To: Dr. David Acheson, GCC Chair
cc: Charlene Bruce, AFDO President
From: Travis Goodman, AFDO GCC Representative
Date: January 14, 2007
Re: 2007 GCC Strategic Goals
Thank you for this opportunity to provide comments on developing the 2007 GCC Strategic Goals. I sent out your request for comments based on your letter dated December 19, 2006, to the members of the AFDO Food Protection and Defense Committee. The Committee members are in general agreement with establishing effective communications among stakeholders as a top priority. Another issue that always seems to be a priority for the states is food defense training.
In order to properly protect our food and agriculture sector from both intentional and unintentional contamination there is a lot of work to do, but we are all pressed for time, and should be realistic about what we can accomplish each year. It would benefit the GCC to create a list of strategic objectives and timelines for those objectives (some type of blueprint for the future of food defense). I have listed below some thoughts on your other suggestions for 2007, GCC priorities, as well as some thoughts about how to effectively integrate state, local, and industry stakeholders into GCC food defense planning.
2007 GCC Priorities:
1. Status of communications systems? Establish what the strengths and weaknesses are for each of the communication systems. Find a way to wipe out the redundancies in the systems or establish how and why each system should be used in a different way to effectively protect the food sector.
2. To what degree does the sector want to take an operational focus? The operational or systems approach is a much more productive approach to protecting the food and agriculture critical infrastructure than establishing critical assets lists.
3. What are the deliverables that Stakeholders (States, Locals and industry) want from the federal partners to facilitate food defense? Commitment for funding for food defense initiatives that are tied to the NIPP, NRP, Target Capabilities, Critical Tasks, National Planning Scenario’s etc. Ongoing training on food defense prevention, response, and recovery activities. Some clear benchmarks on what level of food and agriculture preparedness is expected of state and local government. 4. How can the sector make maximum use of what has already been done and will soon be developed? While the ALERT program is voluntary it will be effective only when the state and/or local health department using the program is proactive or if the managers of these programs are convinced it is necessary/actionable and mandate its use to their field staff. If the use of the ALERT program could be tied to some sort of funding or even national recognition, such as an award program it will be much more effective. Most folks feel it is a great concept, but in this era when we are all expected to do more with less managers must prioritize based on their agencies/departments strategic objectives. One element that is missing from the ALERT program is development of some way to measure the progress of the program. We need to be able to find out how much it is being utilized and if it is effective. Everyone who is utilizing this program thinks it is an effective tool for raising food defense awareness.
Although I have not seen the CARVER + Shock software tool I think it is a great concept for assisting both the industry and government to identify gaps in the food system so they can harden their weaknesses. This tool should be made available on the web to any food industry or government agency regardless of size. Since many of the food industry folks are not members of associations the GCC should ask the states to blast an email to all their facilities that describes the tool and its purpose. This will insure that many of the small and medium sized food industries, which are the most vulnerable to intentional contamination, can utilize this free tool. There needs to be some way to measure the progress of this tool as well.
5. How can we foster an atmosphere of integration and inclusion for state, local and industry actors in the sector? Many of the state and local folks are not part of any particular food or agriculture association. If you want to include everyone you must make it clear how they can get input to the GCC. Are they required to join an association or is there some other mechanism that would work- regional task forces that have a spokesman appointed to the GCC or some other means of communication? It would be nice to have a 50 state meeting on food defense so all the stakeholders could come together and attempt to create some type of “blueprint for the future of food defense”. This could be set up similar to the Conference for Food Protection.
