From the Des Moines Register - link will be gone in a few hours so not putting it up.

Expert warns of food-supply attacks Posted at 12:01 on 09/21/2001 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A leading food researcher warned today that the nation may be subject to ‘‘agriterrorism’’ with the food supply more vulnerable because of huge livestock production facilities.

‘‘The way American animals have been raised, they may be more susceptible to disease,’’ said Dr. Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation. ‘‘There are many different agents that could be used to infect animals and plants.’’

Quinn said agriculture officials need to heighten monitoring efforts to detect disease at the first sign, and move to isolate any infections quickly.

‘‘We have to consider the threat, the possibility of bioterrorism and agriterrorism real, even though we don’t know for sure exactly what the terrorists have planned,’’ Quinn said.

The trend in American agriculture has been toward increasing concentration, with larger grain farms and giant livestock production facilities with thousands of animals under the same roof and that would speed the spread of any disease, he warned.

Quinn spoke during a taping of Iowa Public Television’s ‘‘Iowa Press’’ program to be aired on Sunday. He brings expertise to the issue, as a former State Department foreign service officer who once served as Ambassador to Cambodia.

American grain producers got a taste of what could happen last year when an unapproved strain of genetically altered corn got into the nation’s corn supply. The mixup disrupted export markets and cost farmers billions of dollars.

‘‘They could very well be looking to taint our animals and our crops,’’ Quinn said. ‘‘Once you plant fear in a country that its plants have become diseased, that its animals are diseased ... suddenly there is great fear and a reaction abroad and American agricultural exports could become severely stymied.’’

Quinn said Iowa Agriculture Secretary Patty Judge already has conducted a training exercise to practice steps to be taken should an outbreak of disease strike, and he called for more such efforts.

‘‘We have to be prepared for anything that comes next,’’ he said. ‘‘That means putting in place mechanisms for response, and practicing them.’’

In reaction to the attacks in New York and Washington, most attention has been focused on airline safety, but that may not be the nation’s real vulnerability, Quinn warned. ‘‘I don’t think we know exactly what the terrorists are planning next, we just know they are planning something. My sense is they are going to be planning something different.’’

Attacking the nation’s food supply would be in line with terrorist goals of weakening America’s economy, and would be a psychological blow by striking at America’s heartland. He called for quick-response teams.

‘‘It has to be all the way down to the state level, to the county level to the farm level and to the farm cooperative level to isolate contamination to the extent possible,’’ Quinn said.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

Answers

Good find, Beckie. Could I persuade you to post it on the Preps forum too?

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

I would except that the preps forum doesn't like my password.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

hmmmm, strikes me that no organization would want to take credit for a major attack like this. The global repercussions could be huge. I wonder if they would be able to pull it off fully anonymously. I'm thinking that plenty of clues were left as to the identities of last week's airline highjackers (even if OBL is brushing off the idea), including a copy of the Koran that was left in one of the rental cars.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

Beckie, the preps forum isn't passworded any more :)

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

Done. For some reason I kept getting asked for a password when I used the link I had saved, but got in with the link from the topic here.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2001

Hi Beckie.. good find

Would you mind if i repost this over at the fmd forum.. I don't think the folks there will have any trouble identifying some agri-food terrorists..One from Britain was smiling ghoulishly yesterday from the gallery as Bush indentified him as PM of the US best friend..The Clinton speech i posted a while back gives part of the prize..Slick said opening food imports from the developing world would increase their income by $20B.. Slick made it sound so altruistic..All sorts of stuff on the long term plans to liberalise the agri-trade are available on the OECD site.. One estimate was $360B subsidies in OECD countries in 1999.. So that's the incentive.. OECD countries could stop $360B agri-subsidies and only have to pay the serfs in third world $20B..

I have the links if you want them

And further progress in freeing agri-trade seems to be a, if not the, main thrust of upcoming talks in Doha

Don't know if the events of sep 11 will change anything over here.. But Bliar is still proceeding with wiping out British agriculture..

All the Best

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2001

Brent,

It is fine with me. Just give credit to finding this at Currents. I don't need credit for the find.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2001

Thanks Beckie.. This is swiped from Burkie(from Kansas) at fmdnew

Message # 7449: Date Posted: 22 Sep 2001 01:04:53 by Burkie
Dear Friends:
This was sent to me today by my friend Mr. Callicrate.....I share it with you to let you realize you are not the only people in the world trying to make a living raising livestock for a living. I hope you all understand that we are all in this Food War together.
Burkie in Kansas
Guest Editorial,br> By Tom Spencer
Circle T Cattle Co.
Pueblo, CO
By now I think Americans realize full and well that terrorism is our new battlefield. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are strong evidence of the cowardly methods terrorists will use to try and destroy us. In the past few days, President Bush and Congress have moved quickly to bring our military forces into readiness, and are working to strengthen our national security. However, I remain extremely concerned that little action, if any, is being taken to protect our nation’s food supplies and the underlying economical structure agriculture provides.

