FBI agents tells Missouri farmers to keep alert for terrorism By Tim Higgins Associated Press Writer

02/26/2002 03:23 PM

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Farmers are the nation's first line of defense against terrorist attacks on the food supply through contamination of crops or livestock, an FBI agent told Missouri farmers Tuesday.

David Cudmore, Kansas City coordinator of the FBI's unit in charge of fighting weapons of mass destruction, told a Missouri Farm Bureau conference that farmers must be alert to suspicious developments.

``If you suspect something, report it and tell them why: 'There's something weird with my crops. They're turning a color I've never seen before,''' Cudmore said.

Beyond wiping out a herd, the deliberate exposure of animals to a biological agent such as foot-and-mouth disease would hurt the nation's economy and send waves of fear across the country, Cudmore said.

He said it would be easy for a person to bring a piece of infected material into the United States and spread it to livestock.

``If a person takes a rag, puts it on the nose of a cow with foot-and-mouth disease, then puts it in his pocket, keeps it wet, gets on a plane, flies over to the Midwest -- if he just shook a farmer's hand, boom!'' Cudmore said.

Cudmore said he was more worried about biological attacks against agriculture than anthrax attacks against people.

Still, the FBI in Kansas City has responded to 45 anthrax scares, Cudmore said. No person has been charged with a crime.

Anthrax was discovered last fall at a Kansas City postal facility. About 250 people were advised to take antibiotics as a precaution but no one became ill, and the facility reopened after two weeks.

Authorities field a lot of calls about nothing more than a white powdery substance on a kitchen counter or garage floor, Cudmore said.

He told farmers that if they detect something amiss, they should first try to gather information about it.

``If you can't figure out the explanation for why something is going on, you've got to report it,'' Cudmore said.

AP-CS-02-26-02 1616EST

-- Bob in WI (bjwick@hotmail.com), February 26, 2002

Answers

Isn't it so nice our government and our media keep giving directions to and for terrorists? I mean, they've given directions for flying planes into nuclear power plants, poisoning water supplies, distributing anthrax both by mail and by crop duster, and now spreading hoof and mouth. I'm sure there have been other lessons too, I'm just too tired to remember them. I'm not jumping on you for making the post. It's just that it's curious to me that the powers that be keep giving out detailed instructions in the name of security.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), February 27, 2002.

I know what you mean Green. I wonder about that too. They're in kind of a damned if they do and damned if they don't situation. If they talk about it and report the news they're instructing the terorists and if they don't they're not doing their jobs of reporting. Sometimes I do think they should use some discretion or is that self censorship? Dunno

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), February 27, 2002.

I agree. Here's the thing, instead of giving the particulars about what could be done, and how it might be accomplished, don't you think it would suffice to say something like "Farmers, please be very cautious of any strange activity with your crops or your livestock. There is reason to assume that terrorists may commit some type of bio attack."

I guess we just have to remember who funded the OBL league to start with. Course I have had a double dose of cynicism already his am.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), February 27, 2002.

IMO this is terribly old news. In my neck of the woods farmers have been being told to look out via the feed mills and farm organizations since hours after 9-11.

I personally think we had our first bioterrorist attack was when the genetically modified corn was unleashed upon us without proper research. I would venture to say my open-pollinated corn is contaminated, but I have not had it tested.

I run a totally CLOSED homestead now, since a year ago when the hoof and mouth thing happened. No one goes into my barns or into my fields unless I am with them and I am certain that they have not been on another farm. It is not negotiable.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), February 27, 2002.

Pretty much anything the terrorists need to learn is already on the internet somewhere. I don't think this news release has any information that is critical to them, but it seems silly to me to tell a farmer to watch his field for problems. Isn't that what they do for a living?

Talk to you later.

-- Bob in WI (bjwick@hotmail.com), February 27, 2002.

Since it is believed the terrorist are taliban and Osama , both CIA trained, it doesn't matter what ideas these groups get from the news media.Poisoning food supply and people is an old American tradition that goes back to the days we recieved our God givin rights to kill the native Americans and steal their land.I'm sure the CIA trained the now terrorist in some of the more mordern techniques of food supply poisoning.But don't fear , our country leaders have a well guarded food supply that's seperate from ours so incase we all get poisoned or starve because our food supply is destroyed, our government will still be left alive to continue the fight against terrorist without us.

-- SM Steve (unreal@msn.com), March 01, 2002.

Nice sarcasm, Steve! And you said it better than I did. Sometimes...RARELY, I am too subtle;).

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), March 01, 2002.