Agro-terrorism

Chronology of CBW Incidents Targeting Agriculture and Food Systems 1915-2006

Agroterrorism: Home | Chronology of Attacks & Incidents | State Programs | Resources

This list includes allegations and threats, along with confirmed incidents, of deliberate use of chemical or biological agents to contaminate the food supply at any point of the "food continuum" from harvest or production to the consumer, with the intent to cause death, sickness, or economic damage.

Biological Incidents

1915-1917 / Argentina, Mesopotamia, Norway, Romania, USA
The German secret service mounted a covert biological campaign during WWI, using the pathogens that cause glanders and anthrax to infect draft animals, horses, and mules destined for use by the Allies for the war effort in Europe. It also appears that the Germans attempted to use a wheat fungus against the Allied Forces' crop fields.[1]
See Germany's CBW Programs

1943 / Isle of Wight, UK
Richard Ford, a prominent British naturalist, has made the accusation that Germany dropped special bombs containing Colorado Potato Beetles on the UK during WWII, accounting for their unusual appearance in parts of the UK. According to Ford, the bombs were made of cardboard and each contained between fifty and one hundred beetles. The alleged attack was, by Ford's account, kept secret by the UK government to avoid raising public alarm. More recently, Benjamin Garrett disputed Ford's claim, stating that although Germany's Potato Beetle Research Institute did undertake experimentation on how these beetles might be used against England, "there is scant evidence to suggest the Colorado Potato Beetle ever made it into battle." It is Garrett's view that the insect's mysterious appearance in England resulted from accidental introduction, probably via food shipments, and the German potato beetle research was initially a defensive program established in response to Allied biological weapons research.[2]

1950 / East Germany
In a Ministry of Forestry report dated June 15, 1950, the East German government accused the United States of scattering Colorado Potato Beetles over its potato crops in May and June of 1950.[3]
See United States CBW Programs

1952 / Kenya
The Mau Mau, a nationalist liberation movement, poisoned 33 steers at a British mission station, using what is believed to be a local toxic plant known as "African milk bush."[5]

1962-1996 / Cuba  
Cuba has accused the U.S. of attacking Cuban human, animal, and plant populations with biological weapons on as many as 21 different occasions. According to Raymond Zilinskas, the Cubans have alleged that the U.S. biological attacks caused such diseases as Newcastle Disease among poultry (1962), African Swine Fever among pigs (1971, 1979-80), Tobacco Blue Mold Disease (1979-80), Sugarcane Rust Disease (1978), dengue hemorrhagic fever among humans (1980), and an infestation of the Thrips insect in 1996 (see separate discussion below). According to Zilinskas, the most likely explanations for all the disease outbreaks and insect infestation was that they were either natural events or had been caused by the accidental transmittal of the causative agent through normal commerce. Further, in most cases, the damaged caused was intensified or heightened by inadequate or inappropriate responses by Cuban governmental agencies.[7]
See United States CBW Programs

1982-1984 / Afghanistan  
Ken Alibek, former First Deputy Chief of Biopreparat [add what this is or maybe hyperlink here instead of below], alleges he was informed by a senior Soviet military officer that the Soviet Union attacked the Afghan mujaheddin with the pathogen causing glanders on at least one occasion. According to Alibek, this would have the dual effect of sickening the mujaheddin and killing their horses, their main mode of transportation.[11]
See Russia's CBW Programs

1983-1987 / Sri Lanka
Sometime from 1983-87, a Tamil militant group threatened to use biological agents against Sinhalese and crops in Sri Lanka. The communiqué also threatened to introduce foreign disease agents into the local tea crop and to use the Leaf Curl fungus to infect rubber trees.[12]

January 16, 1984 / Queensland, Australia
Queensland's State Premier received a letter threatening that its sender would infect wild pigs with foot-and-mouth disease unless prison reforms were implemented within twelve weeks. Ultimately, this incident proved to be a hoax, as the perpetrator turned out to be a 37-year-old murderer serving a life sentence in a local jail. In December of 1984, Queensland's State Premier received a second similar letter from an unidentified individual.[13]

September 1984 / The Dalles, Oregon
Members of the Rajneeshees cult in Oregon contaminated salad bars in ten different restaurants and one supermarket with the foodborne pathogen Salmonella typhimurium, which resulted in at least 751 persons becoming sick with gastrointestinal disease. The reason for the cult taking this action was to find out if they could sicken a sufficient number of registered voters in The Dalles so as to ultimately keep them from voting in an upcoming election. The cult members and supporters sought in this way to gain political control over the county government, which previously had ruled against the cult in several real estate zoning disputes. In the event, the cult deemed this action, which took place in September, as insufficient for swaying the coming election in November, so the idea was dropped. Initially, public health workers classified the salmonella outbreak as having had a natural etiology, but one year after the outbreak, its leader announced that it had been deliberately caused by some of his followers. Several cult members were eventually arrested and given jail terms.[19]

