Agriculture has long been understood as an economic sector, a source of food and a way of life. But in an era of global competition, cyber threats and tightly connected supply chains, it is increasingly being recognized as something more: a national security issue.
That was the focus of a launch event for Arizona State University’s Center for Agriculture and National Security at ASU’s Barrett & O’Connor Washington Center in Washington, D.C.
“Agriculture isn’t just something that national power has to protect; it’s part and parcel of national power itself,” said Alicia Ellis, director of the center, during opening remarks.
That broader view matters because the food system begins long before products reach a grocery store. Farmers depend on fertilizer, seeds, crop-protection products, water, equipment, transportation, energy and digital technologies.
A disruption at any one of those points can ripple outward, affecting producers, processors, communities and consumers.
Richard Rushforth, a research associate professor in ASU’s School of Complex Adaptive Systems, said understanding those connections requires looking beyond any single resource.
“It’s inputs. It’s transportation. It’s logistics. It’s cold storage. It’s a very complex system,” Rushforth said.
That complexity also creates an opportunity for the center to bring together expertise that often operates in separate worlds — from agriculture, national security, water, technology, industry and supply chains — to better understand where the U.S. food system is vulnerable and how those vulnerabilities can be addressed.
Source : asu.edu