Since the anthrax mailings, Americans have been on high alert against smallpox in our cities or plagues among our populace. Far less attention has been paid to the threat of agricultural bioterrorism –attacks aimed not at American citizens but at American crops and livestock. The threat is not new. In World War I German agents deliberately infected horses and cattle bound for the US and Europe with anthrax and glanders, while in World War II the US considered using rice blast, a fungal disease, to destroy the Japanese rice crop. (The idea was shelved after someone realized the Americans would then have to feed a defeated Japan). While it may be less spectacular than a suicide bombing, in the long run agricultural bioterrorism could be considerably more damaging. In 1997 U.S agriculture employed 24 million people and generated over $1 trillion. Our two million farms don’t just feed America … they feed the world. Our self-sufficiency in food is one of our great strengths and great weaknesses. We have created an agricultural industry which rivals the military-industrial complex for size and surpasses it in efficiency: we have also created an ideal environment for the spread of disease. Many of the high-yield, disease-resistant crops planted throughout America are closely related – not necessarily the product of genetic engineering, but rather of careful selection and breeding for desired traits (which is its own form of genetic engineering: see Gregor Mendel for further details). This close relation gives farmers some assurance of consistent traits, but also makes for consistent vulnerabilities and can speed the progress of an epidemic. Our livestock is no less at risk: most of our cattle, chicken and hogs are raised on vast “megafarms”, then sold, slaughtered and made ready for market in huge meat processing factories. A cow born in Idaho might well be sold in Montana, grow up in Nebraska, then be shipped to Chicago for her final date with destiny and the steakhouse. During any of these transactions, she may expose thousands of other animals to any disease she is carrying. The ingredients for agricultural bioterrorism are far easier to acquire than weaponized anthrax or plague cultures. To make matters more complicated, many of these diseases do not become apparent until some time after they have become contagious, while still others mimic milder, better-known diseases until their late stages. Much of our richest farmland is located in open, sparsely populated areas which are difficult to guard. We might never learn who had launched the attack… or even realize that the ensuing epidemic had been caused deliberately. Any number of people might be responsible … anyone from your standard garden-variety “Islamic Fundamentalist” to someone with large holdings in Chinese wheat or Pakistani cotton futures to a disaffected veterinary student or right-wing American militiaman. Here are a few of the diseases which might be used in such an attack.
|
|