White House Hones in on U.S. Food and Ag Security

November 12, 2022 — 

President Biden has signed a National Security Memorandum to strengthen the security and resilience of the U.S. food and agriculture sector. The memorandum builds on the Biden-Harris Administration's ongoing work to ensure Americans have access to safe, affordable food, that U.S. producers are able to get their goods to market, and that the U.S. food and agricultural system is better prepared for threats that may harm the health of crops and livestock and cause shocks to the cost or availability of food.

The memorandum instructs top government officials, including the Secretaries of State, Defense, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to identify threats and coordinate with federal, state, local, and tribal governments to develop responses.

Threats to be assessed include chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, pandemics impacting the sector's critical infrastructure and essential workforce, foreign animal diseases, consequences of climate change, and threats in the cyber domain, such as disruption to systems as a result of increasing information technology and operational technology convergence and intellectual property theft.

Read the full story at National Hog Farmer.

[Source: National Hog Farmer 11 November 2022]