contagious, very little agent is needed to infect large numbers of livestock. The close feeding and watering conditions characteris- tic of modern farms would help spread the illness via physical contact, fecal shedding, offal (blood, bone, feathers, or fat), or water or feeding trough contamination. Agroterrorism is attractive to enemies of the U.S. because agricultural agents are easier to prepare than biological weapons. Making them can be as simple as storing wetted vegetable matter in a dark place—a technique used to produce emergency medicinal supplies of Clostridium botulinum.

Potential Effects

Norman Schaad of the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Foreign Disease/Weed Science Research Unit at Fort Detrick, Maryland states that “plant pathogens are much easier to use than other weapons of mass destruction, and they would cause more dam- age to the food supply and the economy.”2 Paul Rogers, a British agroterrorism expert, argues that the victims of such an attack “could well experience famine that would be at

Current Trends in Agroterrorism 109

least as costly, in human terms, as an anthrax attack on a city.”3 In situations of long- term impact (i.e., induced food scarcity) where nutritional levels had already severely declined, the population would become increasingly susceptible to outbreaks of un- related diseases, as their immune systems’ resistances were correspondingly lowered. Worse, the directions for finding or culturing these pathogens have been—and are still being—published on the Internet, potentially allowing even the tiniest, most obscure group to mount an economically devastating agroterrorist assault against this country’s national infrastructure for food security. According to Dr. Glenn McGee, a biologist as well as a computer security expert, insecurities in the Internet itself allow the possi- bility of “viral hacking,” wherein would-be agroterrorists no longer need “to find a tiny sample of smallpox [or bioagricultural pathogens on the open, gray, or black markets], when, as hackers, they can synthesize it from scratch on a $1,000 iMac connected to a $10,000 gene synthesizer.”4 Dr. McGee argues that “if viruses can be manipulated and created by genetic engineering technology, their genetic codes can also be e-mailed around the world, as well as built from innocuous lab materials using the same tech- nology.”5

Equally worrisome is the fact that the physical resources (i.e., laboratory facilities, calibrated condensing vessels, pre-set gauges, specialty apparatuses, freeze dryers, mill- ing machines, centrifuges, micro-fine air filters, and fermentation tanks) needed for manu- facturing such bioagricultural weapons agents are readily available to almost everyone in the scientific, pharmaceutical, and agribusiness communities. Worse, large amounts of many types of antilivestock, anticrop, and antisoil bioagricultural agents can be made in high-school science laboratories, often within a period of hours or days. Even an abandoned brewery or dairy will do. Former Central Intelligence Agency director Will- iam Webster has assessed this risk in the following way: “The equipment, materials, and expertise needed to produce genetically altered bioagricultural agents all have legitimate uses in the botanical, pharmaceutical, and medical industries. With currently available technology, these biological-warfare agents can be produced at such a rate that stock- piles are no longer necessary. Actually, any nation with a modestly developed pharma- ceutical or agribusiness industry can produce these agents, if it chooses.”6

The Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency now assess the threat of a biological-agent agroterrorist attack on American farms that feed American cities as a palpable and hypothetical danger and no longer merely a remote possibility. Counterterrorism experts are increasingly echoing the warning of Richard K. Betts, who, in a 1998 article in Foreign Affairs, suggested that, “the primary risk is not that enemies might lob some nuclear or chemical weapons at U.S. armored battalions or ships, awful as that might be. Rather, it is that they might attempt to punish the United States by triggering catastrophes in American cities.”7 A 2000 General Accounting Office audit concluded that the United States is ill prepared to cope with terrorism affecting its urban areas.8 One way to accomplish such a scheme is to deprive urban residents of ample, safe food supplies. This is much more likely than an all-out weapons-of-mass-destruc- tion attack. Even a bungled agroterrorist livestock disease-based stratagem that affected only a handful of farm animals—a probable outcome if the perpetrators were unfamiliar with agricultural pathogens or modern farming practices—would produce a transient climate of fear and panic among food buyers. A foreign-enemy-agent terrorist attack on U.S. urban food supplies is not the only danger. Domestic environmental terror groups might deploy agricultural pathogens to prevent further acreage from being planted with genetically modified crops, fertilizers, or farm animals or to force changes in what they perceive as “inhumane” animal care and slaughter policies and practices.

110 J. W. Foxell, Jr.

U.S. Vulnerabilities to Agroterrorism

Agriculture is vulnerable to unanticipated terrorist assault. The possibility of an agroterrorist attack on America’s farmlands—when acknowledged at all—has been depicted as a re- mote threat, in part due to the nation’s seemingly unending agricultural bounty that constitutes the world’s largest granary and larder. We routinely take such munificence for granted—often to the point of forgetting that American farms’ capability to provide the citizens of this country with wholesome, nutritious, affordable food constitutes a substantial portion of the nation’s strength and prosperity. Hence, the U.S. agricultural infrastructure is relatively unprotected, particularly when compared to other industrial or economic capacities. The Administrator of the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricul- tural Research Service, Floyd Horn, believes that we lack the technology to adequately defend our food supply if bioagricultural weapons agents attacked it. “There is tremen- dous potential for surprise here and it is entirely possible that a biological event could occur without U.S. knowing it because we do not really have the tools in place to detect it.”9 Indeed, in the United States today, there is no legal requirement for reporting emerging plant diseases, as there is for new human diseases. Thus, America’s grain and cereal food supply poses an attractive, seemingly unguarded, “soft” target to agroterrorists be- cause of the very low level of awareness of these dangers prevalent until now among defense planners, intelligence analysts, and even counterterrorism experts.

Food security experts estimate that the average U.S. city has a five-day supply of fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables. These supplies could be extended to between three and five weeks’ worth of rations if edibility, rather than freshness, were used as the criterion. The five-week figure represents acceptance of a serious amount of spoilage. This risk is made more acute as many urban supermarkets no longer rely on large in-store invento- ries, but instead depend on just-in-time deliveries. Our society’s exposure is increased by the fact that, on average, food supplies must travel more than 1,300 miles from the farm where they are grown to the “typical” urban resident’s dinner table. If metropolitan food supplies were interrupted by a widely publicized act of agroterrorism, supermarket produce stands, meat counters, and canned goods sections would quickly be stripped to bare shelves as consumers indulged in panic buying and hoarding. The situation would be exacerbated if a terrorist-caused food supply outage were to occur during a peak holiday period. Moreover, U.S. troops are now totally dependent on civilian-source food supplies, adding a military preparedness risk issue to these concerns.

Ten factors involving the qualitative and quantitative natures of U.S. agriculture contribute to our nation’s vulnerability in this area. First, the livestock industry is con- centrated in just a few essential geographic sectors: cattle feeding in western Kansas; hogs in North Carolina, Nebraska, and Iowa; and poultry in Virginia, Georgia, Arkan- sas, Pennsylvania, and Maryland’s Eastern Shore district. This consolidation makes it potentially easy for agroterrorists, using only a small number of infected animals, to spread agricultural diseases throughout the heartland of America’s farm industry. Thus, an agroterror attack against a knowledgeably chosen, small but critical, geographic area could effectively wipe out production and sales of a large percentage of the specific animal type raised there. For example, over 70% of U.S. beef cattle is currently pro- duced within the locus of a 200-mile circle. Pork production is very centralized as well (75% of America’s 60 million hogs are in the Midwest), and dairy production is becom- ing more so.10 Compare the above clusters to the much larger “Corn Belt” that ranges from Iowa, Indiana, most of Illinois, and parts of Kansas to Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Furthermore, U.S. durum wheat production

Current Trends in Agroterrorism 111

extends in a wide arc from North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota to Montana, California, and Arizona. Durum wheat is the source of semolina, an essential component of many pasta items, including macaroni and spaghetti. Although vulnerable, these vital corn and wheat farming areas, because of their geographical dispersion, form segmented tracts that would be much harder to destroy by an agroterrorist stratagem than contigu- ous-area or single region–centered farm production or livestock feeding operations.

