By Scott Bordow
In 2022, Alicia Ellis and her husband leased a farm near Queen Creek, Arizona. For Ellis, the farm — and the physical labor required to tend to it — was a welcome change from her day job as director of the Master of Arts in global security program at Arizona State University.
“It was just something that grounded me and provided such a contrast to the very cerebral job that I had,” Ellis said.
Shortly after acquiring the farm, however, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing supply chain disruptions caused a fertilizer shortage and a price spike.
Ellis and her husband decided not to plant anything that season. But her brother-in-law, who farms 1,500 acres right down the road, had to plant because that’s how he makes his living. As a result of the delays in fertilizer delivery, Ellis said, her brother-in-law’s yield was down about 30%.
And that’s when it hit Ellis: The agriculture supply in the United States is a national security issue.
Ellis knows national security: She served as a U.S. Air Force officer, deploying twice as an air battle manager in support of operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. She was later appointed a Presidential Management Fellow, serving at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Financial Research and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations.
Source : asu.edu