Progress 05/01/04 to 04/30/07
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Activities Conducted a survey of the level of preparedness and susceptibility for a bioterrorist attack of fifteen grain storage, processing and transportation industries. Events/Dissemination Presented the results from the survey as case studies in three different conferences and training events, including a) Elevator Managers Conferences, b) Wheat Quality Submits, and c) In-service trainings to Extension Educators. 1. Rayas Duarte, P. 2007. In-service training titled "Wheat Quality Summit", January 4, 2007. Audience: OSU extension educators. Oklahoma State University, Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center, Stillwater, OK. 2. Rayas Duarte, P. 2006. In-service training titled "Wheat Quality Summit", December 7, 2006. Audience: OSU extension educators. Oklahoma State University, Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center, Stillwater, OK. 3. Rayas Duarte, P. 2006. Workshop titled "2006 Wheat Quality Summit", August 2-3, 2006. Organized by Plains Grains,
Inc. and supported by Oklahoma Wheat Commission and Oklahoma Department of Agriculture and Forestry. Audience: 14 wheat industry personnel. Oklahoma State University, Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center, Stillwater, OK. 4. Kenkel, P. and B. Adam. 2005. "An Estimate of the Degree of Commingling In the Hard Red Winter Wheat Marketing System," Western Coordinating Committee on Agribusiness, WCC-72 2005 Annual Meeting., Las Vegas, NV, June 20, 2005. 5. Rayas-Duarte, P. 2005. Workshop titled "Wheat Quality Summit Workshop," August 10 and 11, 2005. Organized by Plains Grains Inc. and supported by Oklahoma Wheat Commission and Oklahoma Department of Agriculture and Forestry. Audience: wheat industry personnel. Oklahoma State University, Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center, Stillwater, OK. As a results of these activities, the industry personnel has received a training on how to increase their level of preparedness and security of their operations and facilities.
Products The developed survey document can be used for a variety of food entities. The information learned was prepared as case studies which were presented in different forums to the grain industry. The case studies did not reveal the name of the site surveyed nor disclosed any critical information that would increase their risk to a terrorist attack.
PARTICIPANTS: Patricia Rayas Duarte, PI, Professor & Cereal Chemist, Dept of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Robert M. Kerr Food & Ag Products Center. Dr. Rayas is the project leader; she coordinated all the activities and delivered presentations in workshops and in-service trainings. Ronald Noyes, Co-PI, Professor emeritus, Department of Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering. Dr. Noyes and Mr. David Edger were the team of surveyors that arranged and visited the surveyed facilities. David Edger, CEO of 3CI Consultants, Mr. Edger was a consultant to the project and along with Dr. Ron Noyes conducted the surveys for the case studies. Thomas Phillips, Co-PI, Department Head and Professor, Kansas State University, Department of Entomology. Dr. Phillips worked with the training team members in evaluating and training related areas in entomology issues. Dr. Brian D. Adam, Co-PI, Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Oklahoma State University. He and Dr. Phil Kenkel
conducted the cost benefit analysis for the project. Dr. Phil Kenkel, Co-PI, Professor and Fitzwater Chair in Economics, Department of Agricultural Economics, Oklahoma State University. He and Dr. Brian Adam conducted the cost benefit analysis for the project. Partner organizations: The Stored Product Research and Education Center (SPREC) at OSU was used as the headquarters of the project. This $1.4 million facility has a 60x80 ft center building housing offices, training rooms, laboratories and a large work room for demonstrations and large meetings. The Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center (FAPC) at OSU was the headquarters for planning and training workshops. Plains Grains Inc. (PGI), Stillwater, OK, was a resource for organizing workshops and presentations to the grain industry. Oklahoma Wheat Commission, Oklahoma City, OK, was another resource for organizing workshops and presentations to the grain and transportation industry
TARGET AUDIENCES: Target audiences were all segments of the grain industry including storage, transportation and processing facilities as well as extension educators from the universities. Efforts of this project included: development of survey instrument, workshops and conference presentations of case studies summarizing the survey findings.
