Preventing Agroterrorism


September 12, 2014

The FBI’s top priority is protecting the United States from a terrorist attack—that includes preventing, detecting, and investigating intentional contamination of the U.S. food supply.


Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: The FBI’s top priority is protecting the United States from a terrorist attack—that includes preventing, detecting, and investigating intentional contamination of the U.S. food supply.

Kelly Decker: Food is a critical element for us to protect here in the United States. We need our food to be safe. We need our water to be safe.

Halpern: I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau, and this is FBI, This Week. One way the FBI ensures the safety of the nation’s food from farm to fork is through agroterrorism workshops. Our 56 field offices across the country host these workshops, which bring together the public and private sector—such as farmers, law enforcement, federal regulatory agencies, and academia. Supervisory Special Agent Kelly Decker says outreach, liaising, and awareness are the best defenses against agroterrorism.

Decker: We usually go through scenarios together, we offer up training, we talk about joint investigations and how that they would run, we try to teach the industry folks what to be on the lookout for and how to report things to us.

Halpern: There are currently no active threats specific to the food chain.

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