Securing the Harvest by Building Resilience in Modern Agriculture

By Greg Leimone

13 July 2026

Focus on Agricultural Security and Resilience

Farming today is a far cry from the 1920s, when my Italian immigrant relatives bought a 10-acre tract in North Carolina for $940 to grow and sell lettuce, tomatoes, and other vegetables. At that time, nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population were farmers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, sentiment around the use of pesticides was predominately positive, and security for food production facilities was hardly, if ever, considered.

Modern agriculture operates at the intersection of food security, geopolitics, climate volatility, organized crime, and global supply chain dependency. As the complexity and expansiveness of risks have evolved, so has the perception of agriculture. Once seen more simply as a multigenerational way of life, this industry has become one of the most vulnerable critical infrastructures that security practitioners are challenged to protect.

Agriculture as a Security Problem

As the world population grows from 8.3 billion in 2026 to an anticipated 9.8 billion people by 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, per UN estimates, the importance of food security will be continuously met with significant challenges, even under the best of circumstances. However, conditions are unstable. The compounding effects of an increasingly complex and interconnected threat landscape coupled with land degradation, climate change, and other risks will continue to create nuanced and immensely difficult conditions for security professionals assigned to ensure agricultural production is uninterrupted.

There are multiple critical drivers of the current crisis in agriculture.

Geopolitics. Geopolitical conflict and maritime chokepoints—as illustrated with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Ukraine–Russia conflict, and widespread resource nationalism—all present unique and significant strains on the agriculture industry. The implications are evidenced through both supply chain security and resulting food insecurity threats as geopolitical issues continue to reverberate throughout our global society.

Most recently, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted millions of tons of fertilizer shipments, forcing farmers to either reduce fertilizer use and accept lower yields, shift to different crops, or absorb much higher costs, according to an article from Máximo Torero Cullen, chief economist for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Cereal producers specifically could face income losses of up to 5 percent this year, with knock-on effects extending to higher food prices, inflation, and increased hunger worldwide.

Intellectual property. Intellectual property (IP) protection for agriculture companies has become increasingly difficult due to the weaponization of IP in geopolitical competition, uneven patent frameworks, and inconsistent enforcement standards globally. This is not only a significant challenge for the legal function but the prevalence of theft, smuggling, and other criminal offenses in state-tolerated misappropriation of IP can require the corporate security team to support evidence collection, intelligence gathering, investigations, and law enforcement engagement.

Counterfeiting. Illicit trade and counterfeit products threaten the industry through the proliferation of counterfeit pesticides and seeds. This not only presents a major concern for both the environment and health risks for consumers but also creates reputational and financial impacts for brand owners.

Sabotage. Agro-terrorism and sabotage expose crop fields and chemical plants to the rising threat of biological, chemical, or physical attacks. This has the potential to destabilize food production with wide ranging impacts.

Cybersecurity. Cyber threats are broad-ranging and far-reaching, and include ransomware, malware, and breaches to operational technology or industrial control systems (OT/ICS) for chemical production, seed processing, irrigation, and related technology.

Climate change. Climate change functions as the security multiplier within a complex, high-risk environment. It is a threat accelerant, and security teams must manage geopolitical conflict, IP threats, agro-terrorism, and cyber threats while simultaneously managing workforces impacted by displacement, facility access disruptions, and other fast-burn and high-impact challenges.

Unique Security Challenges for Global Agricultural Companies

To meet the global demand for food, large agricultural companies must operate where soil and climate conditions align with consumption markets. This expansive and geographically dispersed footprint—often in rural, remote, and politically unstable regions—places facilities and personnel in or transiting through high-risk environments.

Before 2003, agriculture was not officially designated as a critical infrastructure in the United States. Furthermore, food production and processing facilities were rarely hardened to the same standards of energy of financial sector counterparts, despite the strategic criticality of agriculture. While this discrepancy in perceived importance is closing, agriculture still suffers from restrictive security budgets.

