Agro-Terrorism: A New Peril towards Global Food Security
Jayashree Bhattacharjee*
Dept. of Agriculture, Govt. of Tripura, Tripura, India
Debashre Bhattacharjee
Dept. of Agriculture, Govt. of Tripura, Tripura, India
Ipsita Samal
ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Division of Entomology, New Delhi (110 001), India
DOI: NIL
Keywords: Agro-terrorism, Diseases-pest, Food security
Abstract
In most of the countries, agricultural systems are the backbone of main economic sectors contributing to political stability. In a country, like India, whose economy is largely dependent on agriculture produce and exports, any such malicious attack can grossly destabilise the socio-economic structure. In many countries food price are kept very low due to production efficiencies and disease controls. So, the concept of ‘‘Agro-terrorism” or agricultural terrorism starts to assume vital importance since a disease outbreak in an agricultural system could lose billions of dollars, cause poor production efficiency, drive higher food prices, exports of valuable commodities will be stop, and so create economical instability. What is really needed is to treat the agro-terrorism menace at par with that of other kinds of terror and evolve a well-conceived strategy to deal with it. For this, anti-agro-terrorism models from other countries can be studied and adapted to the Indian situation. Such an effort is worth it even if the threat perception ceases to exist. A constant surveillance against pests and diseases of crops and animals will help combat even natural epidemics that often take a heavy toll on crop and livestock output.
Downloads
not found
Reference
Ades, G., Henry, C.W., Feldstein, F., 2013. The food safety challenge of the global food supply chain. Food Safety Magazine.
Cameron, G., Pate, J., 2001. Convert biological weapons attacks against agricultural Targets: Assessing the Impact Against U.S. Agriculture.
Flory, G., 2015. Counter-Agroterrorism: Understanding and responding to the threat. CBRNe Portal.