Second, the U.S. food business is moving in the direction of centralized ownership and larger individual farms. For example, in 2002, the pork industry will become so concentrated that the top forty producers will control 90% of production. Even now, 36% of all pork produce derives from these forty conglomerates. By 2010, our domestic beef industry will become organizationally aggregated to the degree that the thirty lead- ing cattle feeding corporations will generate 50% of all beef products. Even ancillary businesses are being consolidated—for example, in the agrochemical industry, eight com- panies control 80% of the market.11 The recent merger of Novartis’s and AstraZeneca’s agrochemical divisions to create the market-share giant Syngenta accelerates this trend. Syngenta made $7.9 billion in agricultural sales in 1998. The four next biggest sellers were Aventis ($5.4 billion); DuPont ($4.6 billion); Monsanto ($4.3 billion); and Dow AgroSciences ($2.4 billion). Such consolidation within the various levels of U.S. agri- business makes it potentially easy for agroterrorists to compromise key sectors of America’s farm supply–provisioning infrastructure. The ongoing amalgamation of the American food industry, wherein a few producers enjoy a continually enlarging, already large market share, allows a situation in which minuscule amounts of antisoil, anticrop, or antilivestock pathogens could ultimately generate a multimillion-dollar agricultural epi- demic—possibly perpetrated by a single individual or small cell of terrorists.

Third, because of intensive proximity husbandry practices that have reduced the free range movement of farm animals on many of the largest farms, the American poul- try and livestock industries have become much more vulnerable to the spread of both indigenous and foreign-originating infectious diseases. A typical poultry farm has be- tween 250,000 and 2,000,000 birds. Dairy herds often contain ten thousand cows. High animal-per-acre ratios (often exceeding 2,000 animals per feeding lot), overcrowded feeding and watering troughs, reliance on steroids to increase the percentage of edible meat per animal, and densely packed confinement pens collectively generate significant sanitary hazards and high stress levels within many portions of beef cattle herds. The General Accounting Office estimates that there are 450,000 such “concentrated animal feeding operations” (CAFOs) nationwide. A CAFO is a facility where large numbers of live- stock are confined, fed, raised, or fattened for slaughter. CAFOs include dairy and beef cattle feedlots, hog production facilities, and closed poultry houses. This trend toward increased concentration has produced lowered resistance levels to infectious diseases among many functionally warehoused farm animal populations. There has also been an over-reliance on antibiotics (synthetic or microorganism-produced substances that inhibit the growth of, or destroy bacteria) to control outbreaks of sickness among poultry, swine, and cattle. Antibiotics have been used at the subtherapeutic level as a constituent of animal feed since the 1950s. Their use has resulted in the proliferation of antibiotic- resistant infections in cows, chickens, and pigs, as well as human consumers of these animals’ meat. Wide-scale use of antibiotics has also created conditions wherein farm animals have been bred for the ability to gain weight or give milk, not disease resis- tance. The use of bovine somatotropin (a growth hormone that causes cows to increase the efficiency of milk production) has added to these concerns. Moreover, many animals are frequently moved to different regions of the country to take advantage of warmer

112 J. W. Foxell, Jr.

climates and longer growing seasons. This increases the risks of agroterrorist-induced disease spreading simultaneously in disparate, far-flung geographic zones.

Fourth, the increased level of international air travel, which has drastically reduced the isolation that had previously protected American poultry, livestock, and field crops from foreign illnesses and pests, has exacerbated our country’s vulnerability to either accidental or deliberate infestation or infection. In the event of an unclaimed agro- terrorist attack on America’s farmland and agricultural produce—even when the vector is a foreign-originating disease or pest that has never been recorded here before—the fact that international travel could account for the incidence provides an alternative explanation that creates doubt in many minds that a terrorist act has occurred.

Fifth, an increasing reliance on pesticides and herbicides to control crop pests such as insects and weeds has established a precursor state, wherein pesticide-immune and herbicide-resistant antagonists could decimate arable crop staples. This in turn provides opportunities to agroterrorists seeking weak-link vulnerabilities within the framework of an opponent’s agricultural infrastructure. Aggressive “super diseases,” out-of-sector crop pests, and non-native organisms and weeds could be deliberately introduced by terrorists with devastating effect.12

Sixth, a lack of crop diversity renders U.S. farmlands especially vulnerable to “cropicide” agroterrorist attack. This dearth of variety has resulted from the American farmer’s widespread practice of growing only one or two types of major food crops, as opposed to diversi- fied farming, where different food crops are mixed and rotated to reduce pest damage and keep the soil fertile. The lack of diversity, wherein single crops are grown over thousands of acres (agricultural scientists call these monocultures ), renders the entire crop susceptible to a single pathological organism. This provides would-be agroterrorists with a much easier task in selecting across-the-board effective crop pathogens when concocting their schemes. A terrorist could, therefore, exploit this vulnerability by in- sinuating two or more of these blights, fungi, or pests into breadbasket growing areas that, under soil and climate conditions favorable to the spread of such intruders, would lead to the genesis of a region-wide pandemic.13 This is a worldwide problem. Filipino farmers, for example, once grew thousands of kinds of rice. Today, only two varieties account for 98% of rice grown in the Philippines.

Seventh, this lack of diversity is compounded by the fact that 80% of the nation’s seed derives from one locale, the Idaho valley, due to the exceptionally dry climate in that region.

Eighth, a notable percentage of imported hybrid seeds used for crop production in the United States comes from just four countries: Mexico, Chile, Iran, and China. Worryingly, the latter two countries are suspected of having covert bioagricultural weapons develop- ment programs. Reliance on so few sources for the purchase of imported seed begets the possibility that agroterrorists could silently insinuate diseased seed into the filled orders shipped to the United States. Such a tactic would go unnoticed unless a tip-off alerted authorities, because, according to plant seed experts, the United States is “very lax” in seed- control inspections. These critics allege that the United States lacks the manpower and the motivation to do anything more than visually inspect imported seed-shipping containers for the presence of insects or insect nests. They may be right. This occurs despite the legal requirements imposed by the Federal Seed Act that prohibits the importation of adulterated or misbranded seeds and the Federal Noxious Weed Act that authorizes the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to prevent the importation of noxious weed seeds. The economic costs of ignoring our vulnerability can be exorbitant. In the 1980s, an accidental epidemic of watermelon fruit blotch ruined nearly one third of that

Current Trends in Agroterrorism 113

crop in three Southern states: Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. The germ plasm for the seed that was sown in this region had been imported from Iran in the 1970s.14

Banning the importation of foreign seed cannot purchase security against agroterrorism, however. Indeed, ending the use of imported seed could ultimately jeopardize U.S. plant crop yields, because such a step would decrease the genetic diversity of U.S. crops.

Ninth, the soil itself is an ignored, and hence inadequately protected, resource. This is unfortunate, as it can take centuries to grow an inch of topsoil. In the United States, there are over 70,000 kinds of soil recognized by the National Resources Conservation Service. Modern farming methods have accelerated the loss of topsoil, which has increased over the last four decades. Perhaps as much as half of the nation’s topsoil blanket that existed 50 years ago has been lost due to runoff (i.e., sheet, rill, or gully erosion), intensive heavy equipment usage, and winds. Agroterrorist schemes that threaten topsoil viability—most likely through use of a long-acting soil sterilant—pose long-term dangers to America’s farmland productivity.

Tenth, a variety of pathogenic or market-value inhibiting agents that are foreign to U.S. farm animals and crops—and hence could spread rapidly in the absence of natural immunities or predators—are readily obtainable from a multitude of overseas sources. American agriculture and livestock are believed to be highly vulnerable to many of these agents.

When considered collectively, the above ten factors constitute a significant national security vulnerability that could produce a situation similar to the “gas crisis” of 1973 that generated unanticipated shortages, astronomical price increases, long lines of agitated customers, panic buying, and hoarding. Such behavior would force the U.S. government to impose rationing if it were to continue for a protracted period. Today, what had originally been a concern that the former U.S.S.R. would use antilivestock, anticrop, and antisoil bioagricultural weapons in a strategic economic assault on U.S. farmlands dur- ing the Cold War has been transformed into fears that a new breed of terrorists or foreign state enemies might carry out silent attacks on the nation’s domestically produced food supply. For instance, terror surrogates could initiate this type of campaign as part of a rogue state-backed terror offensive to weaken U.S. Department of State policy support for Washington’s allies in the Middle East, East Asia, or the Balkans. Alternatively, they might aim to force the United States to back off from a confrontation during a time of international tensions. According to statements by Col. Qiao Liang, a senior strategist for China’s People’s Liberation Army/Air Force (PLAAF), the best way to fight a war against the United States is to use terror surrogates to attack the urban infrastructures of key allies providing significant support—overflight permissions, crucial votes in international forums like NATO or the United Nations, or troop deployment logistical assistance—to American military operations. According to Col. Qiao, “once that country feels the pain, it will no longer let the United States conduct war on its territory.”15 One of the most effective ways for a rogue nation to follow Col. Qiao’s advice would be to “starve” a U.S. ally’s city dwellers through an agroterrorist “offensive.” What type of targets might these agroterrorists strike? Most probably high value, heavy demand items such as fresh meats, flour, vegetable oils, roasted coffee, refined sugar, milk, cheese, wine, breakfast cereals, fresh and dried fruits and vegetables, eggs, and nuts.