Another unique challenge is the workforce variable, which stems from a dependence on seasonal labor, frequency of high-risk travel, lone worker exposure, and overall complexity in meeting duty of care standards across such diverse and geopolitically challenging locations. A transient and seasonal workforce may introduce elevated insider risk, access control challenges, and vulnerability to theft, sabotage, and organized crime infiltration. Due to the operational landscape around the world, security teams face greater volumes of business travelers in highly exposed areas and situations. Lastly, the rural and remote environments often place staff in areas with either unreliable or even nonexistent cellular coverage, and in climate and crime conditions that place them at a heightened risk.

Dual-use knowledge risk presents a significant insider threat challenge. The same scientists who create valuable, proprietary seeds or crop protection technologies can carry sensitive intellectual capital with them when leaving for competing organizations.

Lastly, the speed of operational response to a crisis is often more critical for agriculture companies with considerable operational footprints. Unlike sector peers that might have more choice in where staff and facilities are located, agricultural companies are at the mercy of soil, terrain, common plant pests or diseases, and climate factors which force the location and seasonality of operations.

A transient and seasonal workforce may introduce elevated insider risk, access control challenges, and vulnerability to theft, sabotage, and organized crime infiltration.

Four Security Pillars for Agricultural Resilience

Agricultural security resilience depends on a comprehensive and integrated approach that protects people, operations, products, and critical strategies in an increasingly complex global environment. To effectively anticipate, withstand, respond to, and recover from current and future challenges, organizations should build their security programs around four foundational pillars: systems-based crisis management, personnel security, product protection, and sites, data, and assets. Together, these create a resilient framework that strengthens organizational continuity, protects stakeholder trust, and supports the reliable delivery of agricultural products essential to global food security.

Systems-based crisis management. Agriculture demands a more holistic crisis management strategy, viewed as an interconnected system rather than addressing individual problems in isolation. The focus must be on identifying vulnerabilities across the entirety of food production and its related supply chain. It must account for a deeper understanding of the geopolitical dependence between countries and the relevance of weather disruptions or climate change, not simply focused on the security of a single farm or site.

Incorporate an enterprise risk management approach that directly links operational resilience with comprehensive business impact assessments.
Security should serve as the adhesive to bind an operational resilience team with a focus on breaking down siloes and promoting collaboration.
Institute an intelligence-based (instead of operations-oriented) 24/7 GSOC with a strong focus on real-time threat detection layered in a single operating picture with people, sites, and supply chain support across the organization.
Look beyond black swan prediction by developing an end-to-end model built on multiple scenarios. This must be inclusive of risk horizon scanning and trigger points connecting sensing, thresholds, and escalation paths, all with strong coordination and cross-function action.
Crisis and incident management training and exercises must be run at scale across varied business units, functions, and countries. They must account for a multitude of scenarios with geographical and cultural relevance.
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) can serve as a force multiplier for operational resilience to strengthen anomaly and predictive signal monitoring, early detection, verification, the drafting of crisis plans and playbooks, and other aspects of the resilience and crisis lifecycle.

Personnel security. Employee security is a critical component of agricultural resilience as these companies operate through a widely dispersed workforce, often in remote, high-risk, and geopolitically complex environments. Both local workforce and business travelers face unprecedented threats from opportunistic criminals, organized crime groups, or by those who may have a disdain for the industry or its products (e.g. anti-pesticide).

Country risk ratings must be calibrated based on the threats to the sector and the region of operations. These should account for how agriculture functions as a critical infrastructure, the geography and drivers of the location, and the unique footprint and nature of the organization. In places such as Mexico or Brazil, for example, many businesses in other industries may be able to establish operations in more moderate-risk areas. Whereas agriculture companies must establish locations in rural and remote areas more prone to organized crime, land disputes, and other threats to employee safety.
A well-governed and sustained commitment to duty of care is essential. This accounts for cultural norms, societal expectations, security perceptions, all while remaining concurrently consistent and unbiased. To illustrate this further, a business traveler originally from a country such as Ukraine or Israel is far more accustomed to living in areas of conflict and war. However, organizationally, an agriculture company operating in hundreds of countries must establish a duty of care standard that both respects a risk-accustomed traveler’s experience and possible preparedness level and the needs of those not acclimatized to such experiences.
There must be a shared responsibility for security that fosters a culture of ownership between employees and managers from inception to adoption and sustainment, with unwavering support from leadership.
Workforce safety and security should be addressed through an ISO 31030 compliant travel security program, which is inclusive of risk assessments, tracking, training, communications, and response protocols to incidents.
A strong protective intelligence program is needed, based on a blend of industry, individual, and environmental threat vectors.

