Farm Here to Eternity

 

Even with desertification, sustained drought, water shortages and the opposite – heavy flooding – American farming has transitioned into the world of “precision agriculture,” a data-based, increasingly automated, system of optimizing food production. According to sciencedirect.com, “Precision agriculture (PA) (also known as ‘precision farming,’ ‘site-specific crop management,’ ‘prescription farming,’ and ‘variable rate technology’) has been developing since the 1990s, and refers to agricultural management systems carefully tailoring soil and crop management to fit the different conditions found in each field. PA is an information and technology-based agricultural management system (e.g., using remote sensing, geographic information systems, global positioning systems, and robotics) to identify, analyze, and manage soil spatial and temporal variability within fields for optimum profitability, sustainability, and protection of the environment.” Huh?

OK, try this: Sophisticated computers and on-the-ground robotic “tractors,” using both historical data (local and regional) and real-time satellite tracking (“telemetrics”), literally control big farm production, field-by-field, crop-by-crop and even livestock organization and control. GPS systems literally “drive” tractors as well as all forms of farm equipment in every activity from plowing, fertilizing, planting, hydration to pest control and harvesting. Processes from ordering supplies, tracking market pricing, and coordinating shipping are also severely automated. Academic degrees in agricultural fields are highly mathematically and scientifically based. Modern farmers often have these advanced degrees from state colleges and universities, all rising in prestige and relevance as the knowledge required to optimize farming increases in complexity.

In short, American agriculture is very much dependent on the Internet of things, requiring sophisticated linkage and control between individual farmers and all those data and control data systems necessary to maximize farming productivity. Americans are very good at creating and operating these systems, and our farm productivity has expanded accordingly. That is our agricultural strength. But aside from the ravages of climate change-related damage, there is another major enemy to American agricultural dominance and productivity. As good as our farm technology might be, there are malign actors, mostly foreign, able to hack into those systems, wreak havoc, disrupt our food supply chains, and generate massive ransomware demands.

Writing for the August 8th The Conversation, two assistant professors from the University of Nebraska (Omaha) – George Grispos (cybersecurity) and Austin Doctor (political science) – explain the changing landscape in this evolving arena of rising agribusiness cyber-risks: “Unlike other critical industries such as finance and health care, the farming industry has been slow to recognize cybersecurity risks and take steps to mitigate them. There are several possible reasons for this sluggishness.

“One is that many farmers and agricultural providers haven’t viewed cybersecurity as a significant enough problem compared with other risks they face such as floods, fires and hail. A 2018 Department of Homeland Security report that surveyed precision agriculture farmers throughout the U.S. found that many did not fully understand the cyberthreats introduced by precision agriculture, nor did they take these cyber-risks seriously enough.

“This lack of preparedness leads to another reason: limited oversight and regulation from government. In 2010, the U.S. Department of Agriculture classified cybersecurity as a low priority. While this classification was upgraded in 2015, the farming sector is likely to be playing catch-up for years. While other critical infrastructure industries have developed and published numerous countermeasures and best practices for cybersecurity, the same cannot be said for the farming sector…

“Cyberattacks against agricultural targets are not some far-off threat; they are already happening. For example, in 2021 a ransomware attack forced a fifth of the beef processing plants in the U.S. to shut down, with one company paying nearly $11 million to cybercriminals. REvil, a Russia-based group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

“Similarly, a grain storage cooperative in Iowa was targeted by a Russian-speaking group called BlackMatter, who claimed that they had stolen data from the cooperative. While previous attacks have targeted larger companies and cooperatives and aimed to extort the victims for money, individual farms could be at risk, too.”

While domestic terrorism has risen to the top of our “major threat risk,” as the United States increases frictional confrontation with major foreign powers, its critical vulnerabilities face new terrorist risks from our foreign foes and their surrogates. At a time when food prices are soaring as a part of a global trend, the ability of those with sufficient technological sophistication to disrupt our healthcare and financial systems, our power grids and massive cloud databases now includes the food we eat.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as we increase our mutual internal hatred, polarization we have not witnessed since the Civil War, we are distracted and leaving our most vulnerable necessary industries increasingly open to malign actors enjoying our self-inflicted damage.