The Potential Economic Impact of Agroterrorism

With the exception of stratagems intended to poison food consumers, agroterrorism is, in focus, primarily mass disruptive (i.e., purposed to destroy a vital national infrastructure

114 J. W. Foxell, Jr.

by rendering seeds sterile, soil inhospitable, or spreading serious, communicable diseases among crops, poultry, and livestock), rather than mass casualty (viz., intended to kill large numbers of humans). If biological weapons, which are becoming more available not only to rogue states but also to clandestine, non-state, terror organizations, are the “poor man’s atomic device,” then anticrop, antilivestock, and antisoil agents are correspondingly “free at curbside,” fiscal loss–generating time bombs designed to implode a nation’s economy. Bioagricultural agents, therefore, may see widespread future use, as this author believes that the infliction of huge dollar losses will increasingly emerge as a primary, rather than ancillary, terrorist strategy (e.g., the IRA’s attack on London’s Cannery Row business district that caused billions of pounds sterling in real estate losses—but relatively few casualties in view of the amount of explosives used in the attack). Moreover, the use of non-lethal agroterrorism agents—seen by many as a lower-echelon terrorist tactic because it does not cause massive casualties—exposes the perpetrators to far less social oppro- brium than a biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear assault. In this aspect, agroter- rorism is similar to terrorists’ targeting of transportation and tourism—which is becoming a more frequent mass-disruptive terror strategy. Low level, lesser impact acts of agro- terrorism could also be part of a layered strategy, wherein more destructive weapons—for example, economically motivated germ warfare targeting specific crops; genetically engi- neered zoonoses—a disease that under natural conditions is communicable from animals to humans, for example, tuberculosis, rabies, or brucellosis (a highly contagious disease of cattle, goats, sheep, and swine that becomes undulant fever in humans); or food poisoning agents like campylobacteriosis or listeria—could be employed in later stages of the terrorists’ plan of attack. As the assault on our farms or food production industry progressed up this scale, it would have significantly greater impact, and could reduce the capacities of those organizations (i.e., agribusiness corporations, farm bureaus, and public health agencies) whose assistance were most vital to successful containment of the inci- dent. The term agribusiness describes agriculturally related businesses that supply farm inputs—such as fertilizer, plant seed, animal feed, or tilling and harvesting equipment— or are involved in the marketing of farm products (e.g., warehouses, processors, whole- salers, transporters, and retailers). This term does not encompass actual farms or farm workers.

As a society, we must be prepared for the extensive financial losses, economic embargoes, and agricultural quarantine that would result from a sustained agroterrorist campaign against the United States. The introduction of animal or plant pathogens into livestock populations or crops is not always, or even often, a public health concern, but it can quickly become a trade and economic issue. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the co-author of legislation in 1991 and 1996 that provided funds to fight unconventional terrorist threats, observes: “ . . . given the contribution of crop and animal exports to the nation’s prosperity, we must do far more to protect our plant and animal resources.”16

Floyd P. Horn believes that “such an attack, or even a credible threat, would severely disrupt America’s economic and social infrastructure for weeks, if not months or years.”17

There is an additional consideration: The need to divert resources to deal with the con- tingency of agroterrorism after a spectacularly successful terrorist incident may, in itself, have a very real effect on crop prices, thereby creating inflationary pressures on the consumer price index (the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ general measure of retail prices for goods and services, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and transporta- tion, paid by urban wage earners and clerical workers). Such events could ultimately trigger a downturn in the American economy and weaken America’s international com- petitiveness.

Current Trends in Agroterrorism 115

The United States currently exports $140 billion in foodstuffs and animal products annually. U.S. food processing industries also account for almost one million domestic jobs. Collectively, the American food and fiber systems constitute 13.5% of U.S. Gross Domestic Product and 17.3% of domestic employment (although only 2% of the popula- tion is engaged in farming per se), according to the USDA’s 1992 Census of Agricul- ture. At this time, some 382 million acres of cropland are under cultivation in the United States and there are almost 2 million farms. The USDA’s National Resources Inventory estimates that U.S. farmland, which includes cropland, grazing land, and pastureland, amounts to more than 1 billion acres. The ramifications of a major agroterrorist incident could have a strongly negative effect on these sectors of the economy by denying U.S. farm exporters access to overseas markets, particularly in Europe. This is because most international free trade agreements contain a clause allowing imposition of economic embargoes against foodstuffs and comestibles originating in areas experiencing unhealthful or unsanitary conditions (sanitary relates to animals and phytosanitary relates to plants). These embargoes are called “technical barriers to trade” and are a separate category within the umbrella topic of non-tariff barriers. For example, since June 1996 China has banned shipments of wheat originating in U.S. West Coast ports because of Beijing’s controversial “zero tolerance” policy for Tilletia controversa kuhn, a wheat fungus present in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Public disclosure that there had been widespread contami- nation of field crops with marketability-inhibiting fungal toxins would be enough to close down immediately this nation’s grain and cereal exports. For example, in August 1999, an outbreak of karnal bunt (a fungus disease of wheat that reduces crop yields and causes an unpalatable but harmless flavor in flour milled from infected kernels) was discovered in America’s Midwestern wheat fields, and U.S. exports of wheat were im- mediately cut off to more than thirty nations, while a phytosanitary quarantine was es- tablished to contain the outbreak. The economic losses, while significant, were less than would have been otherwise expected, thanks to prompt incident containment and hazard minimization responses.

Florida lime growers’ recent experience with citrus canker, a contagious plant dis- ease that makes citrus fruit unsightly by marring the cosmetic appearance—and hence unmarketable as American consumers adamantly eschew blemished produce—provides insight into the economic perils this disease presents to Tallahassee’s multibillion-dollar fruit industry. Since there is no cure for citrus canker, the main containment method is the removal of infected trees, the movement of surrounding healthy trees to a distance of 125 feet, and imposition of a quarantine. (More aggressive strategies involve clear cutting to within 1,500 feet of disease-ridden arbors.) Land where trees have been re- moved must lie bare for a minimum of 2 years. After replanting, it takes 4 years for the replacement trees to bear fruit.18 The infection threatens to spread throughout 3,000 acres of lime tree orchard cropland in Miami-Dade County.

To provide a gauge of the speed with which such infections can spread, citrus canker isolates were first established in remote areas in 1995. In February 1999, the bacterial infection was reported about 50 miles from the nearest commercial grove. By February 2000, more than 500 square miles of lime groves were under quarantine. Cit- rus canker currently threatens orchard crops in five Florida counties: Collier, Dade, Broward, Hendry, and Manatee.

There is yet another agroterrorist plant disease threat to U.S. lime growers—lime witches’ broom phytoplasma—a disease currently geographically limited to India, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Witches’ broom got its name from its identifying charac- teristic—an abnormal growth on a branch that resembles a miniature version of a broom

116 J. W. Foxell, Jr.

made of a bundle of twigs. Witches’ broom is one among many infections that could pose a multibillion-dollar threat to the U.S. citrus-growing industry, if deployed by agro- terrorists.

Even baseless allegations that dread diseases such as foot and mouth disease, bo- vine spongiform encephalopathy (“mad cow” disease), or velogenic viscerotropic Newcastle disease had infected U.S. agriculture could result in prompt protectionist calls within the European Union, Japan, or the former Commonwealth countries for infection-control sanitary boycotts that would cost the American farm industry millions of dollars in un- necessarily slaughtered animals, lost sales, and foregone profits. (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy [BSE] results in the appearance of a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in human beings; velogenic viscerotropic Newcastle disease is a poultry virus character- ized by severe lesions in the gastrointestinal tracts of infected birds—with a morbidity [incidence] rate—that is, what percentage of a specific bird population will catch the disease—of almost 100% and a mortality rate approaching 95%.) The recovery from such an event might take several years, as American farm production slowly regained overseas consumers’ confidence in the safety of its poultry, livestock, and processed food products. Domestic impact would also be quite substantial, as the U.S. public slowly and painfully became cognizant of its own vulnerability to large-scale societal disrup- tion. Unease would quickly turn to umbrage and chagrin when U.S. consumers found that such events had not only greatly raised the cost of food within individual and family budgets (currently little more than 11% of U.S. disposable income is spent on the purchase of food); but had also significantly decreased the nation’s international bal- ance-of-payments ratio; and simultaneously evaporated any accrued federal budget sur- plus, perhaps for several years or even decades to come. The impact on individual American farmers would be potentially ruinous. Indeed, a recent erroneous report that BSE had been found in German pedigreed dairy heifers led to “immeasurable losses for the Ger- man livestock breeding industry.”19 The mistake, originating in the North Africa Jour- nal, confused what turned out to be cases of Bovine Herpes no. 1 (BHV1), also called Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis, with BSE. Two other cattle diseases compound the difficulty of correctly diagnosing mad cow disease—bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) and bovine viral diarrhea (BVD). Each of these diseases may have led to simi- lar “mad cow false alarm” financial losses in Western Europe over the last several years.

