Agriculture and Natural Resources

8/7/2019 Agriculture and Natural Resources

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AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES1

The Importance of ESF #11:

Agriculture and Natural Resources in Disaster Situations

Lauren Kelly

Frederick Community College


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Abstract

This paper goes into the important aspects and inner workings of Emergency Support Function

#11: Agriculture and Natural Resources. Topics discussed will include all five of the major

functions that ESF #11 is responsible for and the role that each of them play in both disasters and

everyday life. These five functions include giving nutritional assistance, controlling animal and

plant diseases and pests, securing commercial food supply, protecting NCH resources, and

ensuring the safety of house-hold pets during an emergency.

Keywords: Emergency Support Function, Agriculture and Natural Resources


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The Importance of Agriculture and Natural Resources

There is a total of fifteen Emergency Support Functions in the EOC and all of them have

a specific and important role to play in both disasters and everyday life. Although it couldnt be

argued that any one ESF is more important than another during a disaster, it could be reasoned

that ESF #11, Agriculture and Natural Resources is, not more important than, but possibly used

more than a few of the other ESFs during normal circumstances.

ESF #11 is comprised of The Department of Agriculture as the head coordinator with the

Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior as two main agencies behind it and

numerous other supporting agencies including the Department of Commerce, the Department of

Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security which is in charge of

activating ESF #11 should an incident require federal help (FEMA, 2008). According to FEMA

there are five main categories that the Agriculture and Natural Resource function is in charge of.

These five functions include providing nutrition assistance, controlling animal and plant diseases

and pests, ensuring the safety of commercial food supply, protecting NCH resources and

providing safety for household pets. Each of these five groups has its own policies,

responsibilities, organization patterns, initial and ongoing actions, and specific agencies that it

works with that are all extremely important to follow and take care of in a disastrous situation.

There are several ways to ensure that the best nutritional assistance is provided in times

of a crisis. The Department of Agriculture and the Food and Nutrition Service both work

together with the state to figure out what kind of assistance is needed and then getting and

delivering the food and supplies to the disaster area (EMI, 2010). It is up to the commander

whether the food should either be distributed by household, or as a congregate meal service

based on the incident at hand and USDA and FNS are responsible for authorizing the use of


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Disaster Food Stamp Program (Emergency Management Institute [EMI], 2010). The person in

charge of Agriculture and Natural Resources is responsible for taking action when an incident

occurs. The commander must take charge and think of immediate solutions to the problem. It is

this persons job to look at where the disaster has taken place and how severe it is and then

determine how many people they need to feed, for how long, how they will get the food to them

and how to store it once it gets there (FEMA, 2008). The commander must also think about long

term issues. They need to answer requests for extra food stamps, establish links with the

congregate food service, and think about the replacement of food as time goes on (FEMA, 2008).

The USDA and FNS are both coordinating agencys that help to determine how much USDA

food is available, the nutritional needs of the people, and works with the State and volunteer

groups to make sure that the food gets to where it needs to be in a reasonable amount of time and

that there are no problems with the food once it gets there (EMI, 2010).

The second function that ESF #11 must perform is animal and plant disease and pest

control. This function is one that is not only essential during a disaster, but can also play a part

on normal days. Animal and plant diseases and pests can occur on a smaller scale that may not

lead to a disaster, but could still be dangerous if not taken care of immediately. The process to

handle these diseases and pests can be complicated because there are many components that have

to be dealt with to keep people safe. For example, the disease has to be identified and contained,

which means that those that have been infected must be disposed of properly and those that may

be infected may have to be quarantined (EMI, 2010). It is very important that the IC prevents the

spread of the disease because it could infect more plants and livestock which could, in turn,

cause a drop in the economy. USDS and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service work

together in this area to accomplish several things in addition to helping to stop the spread of the


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disease/pests. They coordinate with other ESFs such as Public Health and Medical Services in

order to make sure that the workers and volunteers are kept safe (FEMA, 2008). In addition to

trying to stop the disease/pest, the USDA must work with veterinarians or plant experts to

determine how dangerous it is and how it came to be in the first place (FEMA, 2008). Should the

USDA suspect the possibility of a terrorist attack, the FBI and the Department of Justice must be

contacted immediately and they would take over the case (FEMA, 2008). The IC is then

responsible for gathering veterinarians to care for the animals who have been injured from the

outbreak (FEMA, 2008).

Safety of commercial food supply is another function that occurs on a regular basis. This

procedure includes safety inspections to make sure that the food that goes out for public

consumption is safe (EMI, 2010). Some of these inspections made by the USDS and Food Safety

and Inspection Service include observing the slaughter and processing of livestock, analyzing

food samples and recognizing and containing potentially contaminated foods (EMI, 2010).

Should the food actually be contaminated an investigation must begin to find out how it started

and how many people have been effected.

The Department of Interior is in charge of protecting or recovering and restoring the

NCH resources and working with other ESFs to make sure workers and volunteers are in a

healthy and safe working environment (FEMA, 2008). They work with both Public works and

Engineering and Oil and Hazardous Materials Response to remove any harmful objects that

affect the NCH resources (FEMA, 2008). They also offer their assistance to areas of great

religious or cultural significance that have been affected by disaster (FEMA, 2008). In the long

run, they provide advice, technology, and assistance to prevent any damage to NCH or to help

NCH recover after the damage has already been done (FEMA, 2008). They are sure to keep in


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contact with any other organizations that are invested in helping to rehabilitate or preserve NCH.

The final function of the Agriculture and Natural Resource ESF is to provide safety for

house-hold pets. When a disaster strikes, its not only people that are affected. Their pets also

need a place to live, food to eat, and medical attentions and that is what this is there to do.

Coordinated by USDA and APHIS, this function oversees the evacuation and care of pets.

USDA and ASPHIS work with other ESFs such as Search and Rescue, Mass Care, Emergency

Assistance, Housing and Human Services, and Long-Term Community Recovery to be sure that

people will care for and try top provide a safe environment for their pets (EMI, 2010). They say

that pets should be evacuated simultaneously as their owners and should stay as close to them as

possible while being sheltered (FEMA, 2010). They also encourage pet store owners to open

their doors to animals in that situation that can not be sheltered with their owners, or who have

been abandoned during an emergency (FEMA, 2010). Owners are urged to bring their own food

and water for their pets, for it will most likely not be provided. ESF #11 and the others it works

with in this area will, however, provide and emergency or technical assistance that will help with

the safety of the animals (FEMA, 2010).

Even though there are fifteen separate Emergency Support Functions, they are all

extremely important to each other and not one of them is more important than another.

Agriculture and Natural Resources covers several areas during disasters and everyday life, like

giving nutritional assistance, controlling animal and plant diseases and pests, securing

commercial food supply, protecting NCH resources, and ensuring the safety of house-hold pets.

Each sub-category has its own job to perform to ensure everyones safety during a disaster and

most of them work with other ESFs in order to do so. What makes the whole ESF idea work is

the fact that they are all separate and have their own duties, but that they do come together to


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think of the best possible ways to help everyone in need when disaster strikes.


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References

Emergency Management Institute. (2010). ESF#11 Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Retrieved from http://emilms.fema.gov/IS811/index.htm.

FEMA. (2008). Emergency SupportFunction #11- Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Retrieved from http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/nrf-esf-11.pdf.

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Agriculture and Natural Resources