Food and Ag-ISAC brings Purdue, PARI into University Partnership Program

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University and the Purdue Applied Research Institute’s (PARI) University Consortium for Health, Food and Agricultural Resilience have been named to the Food and Agriculture – Information Sharing and Analysis Center’s new University Partnership Program, which seeks to improve collaboration between industry and leading universities on security issues effecting America’s food and agriculture sector.

Purdue and PARI join Iowa State University, the University of Nebraska and Virginia Polytechnic Institute as founding collaborators of this effort, the Food and Agriculture – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Food and Ag-ISAC) announced April 11. These institutions were selected for their cutting-edge research and trusted relationships with the larger food and agriculture industries.

The University Partnership Program will provide industry with access and visibility to these universities’ bodies of research, letting member companies engage in research on the potential risks to the sector. It also will allow industry better insights on emerging technologies the universities are building for the agriculture industry, furthering next-generation research in partnership with innovators.

Josh Detre, director of PARI’s University Consortium for Health, Food and Agricultural Resilience, said both PARI and Purdue are thrilled to be among founding members of this partnership program.

“We are excited to share our research with industry colleagues and to work together on transformative solutions for the pressing cybersecurity needs in the food and agriculture sectors,” Detre said. “This program will be instrumental in protecting and strengthening our nation’s food supply chain, and we are honored to be part of it.”

Jonathan Braley, Food and Ag-ISAC director, called the University Partner Program “an essential step to help defend and protect the sector.”

“Managing risks to the food and agriculture sector requires partnership across industry, academia and government,” Braley said. “Our University Partners cultivate not only research that is relevant to our members but also open more opportunities to share threat intelligence from the Food and Ag-ISAC to small- and medium-sized organizations.”

The University Partner Program complements existing Food and Ag-ISAC partnerships through its Association Partnership Program, focusing on trade associations, its membership in the National Council of ISACs – which enables active sharing with other critical infrastructure sectors – and its engagement with various government agencies.

ABOUT PARI
The Purdue Applied Research Institute (PARI) delivers timely advanced solutions to global challenges by combining applications-focused research expertise with state-of-the-art facilities. It leverages Purdue University’s world-class capabilities to offer practical customer-driven results in national security, global development and critical infrastructure.

ABOUT UCHFAR
The University Consortium on Health, Food, and Agricultural Resilience (UCHFAR) is an alliance of land-grant universities, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Health Security (DHS-OHS), and industry. It is committed to bolstering the readiness, response, and mitigation strategies aimed at safeguarding the nation’s public health, food, and agricultural sectors. UCHFAR fosters a multidisciplinary membership of experts drawn from diverse fields, spanning agriculture (animal, plant, and aquaculture), public health, supply-chain management, food science, engineering, computer science, and economics. These experts represent faculty members from U.S. land-grant universities as well as industry and government representatives involved in these sectors. Together, we embrace a comprehensive approach that integrates geographical considerations into the UCHFAR research agenda.

Media contact: Evamarie Socha ecsocha@purdue.edu