15.3 Communication and Coordination

At the core of efforts to enhance our food and agriculture preparedness and response capabilities will be the establishment of a well coordinated and efficient communication strategy that links all stakeholders and allows for the rapid dissemination of:  specific threat alerts from intelligence partners; incident notifications from field staff;  industry or others; routine surveillance information from inspections, laboratory analyses and other local and state sources; and other information deemed critical to preventing illness, death or serious economic harm to the industry from a terrorist attack at any juncture from farm to fork.

At present, there are serious impediments to establishing such a system.  These include:

• Federal restrictions on access to classified information and the loss of information through the unnecessary “classification” of documents;
• Federal resistance to accepting state and local laboratory and other investigation results, recalls and other actions as comparable to federal actions;
• The lack of comprehensive secure communications network to share threat alerts and other information linking local, state, federal and private partners, with appropriate security clearance;
• The lack of a comprehensive incident notification system for the food and agriculture industry.

Immediately, USDA, FDA and DHS should facilitate states in obtaining adequate security clearances for key state personnel to access and communicate critical information from the USDA Emergency Management Operations Center as well as critical plant and animal health and food security information. Federal agencies should review currently classified information and make determinations about whether it needs to remain classified for security purposes.  The results of state and local inspections and laboratory analyses found to be consistent with federal requirements should be recognized as equivalent to federal inspections and analyses. Development of rapid communications and incident notification systems should have top priority and include both public and private sector decision-makers.  

As a part of the solution, the development of a national Agriculture Information Sharing and Analysis Center (AGISAC) has been recommended to provide a central mechanism of reporting and analysis of agriculturally related incidences. An AGISAC would not replace existing data management systems, but would integrate information related to reportable animal diseases, food safety, agricultural chemicals, animal feed and other vulnerable agriculture targets and reach virtually every local state and federal partner.  A privately organized Food and Agricultural ISAC has been established, and NASDA urges that government agencies seek ways to partner in this effort.