The threat of biological terrorism against Australia’s agricultural sector is real and growing according to new research by a former senior intelligence analyst with the Australian Office of National Assessments.
Dr Carl Ungerer, a lecturer on terrorism and insurgency in world politics with The University of Queensland`s School of Political Science & International Studies, said Australia was a vulnerable target to bioterrorist threats.
“Australian agriculture remains free from many foreign animal diseases that have crippled livestock in other parts of the world,” Dr Ungerer said.
“But the deliberate introduction of a biological agent such as Foot and Mouth disease (FMD) or avian influenza could have severe economic and social costs for Australia.”
He said under one possible scenario, a determined terrorist group could acquire sufficient biological material from infected animals in Southeast Asia, and transfer it to Australia within a matter of six to eight hours.
“Our largest cattle farms in Queensland and the Northern Territory are only a few short flying hours from centres of endemic diseases in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand,” Dr Ungerer said.
“And because animal diseases are not usually infectious to humans, it presents far fewer risks for the terrorist than the use of human biological pathogens or chemical agents.”
He said agriculture contributed around four percent of our GDP and a large share of our exports, something that could be a risk in the event of such an attack.
“The 2001 Foot and Mouth disease outbreak in the United Kingdom cost more than $10 billion to the British economy,” he said
“A similar multipoint outbreak of FMD in Australia, with its much larger farms and greater reliance on agricultural exports, would have devastating economic consequences including widespread job losses in the food processing and tourism industries.”
He said some work was being done regarding possible accidental outbreaks of FMD, but government agencies at both the State and Federal levels had paid little attention to the deliberate introduction of a biological agent by a terrorist group.
“Structural weaknesses within the agribusiness sector, including poor farm security and the absence of a national strategy to deal with biological weapons, only increase the vulnerability of Australia to a deliberate agro-terrorist attack,” he said.
The research, to be published in the prestigious American journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, pointed to a number of policy to mitigate the threat of agro-terrorism.
His recommendations included better intelligence sharing between ASIO and the business sector, improvements in farm and border security and a national education campaign for frontline workers such as veterinarians and farmers.
Media: For more information contact Dr Ungerer (telephone 3365 2663, 0438 708 500, email c.ungerer@uq.edu.au) or Andrew Dunne at UQ Communications (telephone 3365 2802).
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