Because of its widespread impact and its possible future as an agroterrorism arche- type, BSE merits further discussion. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is a slowly pro- gressive, incurable disease affecting the central nervous system of cattle. It was first diagnosed in Britain in 1986, when scientists there confirmed a link between BSE in cattle and the atypical appearance of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in humans under age sixty-five. Consumption of BSE-contaminated ruminant (an animal with a stomach that has four compartments) proteins in animal feed by cattle has been established as a cause of the disease. In 1989, the USDA banned the importation of live cattle from Great Britain, and imposed a partial ban on U.S. use of ruminant protein in animal feed in 1997. To date, no BSE has been found in U.S. cattle, although other BSE-like animal diseases occur in the United States, including scrapie (a fatal, degenerative neurological disease of sheep and goats). The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service conducts a “voluntary scrapie flock certification program” to certify scrapie-free herds.

The British experience with “mad cow” disease illustrates how costly a real occur- rence can become. Between March and November 1996, about 10,000 jobs in the United Kingdom’s wholesale and retail meat industry sector were lost, with another 20,000 workers being temporarily laid off. British domestic beef purchases declined by 17.5%

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in 1996 and exports decreased by 78.8%. In 1995, before the outbreak was disclosed, the UK’s beef market was worth about $6 billion, with exports amounting to about $780 million.20

To provide an idea of what is at stake elsewhere, the European Union’s (EU) farm sector comprises 7.5 million people and produces at least $250 billion worth of goods annually. Moreover, the EU’s food processing and soft drink industry, which employs 2.6 million workers, generated $619 billion in gross sales last year.21

In yet another precursor scenario for agroterrorist-spread epidemics, a naturally oc- curring pandemic of a highly pathogenic avian influenza in Pennsylvania during 1983– 84 resulted in the destruction of $63 million worth of chickens. The slaughter, instituted as a firebreak-style, infection containment measure, prevented a potential loss of $5.6 billion if the disease had spread. As it was, during the period of the outbreak poultry prices increased by $349 million. A similar disease became zoonotic in Hong Kong in 1998, and caused twelve people to die. From an economic point of view, this is gravely worrisome, as influenza-type diseases (avian influenza is a variant of the human influ- enza virus) are the most financially costly of communicable illnesses, due to the ex- tended periods of bed rest and high sick leave utilization patterns associated with such ailments. Because of the ease of infection, the variable genetic makeup of the virus, and reliance on depopulation rather than vaccine programs—that would have to be adminis- tered yearly—as a control mechanism, the United States remains at high risk for an intentional introduction by agroterrorists of avian influenza into America’s poultry farms and chicken ranches.

Damaging U.S. animal feed capacities would have a “double whammy” effect on America’s farm economy. For example, introducing a bioagricultural contaminant into the country’s soybean crop would not only prevent the crop’s use in countless food items, it would result in cattle and poultry feed shortages. This would not only force consumers to pay higher prices for beef, pork, and chicken at their supermarket check- out counters, but also cost food exporters dearly as the amount of U.S. livestock avail- able for across-the-border sales declined substantially. It could lead to the untimely slaughter of large livestock herds because of animal feed scarcity. Michael V. Dunn, a marketing and regulatory programs specialist at the USDA, estimates that introduction of soybean rust into the United States could lead to crop losses of up to 50% that would cost consumers, processors, and producers $8 billion.22

Potential Terrorist Techniques/Technology

The Contamination of Crops or Livestock

Rather than intricate biological terrorist schemes presupposing high-level scientific knowl- edge and sophisticated technical skills, would-be terrorists more likely may resort to spreading crop or soil pest infestations, livestock disease propagation, or contaminating food (e.g., with Campylobacteria jejuni, a debilitating, diarrhea-causing agent associated with tainted poultry, raw milk, and water). Such small-scale incidents of agroterrorism would be much simpler to carry out and could produce serious economic disruption, while simultaneously generating widespread fear and panic in the communities attacked. For example, campylobacteriosis causes about 700 deaths annually in this country. It has also been linked to Guillain-Barre syndrome (a disease that paralyzes limbs and breathing muscles), as well as Epstein-Barr, Cytomegalovirus, and other viruses. The USDA estimates that campylobacteriosis costs the United States $1.4 billion annually in

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medical costs, productivity losses, and residential care. This pathogen (campylobacteriosis ) is abundant in nature, making it easy to acquire starter samples. Since it is naturally occurring, it can be disseminated without immediately triggering an agroterrorism alert. Furthermore, many other disease-causing pathogens can be easily obtained via field col- lection. In this regard, it is important to remember that the number of animal illness vectors far exceeds those that spread human sickness.

Contamination of Animal Feed

It would be very easy for terrorists, posing as farmhands, to deliberately contaminate a dumpster load of animal fats with herbicide, knowing that these slaughterhouse by- products would eventually be shipped to an animal feed processing plant, where they would be made into livestock food supplements. Such a scenario could produce an ef- fect similar to the dioxin feed-tainting incident that caused economic havoc, social panic, and widespread consumer loss of confidence in food security controls in Belgium in 1999. Indeed, there have been a number of similar agroterrorist incidents over the past several years that have only recently become public knowledge. (The following is a case example—albeit a minor one. In late January 2000, the Belgian Agriculture Ministry shut down two dairy farms in eastern Flanders due to suspicion that contaminated ani- mal feed was responsible for the mysterious deaths of four cows in early December. The Agriculture Minister, Jaak Gabriels, initially linked the incident to a batch of feed made from the pulp of sugar beets that had been accidentally tainted with motor oil. This was later ruled out as a possible explanation. Because no terrorist group claimed responsibil- ity, the Agriculture Ministry eventually concluded that industrial waste contaminated drinking water, rather than agroterrorist poisoned baled-hay feed supplements (the most likely interpretation) had been the culprit.23

According to Nicholas J. Neher, Administrator of the Agricultural Resource Man- agement Division of Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, a serious agroterrorist inci- dent involving contaminated food products occurred in late December 1996, when a terrorist revealed that chlordane (an organochlorine pesticide) had been used to contami- nate liquid animal fats produced at a Wisconsin plant. A significant percentage of these animal fats had already been shipped to more than 4,000 intra-state dairy farm custom- ers as well as others in Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois.24 Milk from these farms had subsequently been sent to cheese, butter, and ice cream manufacturing plants throughout Wisconsin and northern Illinois. These distributed foods constituted an unrecoverable hazard. However, the prompt interdiction of other scheduled but undelivered animal feed and liquid fat shipments resulted in the prophylactic disposal of 8,000 pounds of contaminated feed and 250,000 tons of potentially adulterated fat at an estimated loss of $4 million to producers. In a follow-on incident in May 1997, the same company that had been targeted in December 1996 received a second letter stating that a different type of agrochemical poison had again contaminated the firm’s products. However, proce- dural changes instituted by the company’s management after the first incident, wherein the animal feed was held for a longer period after manufacture before being shipped to customers, thus providing additional time for product testing as well as easier recall capability, allowed for successful containment of this agroterrorist incident. Upon notifi- cation of the agroterrorists’ extortion letter, the manufacturer discovered that the con- taminated product—reprocessed restaurant grease that had been adulterated with folpet, a fungicide—had yet to be shipped to its customers—out-of-state poultry ranchers. The reprocessed grease was easily located and promptly destroyed.

