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The biggest threats to agriculture, the economy and public health are just one long plane ride away. Michael Osterholm delivered that message last month at ABA's Agricultural Bankers Conference in Minneapolis. Osterholm, who is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, also told bankers that the nation is still largely unprotected from a bio-terror attack on food and water supplies. Osterholm's direst warning, however, focused on the spread of bird flu in Southeast Asia, something the epidemiologist predicted could quickly become a deadly pandemic influenza.

"The risk of terrorism in the food supply is high," Osterholm said tying his statement to a recent warning given by Osama bin Laden that crippling the U.S. economy was as much a terrorist goal as killing Americans. "Food is one of this country's largest businesses," Osterholm said. Terrorists don't have to attack the food supply in a way that kills a lot of people in order to wreak economic havoc, Osterholm opined. "You know that from the BSE issue."

The speaker lauded recent changes in milk pasteurization that have gone a long way toward improving the safety of the nation's milk supply. Then he went on to say the greatest single threat to agriculture, from a terrorist standpoint, was the vulnerability of the nation's dam system. "We've done nothing to protect our water supplies," Osterholm warned. "If an explosive device were placed into a city's water supply intake, it would be without water for 14 to 20 weeks." Osterholm asked bankers to think about trying to do business in that environment and to think about the nation's food processing companies trying to survive without water.

Responding to that possibility, Thomas Tott, assistant deputy comptroller of the Minneapolis office of the OCC, suggested bankers recall the project management experience they got when preparing for Y2K. "We stress test balance sheets so we know the impact of changing interest rates," Tott said. "You should stress test your loan portfolios, not only for interest rate changes, but for other scenarios, such as a contaminated water supply or other terror event."

A nation with mounting debt isn't likely to throw money at efforts to thwart every potential threat, Osterholm said, encouraging leaders to use every dollar as effectively as possible. "I also represent the National Center of Food Protection and Defense for Homeland security, which is a $5 million effort to protect a $1.6 trillion industry," Osterholm revealed. "What kind of investment is that?"

A more specific threat to agriculture is coming on the heels of the West Nile Virus, Osterholm warned - Rift Valley Fever. The virus is spreading across Africa and the Middle East now and it is expected to come to the United States in the same manner as West Nile, through airplane cargo holds. The virus can be carried by up to 10 varieties of mosquitoes plus sand flies and will impact animals far more dramatically than it will impact humans. Rift Valley Fever kills between 10 percent and 70 percent of infected calves, he said, although it's less fatal in adult cattle. In sheep and goats less than one week old, however, Rift Valley Fever is 100 percent fatal. After one week through adulthood, the fatality rate is still significant with between 20 percent and 30 percent of infected sheep and goats dying.

The nation does not have a response plan for Rift Valley Fever, said Osterholm, who accurately predicted the arrival of West Nile Virus nine months in advance. "It's literally one plane ride away," he added. "I have no doubt that you and your communities will be dealing with Rift Valley Fever either next summer or the summer after. What's the likely impact to the agricultural businesses that involve cattle, goats and sheep?"

Echoing concerns voiced a week earlier by the World Health Organization, Osterholm said an outbreak of bird flu in nine Southeast Asian countries could amount to the greatest disaster the world faces in a century. The bird flu could lead to pandemic influenza.

Annually, influenza kills approximately 36,000 Americans, most either very old people or very young children, Osterholm explained. "What we're talking about with pandemic influenza is very different; this is a disease that goes at the very heart of our population, attacking the most healthy people between the ages of 18 to around 35 years old," he said. It's much like the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide between 1918 and 1920.

Osterholm explained how scientists in Canada, using modern genetic processes, have been able to recreate the 1918 virus to learn why it was so deadly in healthy humans. He called the condition acute respiratory distress syndrome and said the fatality rate is very high. He also said the virus strain now circulating in Southeast Asia is showing the same signs in how it's killing people. Osterholm's conclusion was that, with world travel as it is, the next pandemic isn't just inevitable; it's imminent. And, we'll face it without vaccines, he said.

"When this situation unfolds, we will shut down global markets overnight. There will not be movement of goods; there will not be movement of people. This will last for at least a year, maybe two. And you're going to be so busy wondering what to do with no tools of any kind, banking will be of secondary interest, despite this being the biggest crisis in the banking industry in modern times," he warned. "I don't care about your competition or who your regulatory agency is, because when this is on your doorstep, nothing threatens agricultural stability in this country like this does."

Extrapolating the impact of the 1918 pandemic using today's population figures, Osterholm estimated that 1.7 million Americans and 177 million people worldwide will die from this pandemic. Giving those numbers perspective, Osterholm reported that less than 30 million people have died from the HIV-AIDS epidemic over a 30-year period.

In light of the potential crisis, Osterholm encouraged people to think about how their communities will handle the panic and fear, and learn more about the disease. "The ABA and other organizations had better ask our leaders, 'What are you doing about this?'"

It's not too late to prepare for the crisis, he said. "And, it is going to be a crisis."

By Jackie Hilgert