Research

The Center conducts applied research, strategic analysis, and exercises focused on vulnerabilities at the intersection of agriculture and national security. Our work brings together expertise across government, industry, and academia to identify emerging risks, stress-test agricultural systems, and develop approaches to strengthening resilience.

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2040 Global Food and Water Security Tabletop Exercise

Global Food & Water Security 2040 is an adaptable tabletop exercise framework designed to explore cascading risks to food and water systems in a complex future operating environment. In 2026, the Center adapted the framework for the Audia Foundation to examine these challenges through the lens of corporate resilience, bringing participants together to confront emerging vulnerabilities, strategic choices, and potential responses.

The Center can adapt and recreate this exercise model for government, industry, adademic and other partners seeking to stress-test organizations, agricultural and food-system resilience.

"Underlying Export Characteristics and Projected Country Positions in the Agri-Food Trade: A Global System Analysis"

In a new study published in npj Science of Food, Center for Agriculture and National Security Research Fellow Deniz Berfin Karakoc and coauthors Amirhosein Ghozatfar and Tina Sardasht

"Agriculture as a Domain of Hybrid Warfare"

Dr. Alicia Ellis and Sarah Shoer examine how adversaries can exploit vulnerabilities across the U.S. agricultural system through economic coercion, cyberattacks, foreign investment, biotechnology theft, and control of critical inputs.

Timeline of PRC-Linked Threats to U.S. Agriculture

This visual timeline chronicles a decade of PRC-linked actions—spanning seed theft, cyber espionage, and economic coercion—that demonstrate how agriculture has become both a strategic target and tool in great-power competition.

Adversary Leverage in the U.S. Farm-to-Fork Supply Chain

Adversaries exploit U.S. food systems end to end, from farmland ownership and infrastructure control to cyberattacks and disinformation. This diagram shows how those dependencies threaten food security and national resilience.

From Seeds to Feed: China’s Leverage over U.S. Farms

The People's Republic of China (PRC) dominates critical farm inputs (including biotech traits, fertilizer, crop chemicals, machinery, drones, and feed additives), leaving U.S. agriculture exposed to supply chain leverage in times of crisis.

Agriculture Supply Chain Vulnerabilities

From inputs to consumers, agriculture faces cascading risks: climate shocks, water stress, cyberattacks, political disruptions, and market bottlenecks. This diagram maps how vulnerabilities at each stage can ripple across the food system.

Food Security 2035

The Center is examining how geopolitical competition, agricultural production, trade, technology, resource pressures, and other changes could reshape global food security by 2035.

Phosphorus & Agricultural Supply-Chain Resilience

The Center is examining phosphorus as a critical agricultural input and the resilience of the broader phosphorus and fertilizer supply chain in partnership with the Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability (STEPS) Center and the Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance.

Seeking Partners

We’re actively developing new initiatives at the intersection of agriculture, technology, and national security. These projects are ready to move from concept to impact, and we’re seeking collaborators, funders, and field partners who share our commitment to securing food systems for the future.

Agricultural Risk Mapping & Digital Twin

The Center is developing a concept for a data-driven agricultural risk-mapping and digital-twin capability that could identify critical dependencies, vulnerabilities, geographic concentrations, and potential cascading effects across the U.S. agricultural system.

AgTech Tabletop Exercise

This proposed tabletop exercise would examine the strategic and security implications of agricultural technologies, with a focus on drone-enabled surveillance and sabotage targeting farmland near sensitive military installations. Available for development with an interested partner, the exercise would bring together researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers to explore emerging vulnerabilities, assess cascading risks, and generate insights to inform policy and security planning.