Product protection. Protecting agriculture products is vitally important because counterfeit, adulterated, and illegally diverted pesticides and seeds can undermine farmer confidence, reduce crop yields, and create significant safety, regulatory, and environmental risks. While brand damage and reputation risks are certainly concerns, the impacts of fake agriculture products extend well beyond the exposure to a company’s market share.

Prioritize anti-illicit trade investigations as a commitment to the safety of the end users, and not just the brand.
Leverage AI and technology for faster scanning and detection of illicit ads and for conducting open-source intelligence (OSINT) collection on infringers.
Partner closely with law enforcement, regulatory agencies, e-commerce companies, and associations for increased impact.
Use a quantifiable and data-driven approach to demonstrate the value of investigations, seizures, and market/brand protection.

Sites, data, and assets. Agriculture companies generally operate with large quantities of smaller physical sites. These can be located in varied risk environments, from a low-crime cornfield in midwestern America to extreme risk countries in the Middle East or Latin America. This requires a fit-for-purpose approach rather than a standardized model that can just be copied and pasted universally.

Data and assets such as parent seeds generated within these companies are very high-value intellectual property. For example, the cost of research and development of some vegetable seeds such as tomatoes could be worth millions of dollars. Similarly, as it often takes more than 10 years to develop and patent a new pesticide and the intrinsic costs associated with bringing a new product to market, organizations must have a robust security program to protect that investment.

Utilize a decentralized corporate security operating model to alleviate resource strain of high-site volume by nominating security owners at each facility. Support that network with training and resources, and empower them to deliver the facility-layered programs that corporate security governs.
Differentiate the security controls based on the site type, size, location, and risk profile. Distribute budget for mitigation measures based on risk and intelligence gathering as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach.
Employ defense-in-depth layering and leverage crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) principles to achieve strong security mitigation controls that stretch limited budgets across the larger footprint of facilities.
Institute a strong cross-functional insider risk program led by corporate security that works in close partnership with IT, compliance, HR, and legal. Capture critical metrics and return on investment valuation from the beginning, to reinvest that into more effective security controls, culture, and behavior shift.

Agricultural companies are at the mercy of soil, terrain, common plant pests or diseases, and climate factors which force the location and seasonality of operations.

In the Era of Polycrisis

The harsh reality across all sectors is that communities, businesses, and individuals are already feeling—or soon will feel—the strain on critical infrastructure. Global population growth continues unabated, even as the number of farmers declines and agricultural land contracts. Within this increasingly constrained environment, concepts such as polycrisis and metacrisis are no longer theoretical but a daily reality for agriculture security professionals, who must contend with an expanding and interconnected set of criminal, geopolitical, socioeconomic, climate, environmental, AI, and cyber threats to a sector that ultimately underpins human survival.

To meet this complex and evolving challenge, agriculture security leaders must adapt to this paradigm shift just as those in other industries are undertaking for their own verticals by adopting an operational resilience mindset and leaning into the opportunity to transition from traditional security roles into those of greater responsibility and criticality.

The agriculture industry landscape has changed, and the risks are different now, so we must evolve to help keep the world nourished and protected.

Greg Leimone is a global security leader specializing in enterprise risk, crisis management, operational resilience, and protective operations in a large multinational agriculture company. He has also developed and led programs focused on personnel security, GSOC, insider risk, threat assessment, and critical asset protection. Prior to his tenure in corporate security, Leimone served in law enforcement and operated an investigations and security consultancy practice.