By Greg Leimone
Farming today is a far cry from the 1920s, when my Italian immigrant relatives bought a 10-acre tract in North Carolina for $940 to grow and sell lettuce, tomatoes, and other vegetables. At that time, nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population were farmers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, sentiment around the use of pesticides was predominately positive, and security for food production facilities was hardly, if ever, considered.
Modern agriculture operates at the intersection of food security, geopolitics, climate volatility, organized crime, and global supply chain dependency. As the complexity and expansiveness of risks have evolved, so has the perception of agriculture. Once seen more simply as a multigenerational way of life, this industry has become one of the most vulnerable critical infrastructures that security practitioners are challenged to protect.
Agriculture as a Security Problem
As the world population grows from 8.3 billion in 2026 to an anticipated 9.8 billion people by 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, per UN estimates, the importance of food security will be continuously met with significant challenges, even under the best of circumstances. However, conditions are unstable.
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