The Agriculture Department has data back-up facilities across the United States to mitigate the impact of a disaster at the main facility in Washington, DC. The information stored at the Department of Agriculture is valuable for ongoing operations. This information has the potential to serve as the "information backbone" of a new system tasked to protect the nation's food supply.
"The idea of creating a national center for food safety and security was first brought to me by the Iowa Business Council," Grassley said. "The Iowa Communications Network is a secure facility that has tremendous data storage and mining potential. These attributes make the ICN an attractive site for this type of development."
Through this project, the National Center for Food Safety and Security would act as the coordinating clearinghouse for all the existing federal, state, local, academic, and private sector entities involved in protecting our nation's food supply. This type of federal entity and its employees could be empowered to coordinate operational objectives across all existing entities.
"This is the first step in a long process, but I'm hopeful that Iowa will eventually become home to a "CDC" like center for food safety," said Grassley.