By Mupakamiso Makaya

FOOD makes man. 

Deprived of food, any life form will suffer malnutrition, famine and even death. Relatedly, disproportion of food intake will lead to undesirable effects such as obesity and the risk of chronic diseases that are also life-threatening.

Basically, bioterrorism and its subsets (food terrorism and agro-terrorism) is challenging to differentiate from natural disease outbreak and could be caused by virtually any pathogenic microorganism. 

Food production faces many threats which include but are not limited to food contamination inherent in the food supply chain, be it intentional or non-intentional. 

The act of intentional contamination may be categorised as food crime that is envisioned to gain profit or using food as an act of terror for utter destruction, chaos and panic on a selected target as well as regional or global consumers at large.

Food terrorism involves mischievous attacks on food sources, especially agricultural sources, in the form of agroterrorism or bioterrorism.  

Agroterrorism is an act of destruction headed for an entire agricultural system including infrastructure, input, process and product foreseen to harm domestic and international interest of the targeted nation, and for the political or governmental or grouping interest of the attacker…that is another story for another day.

Food supply chain is one of the targets of food terrorism.

There is a thin line between food terrorism and food safety as they both share the same sorts of threats: chemical, biological, physical, radio-nuclear and allergens. 

The dissimilarity between the two can be distinguished from the motivation, that is ideology (for food terrorism), while food safety principally deals with unintentional contamination rather than intentional.

Food terrorism is a little-researched phenomenon both in academia and public domain.  

The food supply chain is an eye-catching, stress-free target for terrorist attacks.   

Food and nutrition security is one of the pillars of the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS 1) which runs from January 2021 to 2025 under the theme: ‘Towards a prosperous and empowered upper-middle income society by 2030’.

Food terrorism may also involve food and water  contamination with biological, chemical and physical materials to cause injury or death and/or disrupting social, economic or political stability. 

Intentional food and water contamination has been with us for a very long time.  

Deliberate contamination of food supply may be easier to control than attacks through air or water. 

An act of terrorism aimed at the food and water supply will be devastating. 

Food terrorism will damage the mainstream economy, especially the agriculture and tourism industries. 

Food terrorism is assemblage of individuals to intentionally sabotage the food to either cause illness or death on an enormous scale.  

They are habitually politically, socially or religiously oriented.

Acts of terrorism using bombs and explosive devices occur around the world. 

Terror campaigns involving bombs or arms have been used as terrorist methods of attack. Even if food terrorism issues are global, the deterrence must start locally.  

There are also threats in the form of food fraud cases. Many of these cases are involving meat products, such as meat fakery, mislabelling of meat products and meat fraud such as beef fraud in sausages, in which ox meat percentage is identified higher than beef itself. Additionally, there is also mutton fraud, such as the case in China which is re-counted that the meat substitutes were used which originated from rat meats, fox and other meats. 

Food terrorism is bad news to the tourism and hospitality industry.

The tourism and hospitality industry in Zimbabwe is one of the significant earners of revenue in general and foreign currency in particular. 

Last year, our tourism sector raked in at least US$1 billion in revenue which is expected to exceed US$2 billion this current year. This is noteworthy when compared to the size of the other major industries. Therefore, the need to be alert and protect this thriving industry is paramount. 

Food terrorism will not only mutilate the tourism industry, but also the mainstream economy, especially the agriculture and export sectors. 

Terrorists are specialised at creating uncertainty and pandemonium that will impact on the domestic economy of the selected country. 

Once a country is attacked, it will be considered an unsafe destination. 

Food terrorism is increasingly abetted by the globalisation of the food supply.  

It can have far reaching bearing on individuals and  society and may possibly cause social, economic and  political commotion. 

Consequently, answerable governments and organisations ought not to ignore the likelihood of terrorists targeting the food supply.

According to WHO, private and public sector organisations cannot ignore the potentials of food terrorism. 

One of the most common toxins used in food terrorism is ricin; other possible toxins are arsenic and anthrax. 

It’s not every food that is manufactured by the companies that originally developed it. 

For economic reasons, the manufacturing role is being reassigned to contractors. 

A WHO report states that an occurrence or breach may perhaps occur in one geographical setting that could have a broader consequence globally. 

A huge psychological impact is projected in case of a food terrorism assault. 

Recovery might take some time. 

It is easy to understand this impact by studying COVID-19 and anthrax attacks in Zimbabwe and the sarin gas attacks in Japan, as well as their impact. 

Beware of food sabotage, beware of food terrorism.