Syllabus

Lesson 6: Mitigating the Potential for a Plant Biosecurity Problem or Agroterrorism Event

Purpose: By explaining how the federal government helps to safeguard the U.S. food supply, Extension educators will be able to motivate agricultural producers, workers, and other appropriate individuals to participate in local plant biosecurity mitigation efforts.

What you will need to teach others about this topic:

• That mitigation activities are intertwined with the activities of the other phases of plant biosecurity management

• How APHIS’ ”safeguarding” activities work in concert with local producers’ mitigation efforts

• No-cost and low-cost prevention measures and management strategies

• Prioritizing mitigation activities from a completed risk assessment checklist

• Mitigation planning must incorporate unintentional and intentional plant biosecurity threats

• Mitigation Resources from the Extension Disaster Education Network the Regional Integrated Pest Management centers

Presentations, Readings, and Web Site Reviews:

• Safeguarding Implementation - Nearing the Finish

• Producer Mitigation Activities

• Review of Risk Assessment Checklist an Mitigation Priority List From Lesson 3

• Integrating Manmade Hazards into Mitigation Planning

• Review of Regional IPM Centers from Lesson 5

• Extension Disaster Education Network’s Mission Statement

Reminder: Each lesson contains links to readings and a complete reference list.

Final Case Study and Course Synthesis:

This final case study encourages you to synthesize and apply what you have learned from the readings throughout this course. After you have read the case materials on Spodoptera, you should be able to address the synthesis questions without difficulty, based upon what you have learned from this course. Spodoptera is prevalent in many parts of the world with yield losses as high as 75 percent. The threat of Spodoptera is heightened by its attractiveness to agroterrorists—it holds the potential for causing a catastrophic pest outbreak in the U.S.

Last Updated:  09/02/2009