Impacts
A Bioterrorist Evaluation Site Team (Team) was formed with two very qualified professionals in the fields of 1) grain storage & transportation, and 2) surveillance and counter-terrorism activities. The team drafted initial strategies for surveillance, evaluation, and testing of the security of commercial grain elevators and transportation facilities. A reconnaissance of representative commercial grain elevator, milling complexes, and transportation industries in the United States Plains was performed. This study has found that the grain industry overall is not a highly attractive target for a terrorist attack. The mixing and dilution that occurs normally in the grain business lessens the likelihood that an attack would accomplish the desired objectives. From an attacker's perspective, the ideal target would be a grain storage site that feeds directly into a major bakery, cereal company, etc. Hitting such a site would result in food going out with some level of
contamination, although even that level would have to be studied depending on amount of processing involved. Some security evaluators take the approach of identifying any weak points and then suggesting fixes that will strengthen those weaknesses and thus raise the security posture of the site overall. While that approach has merit, many firms cannot afford it. All sites have weaknesses. Fortunately, the results of this study suggest that at most sites a few, limited security enhancements would markedly improve security at a minimal cost. These low-cost recommendations would cause an attacker to pause, realizing that the site managers had taken the effort to harden their site. In many cases, the objective is to identify probes of the site by would-be attackers. Such probes are standard in any attack and serve as an excellent warning. Cameras, seals, and night-time closing procedures are all (low-cost) efforts to spot the probe. High volume locations are more likely targets than small.
Larger sites can add a bit more security because hopefully their profits are higher, but in every case we tried to only suggest those steps that would provide real return without putting them out of business.
Publications
- Kenkel, P., B. Adam, Rayas-Duarte, P., Noyes, R. and Edger, D. 2007. The Cost Effectiveness of Biosecurity Measures In the U.S. Wheat Marketing System, Proceedings of the Western Coordinating Committee on Agribusiness, WCC-72 Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, Nevada, June 17 to 19, 2007.
- Kenkel, P. and B. Adam. 2005. An Estimate of the Degree of Commingling In the Hard Red Winter Wheat Marketing System, Proceedings of the Western Coordinating Committee on Agribusiness, WCC-72 Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, Nevada, June 20, 2005.
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Progress 10/01/04 to 09/30/05
Outputs
A sustainable, long term security of the U.S. grain storage, milling processing, and transportation infrastructure is an area of national security interest. In Phase I of this project, we are assessing the level of bioterrorism readiness and identifying potential vulnerabilities in security at major and secondary levels of the U.S. grain handling, storage, and processing industries. During the first eight months of the project, sixteen in depth vulnerability assessments have been conducted. They represented commercial grain elevator sites from different regional areas in the U.S. and a wide range of grain storage volume (from 150,000 to 15 million bushels), handling rates (in-house grain transfer rates vary from 5,000 to 50,000 bu/hour), transportation methods including truck, rail (including 110 car unit-train operations), barge shipping and ocean grain transport ships. The assessments have also included primary grain markets representing major domestic and export
movement. We anticipate that the case studies examined will allow us to better account for regional differences in overall security as well as evaluate present states of readiness and future recommendations for improved security with minimal additional investments. Additionally, one of the project team members, Dr. Phil Kenkel, conducted a study estimating the degree of commingling in one class of U.S. wheat, hard red winter, marketing system which could be important in estimating the impact of a grain adulteration incident. The results could also be useful in estimating the costs of a bioterrorism incident, which along with an estimate of the probability of an incident occurring could be used to determine if investment in a more traceable system is justified. We initiated Phase II of the project, by developing the material to be presented in a workshop that will include the case studies results and future "train-the-trainer" activities for grain receiving, shipping/milling sites that
will improve their best security practices using advanced, economical security methods.
Impacts
This project will provide a limited overview of the general biosecurity situation of the U.S. grain storage industry. It is a field study will corroborate, support, and possibly extend the excellent biosecurity guidelines and recommendations developed and posted by different agencies including NGFA and USDA websites. This study will attempt to provide a limited assessment of the areas that need to be improved to increase the industry preparedness to an intentional or unintentional security attack at various grain storage and processing facility sites by type, location, function, national name recognition and profile level, potential impact of such an attack, ease or difficulty the terrorist would encounter in making such an attack or incursion, possibility of an attack being thwarted by positive planning, deployment of security measures and daily awareness/alertness of company leadership and personnel, and likelihood of an attack being discovered quickly. The study
should produce ideas for enhancement of security at a variety of grain storage and processing sites. These enhancements will focus on what can be done reasonably, at an acceptable (relatively low) cost, providing an acceptable amount of protection for a given site. Some enhancements will come from the assessment of project security team experts who conduct the surveys, but many will be best security practices observed by the project survey team during site inspections which merit report inclusion for adoption by others in the industry.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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