From Farm Gate to National Security: How Arizona State University Addresses USA Agriculture Supply Chain Risks

When people think of national security, they tend to picture military readiness, border enforcement, or cybersecurity operations. Few imagine rows of cabbage growing along U.S. Route 95 in Yuma, Arizona. Yet agriculture — an industry worth more than $4 billion annually in Yuma alone — is increasingly understood as something far bigger than an economic sector or a way of life. In an era defined by global competition, cyber threats, and tightly connected supply chains, the food system has become a matter of national security. Recognizing this shift, Arizona State University recently launched its Center for Agriculture and National Security, an initiative designed to examine how food production, supply chains, technology, homeland security, and global competition shape the resilience of the USA.

The center held its launch event at ASU’s Barrett & O’Connor Washington Center in Washington, D.C., convening experts from agriculture, national security, water resources, technology, industry, and supply chain management. To understand why this initiative matters — and what it signals for farmers, policymakers, and consumers — it helps to look closely at how the American food system actually works and where it is most exposed.

If you want to follow the center’s work as it develops, you can learn more about its mission and research priorities by visiting the Center for Agriculture and National Security website or subscribing to updates from Arizona State University.

Why Agriculture Now Ranks Among USA National Security Priorities

For most of modern history, agriculture has been treated as a purely economic concern: a source of food, commodities, exports, and rural livelihoods. That framing is no longer sufficient. Alicia Ellis, director of the Center for Agriculture and National Security, captured the shift in her opening remarks at the launch event: “Agriculture isn’t just something that national power has to protect; it’s part and parcel of national power itself.”

That statement reframes the conversation. A nation that cannot reliably produce, move, and process food is a nation vulnerable to coercion, disruption, and crisis. Adversaries no longer need to target only military installations; a well-placed disruption to fertilizer imports, port operations, cold storage networks, or digital farm systems can ripple outward to affect producers, processors, rural communities, and ultimately consumers at the grocery store.

The stakes are enormous. American agriculture depends on a web of inputs — fertilizer, seeds, crop-protection products, water, machinery, fuel, transportation, and increasingly, digital technology. A failure at any single point in that chain can cascade across the entire system. This is precisely why Arizona State University chose to treat agriculture and national security as inseparable fields of study.

The Hidden Complexity Behind Every Meal

One of the center’s core insights is that the food system is far more intricate than it appears. Richard Rushforth, a research associate professor in ASU’s School of Complex Adaptive Systems, emphasized that understanding agriculture requires looking beyond any single resource or process.

“It’s inputs. It’s transportation. It’s logistics. It’s cold storage. It’s a very complex system,” Rushforth said.

Consider what happens between the farm gate and the dinner table. A head of lettuce grown in Yuma must be irrigated with carefully managed water supplies, treated with inputs that may originate overseas, harvested with specialized equipment, packed in temperature-controlled facilities, and trucked across thousands of miles through a handful of concentrated distribution corridors. Each stage depends on energy, labor, digital infrastructure, and timing. When one link weakens, the effects multiply rather than simply add up.

This complexity creates both risk and opportunity. It creates risk because vulnerabilities are often invisible until a crisis exposes them. It creates opportunity because it allows institutions like ASU to bring together expertise that traditionally operates in separate worlds. Farmers rarely interact with national security analysts; water researchers seldom collaborate with logistics executives. The Center for Agriculture and National Security is built to close those gaps before interdependencies become emergencies.

Have insights or questions about where the food system is most vulnerable? Share your perspective in the comments below — conversations like these help connect researchers with the people who live these challenges daily.

Inside Arizona State University’s Center for Agriculture and National Security

The center brings together faculty and advisors from multiple ASU units, including the School of Politics and Global Studies, the School of Complex Adaptive Systems, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, with ties to the Rob Walton College of Global Futures. Its location strategy matters too: by anchoring activities in Washington, D.C., the center positions itself at the intersection of academic research and federal policymaking.

David Kilcullen, a professor of practice in ASU’s School of Politics and Global Studies and a member of the center’s board of advisors, noted that one of its key roles will be helping decision-makers understand interdependencies before they become crises. Many people, he observed, do not fully recognize that agriculture, water, technology, and security are all part of one connected system — a system with vulnerabilities, but also with sources of resilience.

Perhaps the most distinctive voice at the launch belonged to Mark Purdy, a retired U.S. Army colonel who grew up on a farm and later returned to agriculture after a 25-year national security career. Purdy’s message was blunt: identifying risks is only the first step.

