Agricultural Terrorism

Tools of the Agroterrorist

Terrorists have, or could develop, the capability of using biological agents to attack crops and livestock. Such agents include viruses such as the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest, which kill or weaken cattle, sheep, pigs, and other livestock. Anti-plant agents include fungi such as rice blast and stem rust, which attack rice, wheat, and other important crops. Many of these diseases are endemic in various parts of the world, particularly in countries without well-developed procedures to monitor crop and animal health.

Early detection is necessary to cull infected animals and destroy infected crops to keep diseases from spreading. Many of the diseases that terrorists are most likely to use occur naturally, and a terrorist team could travel to the scene of an outbreak to obtain infectious material from a sick animal or crop. At the attack site, the pathogen could be administered clandestinely, so that any resulting sickness would appear to be the result of natural causes. One expert has indicated how easy this would be: “If I wanted to spread foot-and-mouth disease, I would just get a saliva smear from a sick cow and then rub it on the noses of some healthy cows in the country I wanted to attack.”

The development of biological agents explicitly for use against animals and crops has a long history. Germany used anthrax and glanders against pack and food animals during World War I. Germany and Japan conducted active research during World War II to develop anti-crop and anti-animal weapons. They rarely used them, however, probably because they feared retaliation in kind from the United States and its allies, which were engaged in similar research. Some nations may have refrained from using biological agents only because they feared the prospect of having the diseases spread to their own homelands.

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