1996-1997 / Cuba

Cuba alleged that an infestation of Thrips palmi was brought about by the United States having deliberately released the insect over the island from one of its aircraft.[14] According to the Cubans, a crop duster aircraft operated by the U.S. Department of State released Thrips over Cuba while in transit to Colombia. After the U.S. denied this allegation, Cuba made a formal complaint under a provision of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC). Thus, a consultative meeting of the BWC State Parties took place in June 1997 to consider the Cuban allegation. Most of the nations who took part in this meeting and who wrote opinions stated that there was no proof such an attack had taken place, but two nations stated that there was insufficient evidence to make a conclusive finding. [7]

June 1, 2000 / West Bank, Israel
Palestinian news sources reported that Israeli settlers from the Efrat settlement on the West Bank, Israel, had deliberately released sewer water into agricultural fields maintained by Palestinian settlers in the village of Khadder, near Bethlehem, Israel. According to local farmers, the release of the waste water was a recurring action designed to force the Palestinian farmers off of their land. If the farmers were forced to leave, the Israeli settlers could utilize the opportunity to annex the areas. Farmers had estimated their crop losses to be valued at approximately 5,000 dollars.[18]

Chemical Incidents

1952 / Korea
U.S. forces used herbicides on a limited scale during the last year of the Korean War.[4]

1962-1970 / Vietnam  
In its fight against North Vietnam and their guerilla clients in the South, the U.S. military used four types of air-sprayed herbicides, including Agent Orange, for the purpose of defoliation and crop destruction to deprive the enemy of food and places to hide.[6]

March 9, 1970 / Ashville, Alabama USA
It is alleged that the water supply of a 1,000-acre farm owned and operated by a group of Black Muslims was poisoned, resulting in the death of 30 cows. According to the manager of the farm, the poison appeared as a pinkish-white material found on and around rocks in the stream, which was identified by a local veterinarian as cyanide. Reports indicate that the local chapter of the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan might have been responsible.[8]

May 1970 / Angola
On July 21, 1970, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola issued a statement accusing Portugal of conducting anti-crop operations in eastern Angola. Eyewitness accounts alleged that five Portuguese C-47 aircraft sprayed anti-plant chemical over fields of cassava and sweet potato crops. This led to the adoption of a U.N. resolution on December 14, 1970, that called on Portugal to desist from using chemical or biological weapons against the people of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea Bissau. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports that the New York Times reported on December 9, 1970, that investigating U.S. diplomats in Angola had found indications that Portuguese authorities had used anti-plant chemicals against insurgent food crops. In response to queries, the U.S. Department of State denied the newspaper's story, but it is understood that the denial referred to the conclusiveness of the indications. The anti-plant agents allegedly used were reported as standard agricultural chemicals.[9]

1977 / Uganda
A Kenyan newspaper reported that opponents of the Amin regime threatened to poison Uganda's coffee and tea crops in order to deny the government foreign exchange.[10]

March 1989 / Philadelphia, PA, USA
A phone call was received by the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile, claiming that grapes exported to the United States and Japan were tainted with cyanide. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) responded and located two grapes contaminated with cyanide, which, due to the small quantity, posed no threat to human health. Responding to the incident, the US, Japan, Germany, Canada, and Denmark halted Chilean fruit imports. Chile claimed losses of 300 million US dollars, while US importers reported a financial windfall in excess of 100 million dollars. [24]

June 1989 / New York, NY, USA
Hector Cabassa, a member of a cleaning crew working for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), stole a small amount of cyanide from the FDA laboratory and used it to contaminate an FDA departmental water cooler. An electrician working at the facility drank water drawn from this cooler and became sick; he was then treated for his injuries and made a full recovery.[23]

January 1996-May 1998 / China
Sometime between early 1996 and May 1998, a farmer in China used rat poison to kill four of his neighbors and 12 of their water buffaloes. The farmer was apparently jealous of his neighbors because they were "better-off" than he. Locals mistook the poisonings for an outbreak of mad-cow disease, causing a panic.[15]

