Agriculture and Food: Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources Sector-Specific Plan as Input to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan

Protecting the Nations agriculture and food critical infrastructure and key resources CIKR is an important responsibility shared by Federal, State, local, and tribal governments and private industry. Because of the open nature of many portions of the Food and Agriculture Sector, attacks against the Nation by using food or agricultural infrastructure or resources as weapons could have a devastating impact on public health and the economy. Traditional physical security practices alone cannot protect the sector. A protection plan for food and agriculture infrastructure and resources must focus on planning and preparedness, as well as early awareness of an attack. Science-based surveillance measures are essential to recognizing a possible attack on the sector so that rapid response and recovery efforts can be implemented to mitigate the impact of an attack. A protection plan must also be coordinated closely with response and recovery plans. The National Infrastructure Protection Plan NIPP provides the unifying structure for the integration of existing and future CI KR protection efforts. The cornerstone of the NIPP is its risk management framework. Risk, in the context of the NIPP, is defined as the potential for loss, damage, or disruption to the Nations CIKR resulting from destruction, incapacitation, or exploitation during some future manmade or naturally occurring event. The framework applies to the general threat environment, as well as to specific threats or incident situations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture USDA has Sector-Specific Agency SSA responsibility for production agriculture and shares SSA responsibilities for food safety and defense with the Department of Health and Human Services HHS Food and Drug Administration FDA. In general terms, the sector comprises our agricultural production and food systems from farm to table.