APEC Food Defense Initiative

The Workshop brought together policy makers, technical experts, and private sector stakeholders from across the region to begin a regional dialogue on protecting the food supply from deliberate contamination. The U.S. was pleased to co-sponsor this APEC Food Defense initiative along with Australia and Chile, and to have partnered with Thailand as the co-host for the Workshop.

The results of the workshop will be reported to APEC leaders at the upcoming APEC meeting in Hanoi, November 17-19.

Since much of the world's agriculture trade involves APEC economies, and given the implications to health and economic security to individual economies and to the region, it is important that APEC tackle this important challenge. Unfortunately, this potential threat is not a new one; several APEC economies, such as China, Japan, and the U.S., have suffered incidences of deliberate contamination in the past. The Workshop shared information among APEC economies and initiated a regional dialogue that strengthens APEC’s ability to protect the food supply.

This initiative is intended to strengthen protection of the food supply from deliberate terrorist contamination through the use of different vulnerability assessment tools within the food supply and distribution system and by identifying potential countermeasures to threats. A key assessment tool used in the United States, for example, subdivides the food supply and distribution system into small, discrete units (or nodes) in the "farm to table" continuum, determines if there are vulnerabilities in each node, and identifies the "critical nodes" or points along the production system which are most susceptible to deliberate contamination.