Agrosecurity PO411

How does the outbreak of bird flu in Europe lead to increased ice cream prices in the US? In this Agrosecurity course, you will learn how the systems we use to produce food and fiber for the whole world are vulnerable to disruption. These disruptions can come from deliberate acts of sabotage and terrorism, workplace accidents, new emerging diseases, political strife, or changing climate patterns. Regardless of their cause, the disruptions can have impacts that ripple across our society costing billions of dollars, jobs, and even lives. However, we are not defenseless. You will learn about the state, federal, and international agencies tasked with preventing, mitigating, responding to, and helping recover from these disruptions. Furthermore, you will learn the role we all can play in that process.

Students will work in small teams to develop an "attack plan", identifying a susceptible commodity species, an agent (pathogen, toxin, chemical, condition, etc), and a plausible scenario that would result in damage or loss of the vulnerable commodity.  Teams will then be given the scenarios developed by classmates, and asked to develop a "defense plan". 

This course satisfies 3 credits of the GEP IP requirements

Agrosecurity is taught using a combination of in class group discussion, online exercises, online discussion forums, and in class lecture.  The course is led by Dr. Matt Koci, with the significant contributions by experts working to protect our food and public health systems.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Dr. Matt Koci
Prestage Department of Poultry Science
363 Scott Hall
Office#: 515-5388
Email: mdkoci@ncsu.edu