“If we stop at information and education, then I don’t think the center will be successful,” Purdy said. “We have to get out and activate, and actually implement and do something about the risks and vulnerabilities and opportunities that we identify.”

That emphasis on action — moving from analysis to implementation — may be what gives the center significance well beyond ASU. Its stated purpose is to connect the farm gate to the national security community, translating research into stronger supply chains, better preparedness, and a more resilient food system.

Evolving Risks to American Agriculture and Supply Chains

The launch event highlighted several categories of risk that deserve close attention from anyone involved in agriculture, food production, or security policy.

Cyber-Physical Vulnerabilities in Precision Agriculture

Precision agriculture — sensor networks, GPS-guided equipment, automated irrigation, and data-driven forecasting — has delivered real gains in productivity and water efficiency. But every connected device is also a potential entry point for attack. A cyber operation that disables irrigation controllers during a heat wave or corrupts logistics software during harvest season could inflict damage that no drought or pest could match. As farms digitize, cybersecurity must become as fundamental to agricultural operations as soil health.

Dependence on Overseas Inputs and Concentrated Networks

American producers rely on inputs that are frequently sourced from abroad, and processing, transportation, and cold storage are concentrated in relatively few facilities and corridors. Concentration creates efficiency in normal times and fragility in disrupted ones. A single bottleneck — a closed port, a shortage of crop-protection chemicals, a rail disruption — can idle farms across multiple states. Understanding these chokepoints is essential work for national resilience.

Control of Seed Genetics and Strategic Inputs

Control over seed genetics, agricultural technology, and other critical inputs carries strategic consequences. If ownership or influence over these assets shifts to foreign entities, the USA risks losing leverage over its own food production capacity. This is not a hypothetical concern; it is the kind of structural dependency that security professionals analyze in other industries and increasingly see in agriculture.

For readers who want to examine these issues in greater depth, ASU News provides ongoing coverage of the center’s launch, its research agenda, and related work across the university’s schools and colleges.

From Awareness to Action: Building a Resilient Food System

The most important takeaway from the center’s launch is that awareness alone will not protect the food system. Resilience must be built deliberately, through concrete measures such as:

• Mapping vulnerabilities systematically. Producers, processors, and policymakers need clear visibility into where their inputs come from, which routes products travel, and which single points of failure exist across the chain.
• Securing digital infrastructure. Farms and food companies should treat cybersecurity as core operational practice, not an afterthought — including safeguards for sensors, equipment, and logistics software.
• Diversifying critical inputs. Reducing dependence on single foreign sources for fertilizer, chemicals, and seed genetics strengthens the entire system against coercion and supply shocks.
• Bridging research and practice. Universities, industry, and government agencies must collaborate so that findings about risk translate quickly into field-level changes and sound policy.

This is the gap the Center for Agriculture and National Security intends to fill. By connecting research on water, complex systems, and global politics with the practical realities of farming and the strategic concerns of national security professionals, the center aims to ensure that identified risks are actually addressed — not merely documented.

What This Means for Farmers, Policymakers, and Consumers

For farmers and agribusiness operators, the center’s work signals growing institutional attention to the operational risks they face — and new resources for assessing everything from input sourcing to digital security. For policymakers in Washington and state capitals, it provides rigorous analysis to inform legislation on supply chain resilience, foreign investment in agricultural assets, and rural infrastructure. For students and researchers, it opens a cross-disciplinary field where agriculture, political science, engineering, and security studies converge. And for consumers, it is a reminder that food security is not guaranteed by abundance alone; it depends on systems that must be understood, monitored, and defended.

Because when agriculture is disrupted, the effects do not stop at the farm gate. They reach every table in the country.

Stay Informed and Get Involved

The launch of Arizona State University’s Center for Agriculture and National Security marks an important step in recognizing the USA food system as a pillar of national strength. If the intersection of agriculture, supply chains, and security affects your work or community, there are practical ways to engage:

• Subscribe to ASU News and the center’s updates to follow new research, events, and policy discussions as they emerge.
• Explore related articles on water management, global affairs, and food systems to build a fuller picture of the challenges ahead.
• Contact the center directly if your organization is interested in collaboration, research partnerships, or speaking engagements.

Food system resilience is a shared responsibility — one that requires farmers, security professionals, researchers, and informed citizens working from the same playbook. Take the next step today: follow the Center for Agriculture and National Security, share this article with colleagues who care about the future of American agriculture, and join the conversation about how the nation can protect the system that feeds it.