I don’t want to be accused of giving our enemies any ideas, but I do not feel the subject of bioterrorism, related to our agricultural community, can wait any longer for address. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has just released an "alert" on the subject of foreign animal diseases in the aftermath of the two terrorist attacks. Those of us who are old enough to have lived through the horrible anthrax outbreak during the Great Depression

know full and well what’s at stake. The intentional introduction of disease into our food animals should be an immediate concern of our political leaders and decision-makers that are charged with the responsibility of protecting our food supplies. There is no question that a bioterrorist food animal disease can be accomplished cheaply, quickly and efficiently, which would render our nation virtually helpless.

While recent events in New York City and Washington, DC are unmatched in terms of terrorist activity on American soil, the horror of this nation’s food supply being sabotaged to even a minute degree would not only be disastrous, but the cost would be stupendous. I have very little confidence in USDA – an agency that has misplaced millions of its budget dollars and now wants additional money to "look for them" – to keep our borders and imports safe. USDA has become nothing more than a tool for multinational agri-businesses, in pursuit of obscene profits that could care less about the safety of our nation’s food supply.

Former U.N. Ambassador Holbrooke said in a recent interview, "we indeed have a border inspection problem with Canada in that we accept goods (meat, produce and other food products) on Canadian bills of lading and inspection which is far less stringent than our own inspection. Given that we share a border that is essentially open, what is to stop a person, group, or importer, with bad intent to contaminate our food supply?" Holbrooke of course, thinks an even bigger problem exists with Mexico.

It is simply not enough for our governmental agencies to issue "alerts." As citizens, we must step to the plate and demand that Congress immediately close down our borders to imported meat, grains, vegetables and other agricultural products. There will be those who oppose these measures, warning of domestic and world economic collapse. They will do so simply out of greed, without a care in the world about the safety of America’s food supply. Never before have we been faced with such an insidious enemy, who will resort to any tactic to destroy America and bring her to her knees.

We MUST get our priorities in order. I think it is highly appropriate to enact an immediate halt to all imports of food until such time that an Independent Industry Commission (free of influence by the multinational corporations), consisting of food producers and food consumer representatives are satisfied that the proper inspection protocol is in place at USDA.

Don’t wait. Don’t be apathetic. Call your congressional delegations today and let them know that foreign imports of live animals and food products are putting America at terrible risk. Do it today.

Tom Spencer, Pueblo, CO,br> (719) 543-2447

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2001

Military aids in park anthrax study
FORT SMITH, N.W.T. - Scientists are taking advantage of an anthrax outbreak in Wood Buffalo National Park to study the disease. With the Canadian military providing some of the expertise, researchers from government and parks branch are studying how the killer disease spreads.
"It's an opportunity to learn and understand the way the disease works in the animal and in the environment, and an opportunity to test if our approaches to deal with it are effective and useful," says John Nichi, the bison ecologist for the Government of the Northwest Territories. One of the tests is an effort to find a better way to dispose of diseased carcasses and reduce the spread of contamination.
In the 1993 anthrax outbreak in a territorial bison sanctuary, formaldehyde was poured on dead animals to discourage predators. Then the carcass was burned with coal and wood
Wood Buffalo Park's strategy is to let nature take its course. Carcasses are buried or left to rot.
In these tests, napalm, or gelled gasoline, is being used to burn the dead bison.
The area is then examined to see if the flame has destroyed the anthrax spores.
Nichi hopes the experiments provide the results required to reduce the frequency of anthrax outbreaks.

http://north.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/08/17/17anthrax

Think we can safely assume, that if baby brother is doing a study like this, it is with the knowledge and probably guidance of big brother..As i recall this herd was originally imported from the US a long time ago.. And was infected with TB at the time.. don't think they ever completely stamped it out..

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2001

". . .demand that Congress immediately close down our borders to imported meat, grains, vegetables and other agricultural products." This notion comes from someone who apparently owns Circle T Cattle Co. in Pueblo, CO. I get very suspicious when someone stands to gain a great deal from what they are advocating. The idea that imports could be poisoned is valid--but it's equally easy to poison what's already here. If the terrorists can crash planes into buildings, they can poison a food supply.

We know that some of the terrorists had/have been in place for five years. Who will guarantee that one or more terrorists isn't already in place in a feedlot, mega-grain storage facility or humongous canning factory?

No, don't waste your time thinking about or acting upon this idea; instead, make sure you have a sufficient supply of food and water (or water purification gadgets/supplies) for yourselves, families, pets and livestock. What is a sufficient supply? Who knows? I'd aim for three months--six months or a year if you can afford it. I'll be making another trip to Costco this weekend to add more items to our stash. Even if nothing happens, should one of you be laid off you'll be awfully glad you don't have to spend money on food.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2001

Hi OG,

I think there are two aspects to this..One , you're quite right to reject the basis of his argument..The terrorists could easily strike internally as elsewhere..But after the stash is consumed.. we are going to want a refill.. And i'd sure like to have some local independant primary producers still in business to supplement our own gardening..
cheers

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2001

We have a large number of independents around here, growing organic food for the whole foods place as well as two of the largest supermarket chains, Harris-Teeter and Kroger. Perhaps the folks in your area could support similar organic farms by asking supermarkets to stock organics and then by buying the produce.

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2001