Waging war on the economy. The possible threat of a bioterrorist attack against agriculture.

Abstract

2001 was a difficult year for the British farmers and for the government. The foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak is now supposedly under control, but not before it resulted in the slaughter of almost 4 million cattle and an estimated cost of £5 billion to the UK economy. A national election was postponed, the agricultural department was completely restructured and British meat exports may never recover to their pre‐outbreak levels. The indirect effects were widespread, with the tourist industry suffering the greatest losses of all due to restricted access to the countryside. This FMD outbreak has been traced to a single farm in the North East of England and was due to natural causes. But if the disease had been deliberately introduced, the outcome would have been identical. ‘Agricultural bioterrorism’, or simply ‘agroterrorism’ as the phrase has now been coined, is clearly not aimed at agriculture per se , but at crippling the economy. ![][1] The events of September 11 have caused many aspects of society that were previously taken for granted to be looked at in a different light. Security, not only of the individual but also of the environment, is being re‐examined. But even before last year, there has been a steadily growing awareness, mainly in the USA, that the agricultural industry needs to be protected against a possible terrorist attack. This has resulted in increased government spending, including the establishment of a new research institute in Texas in December 2001, to investigate the potential threats and devise countermeasures. Agroterrorism could conceivably be perpetrated in a number of ways. It could manifest as a contamination of the food supply, such as the discovery in May 2000 that Palestinian terrorists had deliberately released salmonella‐ridden eggs onto the Israeli market. It is not known how many suffered food poisoning as … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif