Protecting Crops from Growing Cybersecurity Threats
Seed World Staff
October 13, 2026
Photo: Adobe
Washington State University researchers are helping lead a national effort to protect American agriculture from growing cyber threats, with a particular focus on safeguarding the crops, equipment and digital systems that support food production.
In a study published in Nature Food, researchers from across the country recommend establishing a national Agriculture Cybersecurity Consortium (ACC) to help farmers, agricultural businesses and researchers identify vulnerabilities, develop safeguards, and strengthen the security of agricultural technologies.
This recommendation follows three regionally coordinated workshops and follow-up sessions involving more than 150 stakeholders. The proposed consortium would connect land-grant universities with farms, cooperatives, agribusinesses, cybersecurity companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and academic institutions.
"With increased digitization of agricultural data and increased adoption of AI into daily workflows, it has become all the more important to provide cybersecurity guarantees in agriculture," said Ananth Kalyanaraman, professor and director of the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the AgAID AI Institute for Transforming Workforce & Decision Support.
Monowar Hasan, an assistant professor in the EECS school whose Cyber-Physical Systems Security Research Lab focuses on cybersecurity, noted a lack of understanding of cybersecurity vulnerabilities and tools for conducting vulnerability assessments in digital agricultural systems among stakeholders.
"This is primarily due to misconceptions about cyber threats and adversarial capabilities among agricultural stakeholders. Our collaborative interdisciplinary ag-cybersecurity consortium will help bridge this gap and improve the cybersecurity posture of the critical agricultural sector, which also has national security implications."
The effort was coordinated by Iowa State University and included researchers from WSU, the University of California, Davis, Virginia Tech, North Carolina A&T University, and IC-FOODS, an independent organization that connects food data through shared definitions and standards.
Cybersecurity threats can affect:
- Digital systems farmers use to manage crops
- Application of water and crop-protection products
- Monitoring weather
- Operation of machinery
As farms adopt more automated and connected technologies, vulnerabilities in equipment and networks could disrupt agricultural operations and undermine productivity. The proposed ACC aims to address these challenges.