USDA Says It Will Shore Up American Food Security Following Chinese ‘Agroterrorism’ Scare

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins said the USDA would roll out a new initiative in the coming weeks to shore up American food security after the arrests of Chinese nationals accused of attempting to smuggle a fungus into the U.S., one that could be misused as an agroterrorism weapon.

“If we don’t have food security in this country we will not have national security,” Rollins told the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation at an event flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “We will have a massive new initiative that will look at that specifically.”

The investigations, arrests and criminal complaints “are just the first step,” Rollins added.

Rollins said the initiative would involve a “wholesale look at everything at USDA, every piece of the agricultural community.”

The Department of Justice announced on June 3 that two Chinese nationals, Yunqing Jian and Zunyong Liu, tried to smuggle a fungus called Fusarium graminearum that can wipe out staple crops like wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Blight caused by a Fusarium graminearum outbreak in 1996 cost American agriculture $1 billion. Exposure in humans and livestock can induce vomiting and cause liver damage and reproductive defects, according to the DOJ.

The DOJ on Monday announced a third criminal complaint against a Chinese scientist accused of smuggling biological material into the U.S.

Kennedy, meanwhile, reiterated his support for ending dangerous gain-of-function studies that soup up viruses and other pathogens in the lab. One of the earliest and most famous examples involved H5N1 avian influenza, a virus ravaging American poultry.

“We’ve put an end to all gain-of-function studies. It should have never been done, and it won’t be done again,” Kennedy said.

Rollins pledged in May to end a partnership between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory facility in Athens, Ga.

Gain-of-function studies are under a national moratorium while experts working with the White House and the National Institutes of Health hammer out the details of a more permanent ban, which is expected in September.

Ending SNAP For Junk Food

Rollins and Kennedy made the remarks at an event celebrating Rollins signing waivers from three states to stop subsidizing the consumption of sodas and candies with taxpayer money under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): Arkansas, Idaho and Utah.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Indiana Gov. Mike Braun were on hand for the event.

The three new signatures bring the total number of states that disallow food stamps from funding junk food to six, Rollins said. Some states — including Colorado, Kansas, Texas, Ohio, Florida and Louisiana — are working out the technical details, she added.

Rollins said her first step in office after being sworn in was to pen a letter to all 50 state governors asking them to participate in the Make America Healthy Again initiatives.

Kennedy said ending taxpayer-funded sugar-sweetened beverage purchases was a commonsense step opposed by “lobbying headwinds” from representatives of the soda industry.

“Secretary Rollins told me, ‘Yeah they came to my office.’ I asked her ‘What did you tell them?’ She said ‘We’re paying for nutrition, and there’s no nutrition in your product,’” Kennedy said. “She said ‘It’s called the Supplemental Nutrition Program.’”

Food stamps are a $119 billion federal program aimed at supplying nutrition to low-income Americans. But an estimated 23% of food stamp spending, $27 billion, subsidizes junk food.

“If you said just a year ago that the waivers would be getting signed this quickly, I don’t think most people would believe you,” Sanders said.

A 2014 study estimated that nationwide bans on SNAP subsidies for sugar-sweetened beverages would slash obesity by over 281,000 adults and 141,000 children. The senior author was Jay Bhattacharya, then an associate professor in health policy at Stanford University and now the director of the National Institutes of Health.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Fox News)

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