Agroterrorism and the Food Industry

According to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/agchron.htm) the number of actual biological attacks and their corresponding effects has materially been very small and ineffective. On the other hand the World Health Organization (WHO) (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs237/en/) estimates that in the U.S. alone an astounding 76 million cases of food borne diseases occur each year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. WHO also reports that food borne diseases have been known to affect hundreds of thousands of people in a single outbreak. For instance, in 1994 an outbreak of ice cream contaminated with salmonella affected an estimated 224,000 people. And while the U.S. dairy and cattle farmers earn upwards of $50 billion a year, WHO reports that the medical costs and lost productivity associated with food borne illnesses due to just the major pathogens are estimated at $35 billion annually (1997).

The numbers of potential persons affected by a deliberate biological attack may or may not result in any more casualties than past contaminations. Additional problems arising from a biological attack on the food industry would be psychological and would result in nearly catastrophic domestic economic repercussions for an industry which comprises 9.7% of the GDP. Additionally, the economic effects would have detrimental international ramifications.

According to a Congressional Research Service report entitled “Agroterrorism: Options in Congress,” (http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/RL31217_12192001.pdf) it is a “widely accepted view among scientists that livestock herds are much more susceptible to agroterrorism than crop plants.” (CRS-4) The reason for this is that plant pathogens are technically difficult to manipulate and even skilled plant pathologists have difficulty in creating diseases in optimal conditions. Plant infections are also relatively easy to contain. Conversely, livestock pathogens are relatively easy to obtain and disperse. Once a contamination occurs it is difficult to pinpoint the origins and track and contain the outbreak especially within the disorganized, decentralized and wholly unregulated industry.

Unfortunately, closing the gaping industry wide security holes isn’t going to be easy. There are a whole host of problems that the domestic and international food industry must overcome before they can begin to address the problems posed by a potential terrorist attack. First of all, the industry must address the very real problems posed by the non-deliberate outbreaks. In order for there to be continued long term confidence in the food industry, national standards for preparation, production, tracking, sanitation and security must be enacted and enforced by the federal government. Additionally, governmental, academic and industry groups including the CDC, USDA, AVMA, NCBA, WHO, etc. should collaborate and centralize its methods of security breach, outbreak and threat tracking communications. A system should be created that rewards industry for early acknowledgement of outbreaks so that they can be more readily isolated and identified.

Given these recommendations it may seem that the problems are insurmountable but they must be overcome for the economic and physical security of the U.S. and the safety and health of its citizens. In fact, more resources have been spared on policies that have yielded less of a return on investment than required to implement these recommendations. The present unwarranted circumstances and the future potential threats are just too great to ignore.

Tsunami Shifts of Thought

I don’t usually blog on business but when I read this article, NBC Universal plans cost cuts, layoffs, which reminded me of the thousands just like it that I have read throughout my lifetime, I was infuriated. The shortsightedness, the stupidity are just too much for me to ignore.

NBC is free to completely destroy their company if they like but it doesn’t mean that I have to agree with their excuses for doing it.

First of all, “digital media” i.e. the internet, didn’t just sneak up on this media behemoth - management has failed to understand that the internet and digital media has been a paradigm shift in the way people interact with content and they have the ability to partially shape that interaction. NBC-Universal, for all its money and costly MBAs can’t figure out what this simple blogger already has. That is when faced with a new problem you can’t apply old solutions and expect a new outcome. That’s the definition of insanity. NBC must change its way of thinking - and from the looks of it they need a tsunami-like shift in their thought process.

The first thing I would do is gather up some of the best minds I could to analyze the problem. But I don’t mean minds that people in the mainstream consider to be the “best.” I mean outsiders, independent thinkers, those who don’t have a demonstrated history of making decisions based upon the most recent fleeting thought to fly through their heads. People with incredible talent, who are looking for “dare to be great situations.” I would get them all together and ask them for their thoughts about this great unpredictable shift that is taking place. I’d ask them questions like where do you think it’s going? In what way can we take what we have and make it work with this new technology? Should we buy a company like MySpace.com or YouTube.com or create sites to compete with them? Or were those websites colossal waists of money for their purchasers because the next great thing is right around the corner and it will integrate what users like about both and render competitors obsolete.

There are so many possibilities, so many different things companies like Universal can do but don’t because of their shortsightedness - their perceived belief that they must impress stockholders right now instead of demonstrating over time that their ventures make sense.

For someone who’s been raised on shows like M.A.S.H. where I got to know these human characters, I got to empathize with them, I got to through what they went through - I laughed and I cried - and now I turn on the tube and I see so-called reality television characters absolutely devoid of substance, so I turn it off. But I’m not a snob. I’m someone who won’t be satiated by schlock. I look around at our different lives and I see a bunch of people searching for value, for substance, for relationships and when they can’t find what they’re looking for they buy junk and they fill their holes with stuff. They consume and consume in the belief that they’ll make up in quantity what they lack in quality. And they’re searching for their next meal.

The point that companies like Universal should take away from this is that they must employ human beings that are free to create works of substance. Working with a medium like the internet is just an ancillary problem. NBC as a company is losing because they fail to understand that there are many people like I described and they are turning to other avenues because traditional companies like NBC offer them no substance. By burning down the very areas that they should be building up they are cutting off their nose despite their face. More people will look elsewhere and the cycle will continue until they change the way they think.