December 1996 / Berlin, Wisconsin, USA  
The police chief of Berlin, Wisconsin, received an anonymous letter in late December 1996, claiming that feed products at National By-Products Inc. had been tainted with a pesticide and that the police should expect "large scale animal mortality." National By-Products is a supplier for the Purina Mills animal feed plant in Fond du Lac, WI. Purina feed was tested and found to contain low levels of contamination (one or two parts per million) on January 2, 1997. The following day, Purina stopped a shipment of 300 tons of feed bound for eastern and southern Wisconsin, as well as Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan. Officials from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection announced that tallow at National By-Products Inc. had been deliberately contaminated with chlordane, a pesticide used to kill termites, and which has been linked to cancer in humans. On September 14, 1999, Brian W. "Skip" Lea, 47, was indicted for product tampering. The police investigation revealed that he had twice contaminated the plant's materials. Lea owned a rival milk ranch, a dead livestock removal company, and an animal food processing facility.[16]

October 22, 1997 / Bethlehem, Israel  
Palestinian news sources reported that Israeli settlers from Gosh Etzion sprayed a chemical on Arab grape farms in the Ertas and Khader villages south of Bethlehem. It is estimated that the Israelis ruined hundreds of grapevine trees and up to 17,000 metric tons of grapes.[17]

January 2003 / Michigan, USA
Randy J. Bertram a disgruntled employee at Byron Center Family Fare Supermarket intentionally contaminated between 200 pounds of ground beef with an insecticide called "black leaf 40." Initially, 18 people from several different families in the local community began to suffer from nicotine poisoning, the active ingredient in the insecticide. Nearly 100 people were eventually affected by the tainted beef and a joint investigation by the FBI and the USDA lead to an indictment of the perpetrator.[20]

October 15, 2003 / Greenville, South Carolina  
A perpetrator going by the name of "fallen angel" left a vial of ricin at a postal facility with a note threatening to dump ricin into the national drinking water supply unless new legislation dictating working hours for truck drivers was enacted. The FBI investigated the incident but the perpetrator was never identified.[21]

