A companion post to this week's Water for Food Podcast episode with Meghan Jackson, Director for Food, Agriculture and Environment Security at the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI) at the University of Nebraska.
When most of us think about national security, we picture borders, defense systems or cybersecurity. Rarely do we picture a corn field. But according to Meghan Jackson, that's exactly where a lot of the real risk—and the real solutions—live.
Jackson leads food, agriculture and environment security efforts at the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI) at the University of Nebraska. NSRI is one of only 15 University Affiliated Research Centers designated by the U.S. Department of War, connecting university research and expertise with the federal government to address critical national security challenges. Sponsored by U.S. Strategic Command, NSRI is a trusted parter to the DOW, conducting research and development across two national security missions: strategic deterrence and countering weapons of mass destruction.
For a recent episode of our podcast, I sat down with Meghan to unpack why food and agriculture were designated by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration (CISA) as one of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors and, in her view, the most interconnected of them all. Agriculture touches chemicals, energy, water, transportation and cyber systems all at once, which means a disruption anywhere in that chain can ripple far beyond the field.
Threats come in three kinds: intentional, accidental, and natural
Meghan's background spans some of the country's most sensitive biosecurity work, including time at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas, and the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. That experience shapes how she thinks about risk: it doesn't matter whether a threat is introduced on purpose, by accident, or by nature: the response looks largely the same.
During our conversation, Meghan points to some real, current examples:
- New World screwworm: moving north now that a long-standing biological barrier in the Darién Gap has broken down and a reminder that pests "don't care where you draw a border."
- African swine fever: currently present in the Dominican Republic and cut the world's pork population roughly in half during a 2018–2020 outbreak in China.
- The 2011 Fukushima disaster: which devastated a region of Japan once known for fruit production and required both domestic and international cooperation to recover.
Resilience beats reaction
The throughline across all of these is redundancy. Meghan’s core message is that the more resilient and distributed a supply chain is (the more nodes and the more backup sources in place), the less effective and attractive it becomes as a target in the first place, whether the threat is a hacker, a bad actor or a tornado.
That logic also extends into water. Meghan flags water scarcity and competition (states are currently suing each other over water rights) and cyberattacks on agricultural and water infrastructure as top-tier risks. Notably, she says the same hacking groups that have targeted healthcare systems have also gone after agriculture. This is likely because the underlying systems are so similar and both systems’ technologies are increasingly running through the cloud.
The bioeconomy needs water to work
Our conversation also digs into Nebraska's growing bioeconomy—using renewable biological resources like corn to produce higher-value goods such as ethanol, with distillers grains as a valuable livestock feed byproduct. It's a promising shift away from fossil fuels, but every stage of that process is water-intensive. Meghan highlights a mix of strategies for securing that water: smarter irrigation and precision ag, using alternative sources like graywater and more efficient desalination along the coasts.
Trust, technology and knowing your field
As farm equipment becomes more connected, Meghan’s advice is refreshingly grounded: monitor and report. Producers know their own fields and equipment better than anyone, and that firsthand awareness is often the first line of defense. She also points listeners to resources like the Food and Agriculture Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Food ISAC), along with CISA and FBI reporting channels, as practical tools for flagging suspicious activity.
What's next
Looking ahead, Meghan wants to see more focus on mitigating severe weather impacts and crop disease, noting that corn, in particular, touches nearly everything we consume. She's also excited about the University of Nebraska's remote-sensing capabilities, in which we can use satellite imagery to monitor and measure crop, soil and field conditions from a distance without making direct physical contact with the land. She says the sheer scale of the state's more than 40,000 acres of research land, which functions as a living laboratory, is the perfect place for exactly this kind of work.
Bottom line: Food security isn't a side note to national security, it's woven into it. Building resilient, redundant, well-monitored systems, from irrigation to IT, is what keeps a disruption anywhere from becoming a crisis everywhere.
Listen to the full conversation on the Water for Food Podcast
