AI adoption in the agriculture industry creates a new vector for agroterror attacks.

The agriculture industry has predominately been a mechanical and manual labor trade for centuries. With recent advancements in the technology sector, autonomous devices, sensors, and information systems are saturating the agriculture industry at an unprecedented rate. Economic investment futures forecast a significant growth in unmanned systems within the agriculture and logistics industries over the next five to 10 years.1 This growth is driven by drones and data applications, which are used to replace mechanical processes with more precise technological methods. The proliferation of unman[person]ed systems throughout the agriculture and logistics sectors increases the probability that threat actors, such as violent extremists, will exploit and weaponize commercial drones, which lack the more stringent security protocols found within the defense industry.

The threat from these substate terrorists to domestic and international food-supply depots and production facilities poses a direct threat to America’s homeland and national security. Substate terrorism denotes terrorism within five subcategories: leftist social revolutionary terrorism, right-wing terrorism, nationalist-separatist terrorism, single-issue terrorism, and religious extremist terrorism. Religious extremist terrorism is broken down further into new-religions terrorism and religious fundamentalist 35Parrott terrorism; al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria fall into the latter subcategory.2 Violent extremist organizations (VEOs) like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have successfully employed drone attacks in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East increasing the probability of drone attacks in the future. In 2002, as US and coalition forces gained control of al-Qaeda territory in eastern Afghanistan, they uncovered a treasure trove of documents. “Among the thousands of documents they discovered were US agricultural documents and al Qaeda training manuals targeting agriculture,” according to Dean Olson.3 Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s homegrown terrorist sympathizers have successfully carried out attacks in the United States, adding a layer of complexity to an already perilous threat. This chapter postulates within the next decade, religiously motivated terrorists (RMTs) like al-Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and their affiliates and adherents could leverage technological advancements in unmanned systems within the agriculture sector to conduct catastrophic attacks on the American agriculture industry and cause further global food insecurity and economic costs.

Research Methodology and Scope

This chapter uses a case-study approach to examine the likelihood of RMTs using unmanned systems to conduct attacks on the American agriculture industry (and thereby causing economic fallout) in the not-so-distant future. Current literature describes the agriculture industry’s increasing reliance on drones and associated technology as well as the vulnerabilities this new technology creates and provides examples of how terrorists might exploit the technology to threaten the agriculture sector. The vignettes in this paper will focus on past drone attacks and activities by state and non-state actors across the globe and how the activities may lead to similar attacks on the agriculture sector within the next decade. The chapter concludes by recommending ways to strengthen defenses as well as topics for future research.

Growing Reliance on Drones in the Agriculture Industry

Globalization has led to the world’s economies and agriculture industries becoming entwined, creating a powerful, interdependent system that has influenced global growth and development in positive and negative ways. Increased use of technological advancements in the 36Chapter 3 Weaponizing Food Insecurity agriculture and shipping industries has proven productive, increasing food production, storage, and shipping globally. The proliferation of unmanned systems and applications in the agriculture industry continues at an unprecedented scale, allowing farmers to increase overall yields while reducing resource consumption—commonly referred to as “precision agriculture.” According to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis 2018 Public-Private Analytic Exchange Program, “Precision agriculture employs a variety of embedded and connected technologies that rely on remote sensing, global positioning systems, and communication systems to generate big data, data analytics, and machine learning. These technologies allow for more precise application of agricultural and livestock management inputs such as fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides, resulting in lower costs and improved yields.”4 This convergence of technology and globalization in the agriculture sector increases exposure to and the risk of attacks from state and non-state actors in both the physical and virtual domains.