Food and Agriculture Defense

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In response to the National Security Memorandum-16 “Strengthening the Security and Resilience of United States Food and Agriculture,” the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) established a Food & Agriculture Defense Matrix Team to unite its work in this area and streamline its support to the mission. The matrix team aligns the Food & Agriculture Defense efforts within S&T and ensures that the Directorate is prepared to respond to gaps and requirements to defend the food and agriculture systems of the United States.

S&T’s Food & Agriculture Defense Matrix Team conducts and coordinates research, development, test, and evaluation on technologies, techniques, procedures, and capabilities necessary to protect U.S. food and agriculture from agricultural pests and crop diseases; transboundary animal diseases; intentional or unintentional occurrences of food contamination or adulteration; natural, accidental, or intentional biothreats which may present harm to animals or plants; and other high-consequence events that pose a risk to homeland security.

S&T’s food and agriculture defense work includes risk assessments; threat characterizations; countermeasures to defend against pathogens, pests, and toxins; food defense and ingestion threat modeling; characterizations of chemical threats for food contamination and adulteration; laboratory experiments and foundational research; diagnostics; veterinary medical countermeasures; decontamination strategies; trainings; and coordination with partners for joint efforts that defend food and agriculture systems.

Aligned S&T Efforts

S&T’s Food & Agriculture Defense Matrix Team includes the following programs and functional areas:

• Office of Mission Capability and Support
  • Food, Agriculture, and Veterinary Defense (FAVD) program 
  • Probabilistic Analysis for National Threats Hazards and Risks (PANTHR) program
    • Chemical Threat Characterization (CTC) program
    • Agriculture Threat Characterization (AgTC) program
    • Food and Agriculture Sector Risk Analytic Capability (FASRAC) activity, under the TIGER risk assessment program
• S&T Office of National Laboratories facilities
  • Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC)
  • Chemical Security Analysis Center (CSAC)
  • National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC)
• Centers of Excellence
  • Center for Cross-Border Threat Screening and Supply Chain Defense Fact Sheet
  • Emeritus CoEs:
    • Center for Zoonotic and Animal Disease Defense Fact Sheet
    • Food Protection and Defense Institute Fact Sheet
    • The Borders, Trade, and Immigration Institute Fact Sheet

Collaboration Across DHS

S&T works closely with DHS Components to protect the food and agriculture sector:

• U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB)
  • Border Security at Ports of Entry
    • Protecting Agriculture
    • Agriculture Canine
• Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
  • Food and Agriculture Sector
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
  • Recovery from Food or Agriculture Incidents
  • National Food and Agriculture Incident Annex to the Response and Recovery Federal Interagency Operations Plans

News

• Feature Article: Using DNA to Search for the True Origins of Imported Honey
• Feature Article: Protecting Food from the Farm to our Plates  
• S&T Proactively Preparing for African Swine Fever
• News Release: DHS Awards $193K for Standards Based Technology to Enhance the Visibility of Food Supply Chains

Resources

• DHS Fact Sheet on National Security Memorandum-16 on Strengthening the Security and Resilience of United States Food and Agriculture
• Master Question List (MQL) on African Swine Fever—Learn about the virus and the current state of available information.

Contact Us

Contact the S&T Food & Agriculture Defense Matrix Team: ST_FAVD@hq.dhs.gov

Learn more about our R&D mission and discover how you can Work with S&T to help strengthen the nation's homeland security!