This article comes from NGFA's June 2 newsletter.

The Information Technology – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC), announced on May 24 that its “Special Interest Group” for Food and Agriculture has evolved into a full Food and Agriculture – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Food and Ag-ISAC).

The Food and Ag-ISAC will serve as a forum for food and agriculture companies to engage with security experts and analysts from industry peers to share cyber and physical threat intelligence, alerts, analysis, and mitigation practices.

The formation of the Food and Ag-ISAC comes as threat actors become more sophisticated and coordinated, resulting in growing ransomware attacks and other threats across critical infrastructures, IT-ISAC noted.

“The IT-ISAC has been helping food and agriculture companies defend themselves and the global food supply chain for over 10 years, and we are excited that this essential work will continue through the Food and Ag-ISAC,” said Scott Algeier, executive director of the IT-ISAC and the Food and Ag-ISAC.

Food and Ag-ISAC provides member companies with access to a trusted intelligence management, platform, collaboratively developed adversary attack playbooks, vendor-neutral analyses, ransomware trackers, effective security practices, and regular meetings with analysts in peer companies, among other benefits.

Founding Board members of the Food and Ag-ISAC are Bunge Limited, Inc., Cargill, Conagra Brands, Corteva Agriscience, Inc. PepsiCo, and Tyson Foods.

“The food and agriculture sector relies on information technology to feed the world, from precision farming to supply chain management and modern production processing, transportation and logistics,” said Paul Hershberger of Cargill, a board member of the IT-ISAC and a founding board member of the Food and Ag-ISAC.

“Maintaining a close relationship between the Food and Ag ISAC and the IT-ISAC enables critical collaboration between the food, agriculture, and technology industries to manage cybersecurity risk across the value chain.”

To learn more about Food and Ag-ISAC, click here or email info@foodandag-isac.org.