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There are parallels with another incident that occurred in Wisconsin during 1981 that provide insight into how to differentiate between an agroterrorist incident and a criminal act of vengeance or malicious mischief. In the 1981 incident, someone placed a bag containing organophosphate corn rootworm insecticide in a farm silo containing silage, which was subsequently augured into feed bunks. One hundred thirty-five cows ate the silage in a single day and all but four died by the next evening. The fact that no communication was received, no media news service informed, and no extortion attempt made, led authorities to conclude that this event was probably an act of personal ven- detta against the farmer whose cows died, rather than a terrorist act. Other events of a similar nature are more ambiguous. In Maui, Hawaii, there has been a ten-year history of poisoning animals with paraquat, a herbicide used primarily to kill weeds.25 More than 50 animals have perished so far. Whatever the motives of the actor(s), it would not take much imagination for agroterrorists to begin a campaign of surreptitious attacks on farm animals, particularly prized breeding stock, using herbicides, pesticides, or similar poisonous substances.

Adulterated Seed Scenarios

Another method agroterrorists could use would be to contaminate agricultural planting seed with plant, animal, or human disease causing agents. By attacking unprotected, “soft” targets such as plant seed using homemade agricultural poisons, a terrorist group could achieve disproportionate disruptive effects both economically and socially with- out having to employ and perfect technically demanding biomedical processes or procedures. This is an important consideration as production of the aerosol clouds of infectious microbes needed for an epidemic-style, biological-terrorist incident is both technically arduous and potentially lethal to the preparer. Once adulterated, such seed stock would produce withered crops, spread the plant disease with which the seeds were tainted throughout the region, or, if a toxin (poisonous substance) or a zoonotic (spe- cies-jumping infectious agent) were used, engender sickness in the general population, many of whom would unwittingly continue to consume food that will make them seri- ously ill or even kill them. Professor R. L. Wick of the University of Massachusett s notes that naturally occurring infected seed was responsible for several outbreaks of salmonella among city dwellers during 1988 in the United Kingdom that were traced to mung bean sprouts. Diseased alfalfa sprouts in Canada, Denmark, and the United States caused similar outbreaks of the same ailment in 1995–96. Operationally, it would be a simple matter for agroterrorists to introduce infected seed into American farmlands—all they would have to do is pose as legitimate trans-shippers of the seed, and while in control of the boat, rail, or truck-loaded shipments, open the crates and mix in the disease-bearing seeds. If the agroterrorists exercised due care in reclosing the seed con- tainers, they would run minimal risks of detection or apprehension. The terrorists would likely prefer this method to obtaining jobs at the seed production companies that might expose them to background checks—making them more readily traceable—and thus in- creasing their chances of being arrested.

The Contamination of Municipal Water Supplies

While seemingly an easy task of covertly dumping infectious agents into unguarded reservoirs, this form of agroterrorism is actually highly complex and difficult. To accom- plish it, aspiring terrorists must overcome significant obstacles (e.g., the almost worldwide

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chlorination of water supplies, the presence of particulate-matter filtration systems, and the dilution of the contaminant by the sheer volume of the water in the reservoir). Poisoning groundwater supplies rather than contaminating reservoirs would be much simpler.

Alternatively, determined agroterrorists might use organic matter to pollute aquatic life estuaries (brackish water ecosystems) through depletion of the dissolved oxygen such marine life require. Sawdust or manure, if dumped in sufficient quantities, would consume all of the available oxygen in natural, biological processes that break down organic matter. This could result in significant fish kills. The overall impact of such a coordinated series of acts would seriously compromise large-scale, marine estuary–based fish farming operations. On the other hand, agroterrorists might attempt to exploit bio- magnification—a process wherein toxins accumulate in the edible body parts, such as fat or skin, of, for example, fish living in contaminated waters. When larger fish, mam- mals, or birds of prey eat these fish, the toxins are biomagnified to the point where they can pose serious health hazards to humans who consume these wild game creatures. Of course, this requires a longer time than do a variety of more immediate-effect agro- terrorist stratagems.

Another scenario posits that agroterrorists furtively disseminate carcinogenic or radio- logical substances to pollute groundwater supplies through percolation (the movement of water downward and radially through subsurface soil layers) that would then provide irrigation to growing fields. Under this stratagem, there is an enormous range of pos- sible contaminants, for example, gasoline containing methyl tertiary butyl ether—a known carcinogen, the use of which would be virtually untraceable because retail gasoline sta- tions are notorious for having leaky fuel storage tanks. The pernicious effects of this terrorist scheme would be compounded in areas where groundwater provides drinking supplies (an estimated 95% of the drinking water in rural areas is from groundwater), and where gasoline fuel spills happen frequently. Suburban neighborhoods are particu- larly at risk because of their high incidence of spills. New York’s Nassau County had 198 such spills in 1999, while Suffolk County experienced 183 and Westchester County had 96 during the same period.26 The terrorists could also employ radiological-test mate- rials, which they could theoretically recover from inadequately guarded low level nuclear waste storage facilities or stolen or fraudulently obtained medical diagnostic equipment. An even grimmer scenario has agroterrorists using medical wastes containing HIV or hepatitis-C infectious materials. These insidious schemes would sicken or slowly poison unwary food consumers, and might go undetected for years until the agroterrorists dis- closed their use of this tactic, for example employing it in an extortion attempt; or random water sampling revealed high levels of disease-bearing organisms or otherwise inexplicable radiological or petrochemical pollution.

Motivations for Agroterrorism

The increased likelihood that an agroterrorist incident will occur is happening simulta- neously with a transformation in the nature of terrorism itself—revenge within the context of religious or ethnic inter-communal violence is increasingly replacing Marxist-Leninist ideology as the catalyst for many terror groups’ actions. This propensity—in reality a paradigm shift within the phenomenon of socio-political violence—is inducing a profound change of emphasis in the behavior of many terrorists; a difference that counterterrorism experts have noted for some time. Here, more than a few terrorist organizations have ostensibly abandoned the goal of making progress in their struggle to come to power by

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overthrowing what they view as “oppressive” governments. Instead, they are now concen- trating on exterminating or otherwise harming as many of their blood-feud enemies as possible.27 R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995, asserts that “increasingly, terrorists don’t just want a place at the table, but rather to destroy the table and all sitting there.”28 One way terrorists can actualize this goal is to poison their opponents’ environment by destroying its crops, soil viability, poultry, and livestock on a massive scale.

There are further consequences of this change in focus. President Clinton has ob- served that “primitive claims of racial, ethnic, or religious superiority by terrorists— when married to advanced weaponry and terrorism—threaten to destroy mankind.”29

Until now, most terrorists have repeatedly sought to justify their savagery by crafting a public image in which their resort to violence results from a lack of palpable alterna- tives: in other words, they claim to have no practical means to redress legitimate griev- ances or realize rightful political aspirations, owing to ethnic, racial, religious, linguistic, economic, or social barriers.

What we are now confronting is a radically different environment in which reli- gious fanatics, chauvinists, and single-issue extremists can seek to inflict widespread indiscriminate ecological destruction to further their cause, no matter how arcane or idiosyncratic, with no fear of alienating the larger public, because their constituency is limited to a narrow patrimony of followers uninterested in opinions outside their group. Sheikh Ali-Hadji al Apsheron, the second most senior Moslem cleric in Kazakhstan, describes fanaticism as “an illness.” In his view, “people afflicted with fanaticism do not take into consideration anyone else, rather, the fanatic believes himself a noble religious person in a crowd of prostitutes and thieves.”30 According to former Counterterrorism- at-Large Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, “What we are seeing is a shift to terrorism on a more theological basis, to groups that are not after precise political goals. When you start to embrace . . . such broad goals, you are no longer constrained by the number of casualties [or the scope of the environmental damage] you incur. You are now in a different game.”31 From a terrorist’s perspective, what better way to achieve such aims then to shatter your enemy’s world by introducing pestilence into his farmland and food chain? These changes in terrorist motivation and psychology will ultimately reshape the terrorist’s choice of targets and weapons agents.

