Threat and Vulnerability Assessments
The assessment of terrorist threats to food and agriculture and evaluation of the industry’s vulnerabilities will form the basis for developing a preparedness and response strategy for the nation’s food and agriculture industry. The challenge is to determine the likelihood of various forms of attack and identify on a priority basis the gaps in the existing systems. With this information, we can develop cost-effective measures to enhance our ability to prevent an attack, detect an attack at the earliest possible time, respond to protect both the public health and industry and recover from an attack by restoring public confidence and the economic viability of affected sectors.
NASDA urges USDA, FDA, DHS, and other federal partners to complete assessments as rapidly as possible and share information relevant to the development of specific state preparedness strategies. Such information sharing is imperative as states develop and refine individual State Homeland Security Strategies (SHSS) and will be important for the seamless integration of state plans into the National Homeland Security Strategy.