1. Abram S. Benenson, ed., Control of Communicable Diseases Manual, sixteenth edition (Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, 1995), 301; Jules Witcover, Sabotage at Black Tom: Imperial Germany's Secret War in America, 1914-1917 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1989), 92; W. Reginald Hall and Amos J. Peaslee, Three Wars with Germany (NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1944), 85-88; Martin Hugh-Jones, "Wickham Steed and German Biological Warfare Research," Intelligence and National Security, 7:4 (1992), 379-402; Andrew G. Robertson, "From Asps to Allegations: Biological Warfare in History," Military Medicine, August 1995, 370-371. Citations above obtained from W. Seth Carus, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents in the 20th Century, Working Paper (Center for Counterproliferation Research, National Defense University, August 1998/July 1999 revision), 87-89.
2. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare, Vol. I (NY: Humanities Press, 1971), 223; Benjamin C. Garrett, "The Colorado Potato Beetle Goes to War," The Monitor: Nonproliferation, Demilitarization, and Arms Control (Sept. 1996), 2-3 (http://www.uga.edu/cits/monitor/4-96.pdf).
3. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare, Vol. I (NY: Humanities Press, 1971), 224.
4. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare, Vol. I (NY: Humanities Press, 1971), 163 (footnote 27).
5. P.W. Thorold, "Suspected Malicious Poisoning," Journal of the South African Veterinary Medical Association, 24 (December 1953), 215-217; Julia F. Morton, "Poisonous and Injurious Higher Plants and Fungi," in C.C. Tedeschi, William G. Eckert, and Luke G. Tedeschi, eds., Forensic Medicine: A study in trauma and environment, Volume III: Environmental Hazards (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1977), 1504; Bernard Verdcourt and E.C. Trump, Common Poisonous Plants of East Africa (London: Collins, 1969), 62; Wunyabari O. Maloba, Mau Mau and Kenya: An Analysis of a Peasant Revolt (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); Robert B. Edgerton, Mau Mau: An African Crucible (New York: Free Press, 1989). Citations above obtained from W. Seth Carus, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents in the 20th Century, Working Paper (Center for Counterproliferation Research, National Defense University, August 1998/July 1999 revision), 80-81.
6. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare, Vol. I (NY: Humanities Press, 1971), 162-85; National Institute for Science Education, "Agent Orange Revisited," The Why Files (http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/025chem_weap/dioxin.html); "Chemical and Biological Warfare in Southeast Asia: Environmental Damage from Herbicidal Warfare in Vietnam," Calif. Polytechnic San Luis Obispo CBW Page (http://www.calpoly.edu/~drjones/Vietnam2.html#HERB).
7. Raymond Zilinskas, "Cuban Allegations of Biological Warfare by the United States: Assessing the Evidence," Critical Reviews in Microbiology, 25:3 (1999), 173-227.
8. "Poison is Suspected in Death of 30 Cows on a Muslim Farm," New York Times, March 16, 1970, p. 30; James Wooton, "Black Muslims Would Sell Farm to Klan," New York Times, March 17, 1970, p. 32; "Wallace Seeking More Policemen," New York Times, December 12, 1971, p. 50.
9. Robert M. Smith, "US Suspects Lisbon of Using Herbicides in Angola," The New York Times, December 9, 1970
10. Ron Purver, Chemical and Biological Terrorism: The Threat According to Open Literature, (Canadian Security Intelligence Service, June 1995), 82 (http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/en/publications/other/c_b_terrorism01.asp). Purver cites Kellet (1988), 57. Anthony Kellett, "Contemporary International Terrorism and Its Impact on Canada," Ottawa: Department of National Defence, Operational Research and Analysis Establishment Report No. R100, February 1988
11. Kenneth Alibek with Stephen Handelman, Biohazard (NY: Random House, 1999), 268-269; Kenneth Alibek, "The Soviet Union's Anti-Agricultural Biological Weapons," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 894 (1999), 18-19.
12. M.R. Narayan Swamy, Tigers of Lanka, From Boys to Guerrillas, (Delhi: Konark Publishers, 1994); Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam, The Tamil Tigers: Armed Struggle for Identity, (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994); Edgar O'Balance, The Cyanide War: Tamil Insurrection in Sri Lanka 1973-88, (Washington: Brassey's U.K., 1989); Rohan Gunaratna, War and Peace in Sri Lanka, (Sri Lanka: Institute of Fundamental Studies, 1987), 51-52; Citations above obtained from W. Seth Carus, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents in the 20th Century, Working Paper (Center for Counterproliferation Research, National Defense University, August 1998/July 1999 revision), 174-175.
13. Tony Duboudin, "Australian livestock threatened," The Times (London), January 21, 1984, 5; Tony Duboudin, "Murderer in court over virus threat," The Times (London), February 22, 1984, 5. Citation above obtained from W. Seth Carus, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents in the 20th Century, Working Paper (Center for Counterproliferation Research, National Defense University, August 1998/July 1999 revision), 171-172.
14. Robert Windrem, "U.S. to launch war on 'agro-terror,'" NBC News/MSNBC.com, September 22, 1999 ( http://www.msnbc.com/news/314627.asp).
15. "The Poisoned World-1998," University Sains Malaysia (1998) (http://prn.usm.my/diary/text298.html).
16. Richard P. Jones, "Product Recalled in Four States; Animal Feed Tainted in Act of Sabotage," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 4, 1997, p. 1; "MDA Investigates Possible Feed Contamination," PR Newswire, January 6, 1997; Nicholas J. Neher, "Food Terrorism: The Need for a Coordinated Response--The Wisconsin Experience," Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection; Gretchen Schuldt, "Man indicted on charges of tainting animal feed Berlin plant contaminated with toxic pesticide in 1996," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 15, 1999, p. 1.
17. Shabatai Zvi (translator), "Israeli Settlers Destroy 17,000 Tons of Grapes," Al-Ayyam, October 23, 1997 (http://www.hebron.com/article04-10-23-97.html).
18. "Settlers pump sewerage water into Palestinian groves," Palestine Information Network, June 21, 2000 (http://www.palestine-info.net/daily_news/prev_edtions/2000/June2000/21June.htm#9).
19. W. Seth Carus and Jonathan B. Tucker, Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons," "The Rajneeshees," 2001
20. Chemical Case 1663, CBRN Incident and Response Database, The Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 08, 2006 http://cns.miis.edu/db/ird/responses/1663.htm
21. Chemical Case 1719, CBRN Incident and Response Database, The Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 08, 2006 http://cns.miis.edu/db/ird/responses/1719.htm
22. Biological Case 311, CBRN Incident and Response Database, The Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 08. 2006 (http://cns.miis.edu/db/ird/responses/311.htm)
23. Chemical Case 1139, CBRN Incident and Response Database, The Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 08, 2006 (http://cns.miis.edu/db/ird/responses/1139.htm)
24. Chemical Case 306, CBRN Incident and Response Database, The Center for Nonproliferation Studies, June 08, 2006 (http://cns.miis.edu/db/ird/responses/306.htm)

Updated 06/2006

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