On the state-supported or “condoned” level, terrorism is fast becoming the “war of the future”—a very disturbing trend when we consider the ongoing transformation of war from an exercise to control territory militarily to a strategy instead wherein the aim is to deny occupied lands to long-time residents by making them uninhabitable, at least for opposing ethnic, religious, or linguistic groups through random acts of terror such as brutalization of civilian populations, mass rapes, and indiscriminate shelling or rifle fire. Moreover, what used to be considered unavoidable “collateral damage” due to battle- field conflicts spilling over into civilian areas is now intended as the sole purpose of many acts of terrorism in this new form of covert, state-sponsored war. While it is true that the killing of civilian groups first emerged as a primary military strategy during the Second World War, it was part of an overall wartime tactical effort. Even the murder of 270,000 Chinese civilians by the invading Japanese Army’s bacteriological experiments in Mainland China between 1933 and 1945 was still an act of war.32 The difference with today’s situation derives from the fact that it is the extremists within (or outside) the society that now proclaim the “state of war” and carry out the campaign. Thus, under this emerging terrorist paradigm, war itself is no longer seen as the province of the state. It is becoming, rather, a tool of “unofficial” governmental organizations or a coterie of

122 J. W. Foxell, Jr.

nontraditional actors—religious fanatics, chauvinists, and nationalistic zealots, mind- control cults, and organized criminal gangs with links to both revolutionary terrorists and narcotics growers—to achieve unconventional terrorist goals (e.g., ethnic cleansing or revenge within the context of religious strife). Several such organizations in a wide range of different cultures are now attempting to achieve these goals through use of unattributed terrorist acts as a form of “war on the cheap.”

State-Supported Terrorism

Several U.S. adversaries, including Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba, have reputedly stockpiled agroterrorism agents for possible future use against America. (South Korea’s Central Intelligence Agency [KCIA], for example, estimates that the North Koreans have as much as 5,000 tons of chemical and biological weapons in storage, including anthrax and nine other bioagricultural pathogens.33) According to U.S. Secretary of Defense Wil- liam Cohen, “we do believe that the North Koreans and others have been in the process of developing [agriculture-based] biological weapons (viz., anthrax).” He has proposed that the United States share its anthrax vaccine with South Korea because “we should not take any chances that that assumption or information is in error.”34 Furthermore, due to the strengthening of international non-proliferation controls purposed to frustrate nuclear and chemical weapons acquisition schemes, the development of antilivestock, anticrop, and antisoil bioagricultural weapons becomes a comparatively easier, more promising route to inflicting grievous harm on an opponent’s civilian populations and critical eco- nomic and social infrastructures. This fact generates several primary risks that must be factored in by counterterrorism planners.

The first is the possibility that a rogue state, unwilling to expose itself to the near certainty of a devastating military counterstrike, which its open involvement in a nuclear, radiological, or chemical weapons attack would provoke, might consider acting covertly through the vehicle of surrogate groups using agroterrorism. After all, the outbreak of an infectious cereal grain, poultry, or livestock disease might be attributable to natural occurrence, while a nuclear or chemical incident could only be the result of an individual’s act, fault, or omission, be it accidental or deliberate.

There is also the possibility that an enemy nation would use an agroterror attack on U.S. farmlands as a precursor to an all-out offensive—in which contaminated agri- cultural products were used to disseminate biological-warfare agents within America’s borders in preparation for a war. Several counterterrorism analysts warn that a future adversary might elect to conduct a campaign of strategic surprise and shock in the United States to engender psychological dislocation and social paralysis. This could easily be accomplished by simultaneous bioagricultural pathogen–based attacks on farms feeding U.S. cities and an emotionally charged manipulation of the confusion, rumor-monger- ing, and fear that such successful assaults on America’s homeland would inspire, par- ticularly if there were indications the terrorists had also compromised watersheds, vac- cines, or human blood supplies. The scope of demoralization that could result should not be underestimated. One factor contributing to this problem, according to Gavin de Becker, author of The Gift of Fear, is that public reactions to terrorist incidents and other catastrophes is often “unwarranted fear, rather than true fear.” Such a dispropor- tionate response might exponentially increase in the face of an unexpected agroterrorist attack that raises doubts about the healthfulness of fresh and store-bought meats, fruits, and vegetables. George Tenet, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, believes “the potential for surprise is exacerbated by the growing capacity of countries seeking

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weapons of mass destruction to import talent that can help them make dramatic leaps on new . . . agents and delivery systems. In short, they can buy the expertise that confers the advantage of technological surprise.”35 He is also concerned that “the accelerating pace of technological progress makes information and technology easier to obtain and in more advanced forms than when [it was] initially developed.”

The potential for such biotoxin “cropicide” attacks has lately grown into an ex- tremely serious worry. Rogue states such as Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, and Libya have begun to regard their newly found weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities in this area as legitimate self-defense weapons. So, too, have other nations such as Paki- stan, India, and China, whose bioagricultural weapons potentials are quickly evolving into instruments of intimidation to help them press forward with aggressive, self-aggran- dizing projects and polices based on the xenophobic rhetoric that originally brought their present, contentiously chauvinistic, leaders to power. Most disturbingly, since the beginning of this decade, North Korea has been actively marketing its services in phar- maceuticals and agribusiness development; in reality this is liaison cooperation concern- ing bioagricultural weapons research based on sales of raw materials, technical exper- tise, and manufacturing equipment. Within the last few years, Pyongyang has reportedly signed agreements to provide such expertise, components, or technical services to Iran, Libya, and Syria.36

John McLaughlin, the CIA’s Deputy Director of Intelligence, has expressed his agency’s growing concern for “secondary proliferation” of bioagricultural weapons, wherein, once rogue states attain such capabilities, they turn around and help other aspirants obtain similar capacities—often for a handsome fee. McLaughlin, who is privy to infor- mation from spies, satellites, and intercepted communications, acknowledges that such sub rosa sharing of materials, expertise, and technology makes “the problem of prolif- eration of weapons of mass destruction more complex and difficult.”37

The case of Iraq illustrates the dangers of complacency and underestimation of the agroterrorist threat as wielded by rogue states. During the “War of the Cities” between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, Baghdad prepared aerial canister devices for dispensing its home-grown version of wheat smut, a disease caused by fungus species of the genus Tilletia (code named “agent D” by the Iraqis), for use against Iran’s extensive wheat fields. “Agent D” not only reduces crop yields, it also produces trimethylamine, a flam- mable gas that can cause an explosion in grain elevators (tall warehouse facilities that use vertical conveyors to raise grain), freight cars, and storage silos that hold the in- fected wheat. The Iraqis also fabricated another bioweapons agent, T-2 mycotoxin, from a naturally occurring plant fungus. T-2 mycotoxin can infect wheat, peanuts, and other grains. It is potentially lethal to humans. A naturally occurring outbreak of T-2 myc- otoxin infection may have been responsible for the deaths of one out of every ten inhab- itants in the Russian town of Orenburg in the 1940s. Iraq has also conducted research on camelpox and foot and mouth disease.38 Among the bioagricultural-based weapons found by international arms control inspectors during their tenure in Iraq as a conse- quence of the Gulf War were botulinum toxins, anthrax, aflatoxin (a naturally occurring mycotoxin produced by two types of mold: aspergillus flavus and aspergillus parasiticus39

that can lead to liver cancer), and rotavirus, which causes a potentially fatal diarrhea in children and the elderly. Iraqi authorities acknowledged to United Nations mass-casualty weapons inspectors that Baghdad had tested mixes of aflatoxin with various nerve gas- ses and other agriculturally related agents in 1989. Independent tests performed on Kurdish refugees in Europe who fled Iraq after the Gulf War have found higher than expected incidence rates of liver cancer.40

124 J. W. Foxell, Jr.

Terrorist Access to State-Developed Weapons

Over the last decade, the ability to cause mass casualties or mass disruption has de- volved from superpowers to small, organized groups of non-state actors, and more re- cently to deranged individuals. One concern deriving from this changed landscape is that political, social, or regime instability in a rogue state may lead to an unexpected chain of events, wherein terrorists obtain highly lethal, genetically engineered bioagricultural infectious materials. This is especially likely when the country’s civilian leader is in charge of such weapons and a “hot” (i.e., militarily contested) as opposed to a “cold” (e.g., an assassination) coup leading to the installation of a different ideological faction takes place.

