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In light of the arrests of two Chinese nationals who are accused of smuggling a crop-killing fungus across the border, one expert warns that agroterrorism from foreign adversaries could cause a “severe disruption” to the United States.
“Agroterrorism is any attempt to bring items into the United States intentionally that would impact our food supply,” Kristofor Healey told Fox News Digital. “So this would be biological organisms like we saw in this case in Michigan. A specific lab-grown organism that is intended to attack items that are key to our agricultural survival as a nation.”
Healey worked for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for 15 years, first in an immigration enforcement role and then in counter-corruption operations. Now, he is a private investigator and expert witness.
Baggies seized by Border Patrol contain the dangerous fungus fusarium graminearum. (FBI)
“Obviously, we’re an agricultural-based economy in many ways, so anything that’s attacking our wheat, our barley, the basic standard of what goes into so many of our food products that’s being introduced intentionally, that’s being introduced by a foreign threat to cause disruption,” Healey said. “It’s the same as any sort of other type of terrorism that’s attacking a civilian population. It’s just attacking it from that agricultural standpoint.”
Chinese nationals Yunqing Jian, 33, and her boyfriend Zunyong Liu, 34, were arrested earlier this month by the FBI for allegedly smuggling Fusarium graminearum into the U.S. and studying it in labs over a two-year period. Jian was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan whose research was funded in part by the People’s Republic of China.
Fusarium graminearum is a toxic fungus that causes a crop-killing “head blight,” a disease of wheat, barley, maize and rice that “is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year,” according to the Department of Justice.
It is also toxic to humans and can cause vomiting, liver damage and “reproductive defects in humans and livestock.”
One expert warns that agroterrorism from foreign adversaries could cause a “severe disruption” to the United States. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)
“I don’t think Americans really understand or really recognize the threat that the [Chinese Communist Party] actually holds, and how much our economy is built into the CCP-run economy,” said Healey.
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He said that if a major event, like a war over Taiwan, were to occur, the United States would not be prepared for the wrath that China could unleash on America’s crops and other critical infrastructure.
“[Agriculture] is a very vulnerable part of our nation’s infrastructure if you have individuals who are coming into this country, as was the case in Michigan, who are coming to study, who have a lab background, who have a background in this sort of development of these sort of organisms, studying or working with these sorts of organisms,” Healey said. “If they have ill-intent, that’s the sort of thing that could cause severe disruption to our food safety, that could cause severe destruction to… what essentially goes into keeping America running.”
Healey also noted that while the United States focuses a great deal of time on keeping out dangerous people or items like bombs and weaponry, it should be paying more attention to agricultural and biological terror threats, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. should be paying more attention to agricultural and biological terror threats, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
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“I would suggest that is something we need to be thinking about a lot more, because we just came off, five years ago, the entire world being shut down by what now appears to be a biological item that leaked from a laboratory and then infected millions of people and killed millions of people around the globe,” he said.
Healey warned that Americans should be prepared in the event of such an attack.
“You don’t have to be a prepper and build a silo in Nebraska and bury all your food supplies and wait for the end of the road, but you do have to be thinking a little bit down the road,” he said. “Be prepared in the sense that you’re the kind of person who’s looking down the road. Not 24 hours in the future, but looking weeks and sometimes months in the future and preparing accordingly.”
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Jian and Liu have been charged with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the U.S., false statements and visa fraud. They remain in federal custody.
