WASHINGTON – A specialist in agricultural economics offered assurances to a House panel that the nation’s farming industry has made significant advances and is well-positioned to endure any potential terrorist attack on the food supply.
Brian Williams, from Mississippi State University, told members of the House Subcommittee for Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications that diversity of production across the broad country offers some protection from any assault.
“Upon examining past incidences of disruptions in production and trade across a variety of commodities, the U.S. agricultural sector has demonstrated a remarkable resilience,” Williams told the panel. “In most cases, it would be difficult for a terrorist to inflict damage on a large enough scale to have a lasting detrimental impact on the U.S. economy.”
If a terrorist were somehow to succeed in inflicting large-scale damage, Williams said, “the agricultural industry has proven that it can recover quickly from most threats. With the cooperation of individual industry groups, state governments and the federal government in devising plans to respond to potential terror attacks or natural disasters, evidence suggests that damage from such disasters can be mitigated.”
Williams told lawmakers there are several things to consider in attempting to predict a terrorist attack on animal agriculture. If the damage is localized to a single county or even multi-county area, the impact will likely be minimal.
“One benefit of agriculture is that production is spread over a wide area,” he said. “As a result, natural disasters and other disruptions to production are quite common but typically have minimal impacts on the economy and markets.”
Williams cited a snowstorm that hit Nebraska and Iowa on Feb. 2 that hit much of Nebraska and Iowa, preventing cattle from being transported from feedlots to packers, all but shutting down the meat-packing industry for two days.