Many arms control specialists believe that once genetically engineered antilivestock, anticrop, and antisoil bioagricultural agents have been deployed, control over such mate- rials is effectively lost. This is disturbing, as the number of nations suspected of engag- ing in research on germ warfare–type weapons expanded from three in 1979 to ten in 1989, and has currently reached seventeen.41 The list may soon grow substantially larger. A report submitted by the U.S. Office of Technological Assessment (OTA) to hearings at the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in late 1995 identified these seventeen countries as Libya, North Korea, South Korea, Iraq, Taiwan, Syria, Israel, Iran, China, Egypt, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Bulgaria, India, South Africa, and Russia.42

While many of the seventeen nations identified by OTA as “bioweapons devel- opers” have protested that their biowarfare activities are intended solely for purposes of scientific research or self-defense, it is logical to assume that at least a few of these countries will succeed in fabricating and deploying such weapons. Dr. Thomas Frazier, an agroterror expert who often consults for the USDA, observes that “most countries that have biowarfare programs have created weapons specifically for attacking crops and farm animals.”43 In view of this possibility, there is a significant chance that ter- rorists could steal genetically altered bioagricultural weapons agents from these states’ research and development laboratories and use them for their own purposes. Many Wash- ington-based counterterrorism analysts are concerned that non-state-sponsored agro- terrorists, militant religious groups, and other holders of extreme views will target America’s agriculture and crops.44

Narco-agroterrorism

There is additional concern today that bioagricultural weapons may have been sold to “for profit” terrorists: for example, to extortionists or organized criminal gangs awash with illicit drug profits—particularly the Russian Mafiya, Latin American drug cartels, or the newly allied Sicilian, Greek, and Albanian mafias. Here, such proprietary terror- ists could use antilivestock, anticrop, and antisoil bioagricultural agents to contaminate farm products as a stratagem in a commercial extortion plot. If so, the world may have to deal with an urgent agroterrorist crisis not only several orders of magnitude larger, but also many years sooner, than has been forecast.

Indeed, it is possible that narcoterrorist growers would threaten to use “payback” agroterrorism if the United States deploys fungal anticrop agents, specially bred to at- tack only opium, marijuana, or coca leaves, stems, or roots, or a “terminator” seed that would limit narcotic drug cultivation to a finite number of life cycles, after which the seeds would become sterile. These self-destructing seeds or anticrop agents could be deployed as part of the U.S. global war against narcotics cultivation in, for example,

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Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Eastern Iran45 (jointly responsible for the production of 1,350 metric tons of dry opium gum in 1997), Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos46 (which collec- tively generated 2,600 metric tons of opium gum in the same period), or Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru47 (that together exported 650 tons of refined cocaine in that year).

Terminator seeds—originally defined as seed that yields a crop whose first genera- tion produces sterile seeds—have gone through several iterations. Those pertinent to this discussion work in the following way. To begin the process, specially bred, high-yield seed (that would therefore gain quick acceptance among growers) would be genetically altered so that a suicide sequence was encoded in its genetic makeup. When the seed was planted, these suicide traits would be activated by the presence (or absence) of a particular chemical component of a certain fertilizer or herbicide. Alternatively, the self- destruct command can be programmed to remain dormant for a specific number of gen- erations and then be turned on solely by the number of generations of cell divisions that the plant has undergone. In another variant, terminator seed plants may cross-fertilize with normal seed life plants, producing an uncontrolled expansion of terminator-genre plants outside their intended growing areas. The accidental introduction of cholera into Peru serves as an example of the scope of collateral damage that an unintended con- sequence can produce. The etiology of the disease was the discharge of ships’ waste into Lima’s harbors; this brought about more than 100,000 cases of the disease in 1991 alone. Cholera continues to endanger Peruvians due to the ability of the disease germs to thrive in the microscopic life that lives in the harbor’s bottom. Worse, from an agro- terrorism containment point of view, the disease spread as a food-borne illness, arising from Peruvians’s preference for a national summertime delicacy, ceviche, or mixed raw fish and shellfish in lime juice. Since bilge-dumped vibrio had spread throughout the harbor’s shellfish, uncooked ceviche was an ideal vehicle for transmission of this disease.

Some scientists believe that a specially bred variant of the Fusarium fungus appears more promising than the terminator seed as an antidrug cultivation agent. However, there again is a danger that, because of the scale of the infection that would be neces- sary to eradicate the Rhode Island–sized sectors of Colombia that comprise several drug cultivation plantations there, the risk of the fungi mutating into strains capable of attack- ing non-drug plants increases—to the point where it may cause irreversible damage to farmland or ecosystems. Furthermore, deliberately infecting crops, even with the lofty intent of destroying the scourge of drugs, establishes the policy wherein using disease to achieve morally desirable goals becomes appropriate. Such a position ultimately weak- ens counterterrorism efforts against agroterrorists, whose methods would thus gain a certain cachet of legitimacy. Moral leadership at the highest levels of government is required to resolve this dilemma.

The outcome of such ethical debate is critically needed, as Afghanistan is fast be- coming the international leader in the production of opium. 1999 production estimates suggest that the country’s opium output has increased to 4,600 tons. This means that Afghanistan now produces three times more opium than the rest of the world combined. Some 80% of the nation’s economy have become dependent on the narcotics industry. In the space of only five years, Afghanistan has converted its agricultural, food-produc- ing economy into a poppy-based economy. Alarmingly, the proceeds from opium pro- duction are financing the export of Islamic religious-fanatic terrorism and guerrilla war- fare into neighboring Central Asian states. Not only Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, but also a plethora of newly formed radical terror groups—all dependent on illicit drug money for their income—now menace the region.48

126 J. W. Foxell, Jr.

Conclusion

While in recent decades terrorists have relied on simple, direct, low-technology action (such as hijacking of airplanes and ships and truck-bombing), there is a growing threat that some terrorists will resort to agriculture-based strategies in coming years. Walter Laqueur, in his essay Postmodern Terrorism, argues that, if terrorists continue to find their presently held conventional weapons satisfactory, they will have no need to use other methods or devices. This would likely exclude their experimentation with anti- livestock, anticrop, and antisoil weaponry. However, Laqueur observes, if after years of struggle such groups have made only insignificant progress, they may be tempted to switch to Armageddon-type strategies, wherein their organization’s desperate last gasp may be a suicidal gambit to either succeed or doom themselves, their opponents, and conceivably the rest of the world.49 This article presents the case specifically that access to agroterrorist weapons, the vulnerability of the agricultural infrastructure, the lack of reporting requirements for outbreaks of plant diseases, and a general shift in the motives of terrorists and the purpose of terrorist acts, all combine to make agroterrorism an increasingly likely threat.

First, a variety of toxins, pests, and contaminants are commercially available to terrorists and would-be terrorists; in addition, terrorists often have links to rogue states that might provide them with more sophisticated agents. The risk this poses is incremented by the ease of preparation of bioagricultural weapons and the fact that raw materials for making such devices may be obtained through field collection of diverse naturally occurring pathogens—some highly lethal.

Second, vulnerability is obviously a main criterion in the terrorist’s selection of a target (examples: urban office buildings, a cruise ship, passenger airplanes, an Olympic Village, and U.S. embassies left relatively unprotected because they were deemed least likely to be attacked). In this regard, our nation’s farms, agricultural produce, and meat and animal products are sitting ducks for enterprising terrorists. On the one hand, the vastness of the agricultural infrastructure provides uncountable latent terrorist entry points, and on the other hand, the various forms of concentration now occurring in agricultural operations increase the potential devastation resulting from a successful attack.

Third, in the United States today, there is no legal requirement for reporting out- breaks of plant diseases, as there is for new human diseases. The significance of this becomes apparent when one considers that the average U.S. city has little more than a five-day supply of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Finally, the relatively indirect and indiscriminate nature of an agroterror attack meshes perfectly with the perceived shift in terrorism goals, which have ostensibly veered away from attempting to achieve specific political results and instead increasingly seek the destruction of “enemy” societies. This phase transition can be seen in myriad acts of terrorism aimed at hobbling ethnic foes that characterize an ever expanding number of mass casualty terror groups’ actions, particularly in Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and sub-Saharan Africa.

As Dr. Randall Murch, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Agricul- tural Crime Laboratory, says, “it is not a question of if but when” such an attack oc- curs.50 Many agricultural specialists in plant and animal diseases believe that an agroterrorist attack is likely in the short term, but near absolute in the long term.51 According to Dr. Brad Roberts of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia, “there is no concrete answer to how bad this problem is. Nevertheless, we can see the risks of bio- logical-based terrorism are rising,”52 Neil J. Gallagher, Assistant Director for National Security at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, cautions that “to say the threat is low

Current Trends in Agroterrorism 127

is not to minimize its potential.”53 Craig Reed of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service warns, “we are working against time.”54 Not only governmental analysts charged with planning for such an attack but their critics in Congress and other oversight bodies agree that an effective monitoring system for bioagricultural pathogens and disease outbreaks must be based on the robustness of response capabilities without advanced warnings.

