Agro-terrorism

A hostile attack, towards an agricultural environment, including infrastructures and processes, in order to significantly damage national or international political interests.

Nomenclature

The terms agroterrorism, along with agroterror and agrosecurity, were coined by veterinarian pathologist Corrie Brown and writer Esmond Choueke in September 1999 as a means to spread the importance of this topic. The first public use of agroterrorism was in a report by Dr. Brown which was then reprinted in a front-page article of The New York Times on September 22, 1999, by reporter Judith Miller. Dr. Brown's article in the book "Emerging Diseases of Animals" served to further popularize the term. The Oxford Dictionary now recognizes the word agroterrorism and its derivatives. An initial debate by Dr. Brown and Mr. Choueke involved the spellings agriterror vs. agroterror. The spelling with the "o" won, as it was closest to bioterrorism and thus would be easier to remember.