Biological Attack on Agriculture: Low-Tech, High-Impact Bioterrorism

M of the concern over the last decade about US vulnerability to bioterrorism has focused on terrorist use of pathogens to attack the civilian population. This concern increased in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon and the anthrax letter attacks on US Senate offices and the media. However, a number of analysts have pointed out that terrorist attacks on livestock or crops, although unlikely to cause terror, are also a concern because they could be executed much more easily and could have serious economic consequences (Frazier and Richardson 1999, Horn and Breeze 1999, Casagrande 2000, Wheelis 2000). It is worth considering the consequences for the US economy had there been a widespread and sudden outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) shortly after September 11. The stock market probably would have plunged even further, and its recovery could have been significantly delayed. More substantial consequences are easy to imagine. This article will give an overview of US vulnerability to agricultural bioterrorism and biocrimes; the accompanying articles and a previous article in this journal (Madden and van den Bosch 2002) examine individual facets in more detail. See Whitby and Rogers (1997), Schaad et al. (1999), Wheelis (1999a), Wilson et al. (2000), and Whitby (2002) for a historical overview of attacks on agriculture with biological weapons, a subject that is beyond the scope of this article.