A new security directive from the White House will require the Department of Homeland Security and other stakeholder agencies to collaboratively develop plans in partnership with the private sector to better protect the food supply from a range of natural and deliberate threats.
President Biden signed National Security Memorandum-16 (NSM-16) Thursday to “identify and assess the threats of greatest consequence” to this critical infrastructure sector, the White House said, citing as recent examples the 2021 ransomware attack on JBS Foods, the highly pathogenic avian influenza that has spread across the United States over the past year, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine that caused grain shortages.
“Federal entities, food and agriculture systems and supply chains are vulnerable to disruption and damage from domestic and global threats,” and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats “may result in high-consequence and catastrophic incidents affecting the food and agriculture sector” including toxic contaminants, pests and pathogens, pandemics that affect the workforce, climate change, cyber attacks, and “physical effects of nuclear detonations or dispersion of radioactive materials,” the memorandum notes.
“The evolving threat environment requires the sector and its essential workforce to better prepare for and respond to incidents with broad impacts on our national and economic security,” it adds.
Interagency implementation of the memorandum will be coordinated by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, with a progress report due to the president in a year.
Within 60 days and then on an annual basis “or more frequently as warranted,” the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the secretary of Defense and the heads of other relevant agencies, will provide to the secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and Health and Human Services “a threat assessment on potential actors and threats, delivery systems, and methods that could be directed against or affect the food and agriculture sector.”
Within 180 days the secretaries of Agriculture and HHS “shall assess the vulnerabilities of the food and agriculture sector to the threats identified” in consultation with the private sector and federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) partners. Vulnerability assessments will be updated when “there are emergent, credible, and actionable threats or events necessitating reassessment” or “agencies determine that it is appropriate to do so, such as when significant changes have been made to assessment-specific food production or processing steps.”
Within a year, the secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the attorney general, the secretaries of Agriculture and HHS, and the heads of other relevant agencies are required to produce a comprehensive risk assessment for the food and agriculture sector that is “informed by the threat and vulnerability assessments” required at earlier stages of implementation, “data-driven, sector-specific, and founded on interagency coordination,” “inclusive of CBRN and cyber threats, and in later iterations other threats that may result in high-consequence and catastrophic incidents such as energy disruption, pandemics impacting the food and agriculture sector’s critical infrastructure and essential workforce, catastrophic weather events, and consequences of climate change,” and “prioritized by the highest risks for the food and agriculture sector.”
Then, within 180 days after that risk assessment is finished, Agriculture and HHS will submit a strategic action plan to the president that will “leverage results from the risk assessment, as well as information on security and resilience capabilities, costs, and benefits” and include a risk mitigation analysis that “contains high-level actions for mitigating threats that may result in…
Read More: New NSM Aims to Prepare Food Sector for Threats Including CBRN, Pathogens, and Cyber Attacks