However, there is still a dearth of protective and coping strategies to deal with the possibility or consequences of an agroterrorist incident. In large part, this is so because the case has yet to be made to the American public—and even to decision makers in the U.S. government outside the counterterrorism, intelligence, law enforcement, and food security sectors—that agroterrorism presents potent dangers. According to Dr. Murch, “the U.S. government has not yet fully embraced the threat of agroterrorism.” He ob- serves that the American people “understand an attack on the Olympics, but not on someone’s farm,” probably because the former has occurred while the latter has not.55

This unwillingness to think beyond the issues at hand may stem from the sense that problems posed by nuclear or chemical weapons-based terrorist attack are already over- whelming in scope. There may also be a societal-wide reluctance to deal with poorly understood threats, face stark choices, or consider the “unthinkable”; in this case, terrorist- induced food shortages. It is crucial that the prospect of agroterrorist attack on U.S. farms, livestock, field crops, and processed foods be given immediate attention. Some critics, including Richard Falkenrath, Robert D. Newman, and Bradley A. Thayer, argue that the United States should conceal its lack of preparedness to cope with potential acts of agroterrorism until protective measures can be devised and are in place.56 While this is a responsible position, it contributes to a false sense of security among the general population that ultimately undermines the credibility of those laboring to build public consensus to support containment and prevention programs.

While low-grade attacks on livestock are the most likely to occur, an integrated, multisector type of attack poses the greatest dangers. This sort of complex, interlocking agroterrorist stratagem, including a possible cyberterrorist attack on the computer sys- tems of corporate farm businesses, is precisely the risk that we must be prepared to deter or defeat, as it would have the direst consequences for the nation’s provisioning of safe food supplies.

Notes

1. There are almost 400 known mycotoxins, but of most concern because of toxicity and occurrence are aflatoxin, vomitoxin, zearalenone, funonisin, and T-2 toxin.

2. Steve Goldstein, “Plant Scientists Sound the Alarm on Agroterrorism,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 13 September 1999, p. 1.

3. Ibid. 4. <http://www.msnbc.com:80/news/346849.asp?cpl=1> 5. Ibid. 6. Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr. “Exposing the North Korean BW Arsenal,” Jane’s Intelligence

Review 10(8) (August 1998), p. 28. 7. Richard K. Betts, “The New Threat of Mass Destruction,” Foreign Affairs 77(1) (Jan.–

Feb. 1998). 8. “U.S. Lacks Urban Intel.” Jane’s Intelligence Review 12(4) (April 2000), 7. 9. <http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/991027/bc7.html>

10. Wallace A Deen, “Trends in American Agriculture: Their Implications for Biological Warfare against Crop and Animal Resources,” in Thomas W. Frazier and Drew C. Richardson,

128 J. W. Foxell, Jr.

eds., Food and Agricultural Security. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 894 (1999), 164–165.

11. Ibid. 12. “First Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess

Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction: Assess- ing the Threat,” RAND, 15 December 1999, p. 13.

13. Paul Rogers, Simon Whitby, and Malcolm Dando, “Biological Warfare against Crops,” Scientific American, June 1999, p. 70.

14. Goldstein, op. cit. 15. Ehsan Ahrari. “Unrestricted War: the Leveler,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 12(2) (Febru-

ary 2000), 46. 16. Judith Miller, “Long Island Laboratory May Do Studies of Bioterrorism,” New York

Times, 22 September 1999, p. A1. 17. Ibid., p. B6. 18. ProMed, “Citrus Canker Spreading—USA (Florida),” 16 January 2000. 19. ProMed, “Imports of German Beef—Algeria: A Correction,” 18 January 2000. 20. Simon Booth, “Conflicting Approaches to Risk Management: Recent Trends in the BSE

Crisis,” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 6(4) (December 1998), 215. 21. Michael Smith, “EU Has Three Years to Fulfill Its Bold Agenda for Food,” Financial

Times, 13 January 2000, p. 2. 22. Michael V. Dunn, “The Threat of Bioterrorism to U.S. Agriculture,” in Thomas W.

Frazier and Drew C. Richardson, eds., Food and Agricultural Security. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 894 (1999), 185.

23. “Animal Disease: Belgian Dairy Farms Shut Down,” Financial Times, 25 January 2000, p. 2. 24. Nicholas J. Neher, “The Need for a Coordinated Response to Food Terrorism,” in

Thomas W. Frazier and Drew C. Richardson, eds., Food and Agricultural Security. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 894 (1999), 181–183.

25. Gary T. Kubota, “Mauians Fear a Child Could Be Poisoned,” Star-Bulletin , 19 Novem- ber 1999, p. 8.

26. Michael Cooper, “Well Owners Sue Gas Industry over Water Contamination,” New York Times, 17 January 2000, p. B6.

27. Bermudez, Jr., op. cit. 28. Philip B. Heymann. Terrorism and America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998) (front dust

cover). 29. Bill Sammon, “Clinton Decries ‘Scarred’ Century,” Washington Times, 22 September

1999, p. 1. 30. Robert Corzine, “Commando Turned Islamic Scholar Warns of Religious Extremism in

Central Asia,” Financial Times, 2 December 1999, p. 7. 31. Tim Weiner, “Raids Are Seen as One Battle in a Long Fight,” New York Times, 23

August 1998, p. A1. 32. “More than 270,000 Killed by Japanese Army Germ Experiments,” CNN/CAN 28 No-

vember 1999. 33. Michael Baker, “Despite Assurances North Korea Still a Security Concern,” Christian

Science Monitor, 22 December 1999, p. 1. 34. <http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19991123/wl/us_korea_1.html> 35. “Statement by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet before the Senate Select

Committee on Intelligence on the Worldwide Threat in 2000: Global Realities of Our National Security,” Public Affairs, CIA, 2 February 2000.

36. Bermudez, Jr., op. cit. 37. <http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000124/pl/cia_threats_1.html> 38. “The ‘New Terrorism:’ Does it Exist? How Real Are the Risks of Mass Casualty At-

tacks,” A Conference Co-sponsored by Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute and the Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, 29–30 April 1999, p. 16.

Current Trends in Agroterrorism 129

39. At least 13 different types of aflatoxin are produced in nature, with aflatoxin B1 consid- ered as the most toxic.

40. Barbara Crossette, “Iraq Suspected of Germ War Effort: Experts Say Baghdad May Be Trying to Develop New Viral Agent,” New York Times, 8 February 2000, p. A14.

41. William J. Broad and Judith Miller, “Conceived in Haste, Plan to Fight Germ Attack Is Now in Jeopardy,” New York Times, 8 February 2000, p. A14.

42. Ken Alibek with Stephen Handleman. Biohazard (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 301.

43. Steve Goldstein, op. cit. 44. Miller, “Long Island Laboratory May Do Studies of Bioterrorism,” p. B6. 45. Opium bound for the European market is produced primarily in the Golden Crescent of

Southwest Asia, an area comprising southern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, and Eastern Iran. In 1997, Afghanistan and Pakistan collectively cultivated a total of 43,250 hectares of opium poppy. The main producer country in the Golden Crescent is Afghanistan, accounting for 93% of all opium that is cultivated in the region.

46. The main production area for heroin is the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia, a region comprising the Shan hills of eastern Burma, the mountain crests of northern Thailand, and the high plateau of northern Laos. In 1997, the Golden Triangle countries collectively cultivated 184,950 hectares of opium poppy. In global terms, the Golden Triangle accounts for 66% of all opium production.

47. Virtually all of the world’s cocaine originates in the Andean region of South America. The main producer countries are Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. Despite a concerted crop eradica- tion program in Peru, 1997’s figures only represent a modest decline of 5% from the previous year. Colombia has 80,000 hectares under cultivation, Peru 48,000.

48. William Hall, “Output in Afghanistan Doubles,” Financial Times, 31 January 2000, p. 2. 49. Walter Laqueur, “Postmodern Terrorism,” Foreign Affairs 75(5) (September/October

1996), 31. 50. Goldstein, op. cit. 51. “First Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess

Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction: Assess- ing the Threat,” op. cit.

52. “City Escalating Training for Health Care Workers to Face Chemical Attack,” Staten Island Advance, (AP), 22 June 1998, p. A2.

53. William J. Broad and Judith Miller, “The Threat of Germ Weapons is Rising. Fear Too,” New York Times, 27 December 1998, sec. 4, p. 1.

54. ProMed, “Exotic Zoonosis and Animal Disease Research,” 18 January 2000. 55. Goldstein, op. cit. 56. Richard A. Falkenrath, Robert D. Newman, and Bradley A. Thayer, America’s Achilles’

Heel (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), p. 300.