As a partner in a new agricultural security center, MSU will use a portion of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant to develop methods of identifying contaminated foods and preventing terrorist tampering while food is in transit.
The department named Texas A&M University and the University of Minnesota as the leaders of two new Homeland Security Centers of Excellence on Tuesday. MSU is a partner of the University of Minnesota.
Minnesota's center will receive $15 million to research food security, while Texas A&M will receive $18 million to research threats to animal agriculture. In the next 90 days, details of the contracts will be negotiated.
The centers were not created in response to a specific threat, said Michelle Petrovich, the science and technology spokeswoman for the department.
"Our goal is to fill some gaps that we've seen out there," she said. "It's more in terms of being prepared."
Petrovich said agricultural security "was one of the topics we felt we needed to put some more thought into."
The University of Minnesota center will be called the University Center for Post-Harvest Food Protection and Defense. In addition to MSU, nine other partners will participate in the research, including Harvard University, Cornell University and Purdue University.
John Baker, an associate dean in the College of Veterinary Medicine, helped in the grant-writing process and said MSU should receive approximately $2.7 million over three years.
"It's a great opportunity for all the colleges involved," he said. "These are really important issues about our national security."
The National Food Safety & Toxicology Center at MSU is heading the university's involvement. Wilson Rumbeiha, a toxicologist and professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, said he will be working to develop a bio-sensor device to detect chemicals that could be used by terrorists for mass destruction.
"There is the potential for toxins to be used to poison the food that is eaten by people or to be incorporated into the feed for animals," he said.
Rumbeiha said if chemical contamination is suspected currently, samples have to be sent to a lab and results could take several days.
"There is a need to detect chemicals and identify them on site," he said.
Rumbeiha said his portion of the research will cost approximately $150,000.
"It's not a huge amount, but definitely it's exciting," he said.
Other areas of the university involved will include the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, the Eli Broad College of Business, the College of Veterinary Medicine and the School of Packaging.
Packaging Professor Susan Selke said her colleagues will be working on emerging technology to help track packages with radio frequency identification tags.
"If you have a RFID tag on a package, it can store information about the project and transmit that information to a reader," she said, adding that it will improve safety.
Supply chain management Professor David Closs said he and other staff members will focus on creating a diagnostic tool to tell suppliers what they should do to enhance security.
"It's more of a best practices guide," he said. "From the farm to the table."
Closs said that MSU is uniquely qualified to participate in agro-security research.
"We've got four or five areas that we have very strong expertise," he said. "We've all come together."
