Read it at: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9PNM6201.htm

“The truth is, nobody’s in charge,” said John Hoffman, a former senior adviser for bio-surveillance and food defense at the Department of Homeland Security, who will testify at the hearing. “Our surveillance doesn’t work yet, our intelligence doesn’t work yet and we’re not doing so well at targeting what comes across the border.”

Top U.S. food defense authorities insist that the initiatives have made the food supply safer and say extensive investments have prepared the country to respond to emergencies. No terrorist group has threatened the food supply in the past decade, and the largest food poisonings have not arisen from foreign attacks, but from salmonella-tainted eggs (caused by an inspector) produced on Iowa farms that sickened almost 2,000 people.

Seeking to chart the government’s advances, the AP interviewed dozens of current and former state and federal officials and analyzed spending and program records for major food defense initiatives, and found:

The fragmented system leaves no single agency accountable, at times slowing progress and blurring the lines of responsibility. Federal auditors found one Agriculture Department surveillance program to test for chemical, biological, and radiological agents was not working properly five years after its inception in part because agencies couldn’t agree on who was in control.

Efforts to move an aging animal disease lab from an island near New York City have stalled after leading scientists found an accidental release of foot-and-mouth was likely to happen at the new facility in America’s beef belt.

Congress is questioning whether $31 million the Department of Homeland Security spent to create a state-of-the-art database to monitor the food supply has accomplished anything because agencies are not using it to share information.

Despite the billions spent on food defense, many of the changes the government put into place are recommendations that the private sector isn’t required to carry out. As a result, it’s difficult to track successes and failures, and the system’s accomplishments are largely hidden from public view.

In June, Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey introduced a bill that would eliminate the database. The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee also has questioned what Homeland Security has accomplished after spending $31 million running the program.

“It just didn’t work,” said Runge, who oversaw the database. “Now Al Qaeda is headed by a physician who has expressed interest in biological attacks, and I don’t think we are putting enough brain cycles on this issue.”

FDA has spent $1.3 billion on food defense programs since 2005, the most recent year available, said spokeswoman Patricia El-Hinnawy. The USDA said it has spent $1.64 billion on food defense since 2003.

Five years after its creation, the Food Emergency Response Network has not set up a targeted surveillance program to test for chemical, biological, and radiological agents, and USDA and FDA still can’t agree on who runs it, USDA’s Office of Inspector General found.

Protecting the food supply remains a top priority, and USDA continues working to advance its efforts, said Sheryl Maddux, deputy director of its Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Coordination.

Some small farmers claim some of USDA’s rules have become so unwieldy in the last decade they threaten business.

Under agency guidance issued since Sept. 11, USDA inspectors have strongly encouraged slaughterhouses and other facilities they regulate to write Food Defense Plans, and now nearly three-quarters have them.