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The overall goal of this project is to enhance our nation's preparedness for agroterrorism or major food-systems incidents by assisting communities develop their capabilities to respond to and recover from these incidents. <LI>We have defined six deliverables and timelines for their accomplishment within the twelve-month lifecycle of this project. Core to the deliverables is the expansion of agroterrorism preparedness training, nationwide, to each of the ten Federal ER Management Agency (FEMA) Regions using the DHS-certified, six-course, WIFSS Agroterriorism Preparedness Curriculum in which the host community or industry generate funds to support the training.
Non-Technical Summary: To enhance our nation's preparedness for agroterrorism or major food systems incidents by assisting communities to develop their capabilities to respond to and recover from these incidents. Agriculture and the food-systems have been identified as part of the nation's critical infrastructure. Very few communities or states have made the necessary preparedness plans to forestall agroterrorist attacks or mitigate the effects of a major food-systems disaster. Few in the food industry are aware of the DHS-National Response Plan or have trained responders to address the unique difficulties of incidents occurring in the food systems. WIFSS is a DHS training partner,and over the past three years has delivered training to over one-hundred communities, states tribal nations, and food-industries to close the gap in preparedness at the industry, community and state levels. Because of the acknowledged importance of local preparedness, it is critical that we continue and intensify our efforts to close the gaps in agroterrorism preparedness with training and coaching of community and industry representatives. <P> Approach: Build on significant momentum in agroterrorism preparedness training provided by WIFSS and its partners for communities, states, regions and ultimately the nation. To expand access to the WIFSS six-course, DHS-certified, Agroterrorism Preparedness Curriculum and the Institute's infrastructure of professional faculty and staff; DHS-certified instructors; instructional tools; delivery mechanisms and evaluation tools; and expanded nationwide train-the-trainer courses to expand training resources and geographic reach of training. To continue to build partnerships that will leverage access to and breadth of WIFSS agroterrorism preparedness training for communities/industries by adding existing DHS-certified courses to WIFSS offerings and building on electives and exercises to expand training content and application. To develop marketing tools and coaching protocols to enable communities and food-industries to generate funds for agroterrorism preparedness training from sources other than direct funding to WIFSS. To assess the effectiveness of these specific initiatives to achieving the Overall Objective.