IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020 - 30

guidance is yet given to how to safely and effectively
adopt novel technologies while explicitly understanding
what consequences the assumption of their design
entails. There is thus a clear threat to the food sector
from massive disruption as a result of cyberattacks, as
technologies are increasingly adopted and quickly
spread throughout the sector, without allowing time to
consider their impact on security (i.e., technology first,
cybersecurity later). Because the U.K. produces almost
half of the food it consumes [30] this may be even more
critical, as disruptions in internal food production would
interfere with food sector resiliency in coping with disruptions from attacks.
Cyberattacks against the food sector may target both
operational technology (i.e., the actual technologies " in
the field " ), as well as the information technology (i.e.,

Many farmers and agribusiness
owners have been affected by
computer security incidents.

the computer systems used to control and manage
those technologies). Moreover, such technologies adopted by the U.K. food sector may have been originally
developed anywhere in the world. Technology is not
developed in a vacuum, but it is a subject to socio-cultural differences in how we approach and value both
problems and their solutions (cf., [20]). Thus, the way
technologies were developed may have been guided by
completely different assumptions and attitudes, whether
stemming from the culture of the society it was developed in, or the culture from the organization and sector
within that society. As a result, technological solutions
that make sense in one socio-cultural context may not
make sense in another (cf., [33]). This makes it all the
more critical for a sector where technologies are rapidly
adopted and diffused, to understand how assumptions
and expectations from a particular socio-cultural context where the innovation was originally developed may
or may not transfer well to its new location.
However, most of the existing research on cybersecurity in the food sector does not yet address these
assumptions and demands. Instead existing research
focuses on technical aspects, or proposing frameworks
related to data analytics and economic incentives. For
example, Chi et al. proposed a framework incorporating
the detection of false positives in sensor data,

30

implementation of access control, and using encryption
[8]. Other industrial reports focus primarily on perceived
risks and threats (e.g., [5]), which has led to researchers
offering quantitative prediction models for vulnerability
of technologies in the food sector [34]. Hecht et al., on
the other hand, have offered one of the few in-depth
qualitative works identifying a wider variety of factors
contributing to (lack of) resilience in the urban food supply chain [15], noting the importance of the social environment and organizational culture. The food sector
displays multiple systemic qualities: complexity, interconnectedness, path-dependency, nonlinearity; so goes
the argument for the societal challenges surrounding
innovation in that sector [32]. Cybersecurity, privacy,
transparency of data, sustainability, safety and equitable access - all these issues depend on each other and
ought to be considered in their broader socio-cultural
context to improve resilience of a sector as a whole [26].
This article will demonstrate how opening up a debate
on the socio-cultural dimensions of cybersecurity in
food production innovation will inevitably lead to re-conceptualizing cybersecurity away from purely technical
issues and solutions.
In summary, ignoring the interdependencies between
the elements of the food system could lead to a potential
" perfect storm " ' of conditions to affect the U.K.'s food
availability should malicious actors be able to successfully disrupt food and agriculture processes by exploiting
vulnerabilities in operational precision agriculture technologies or the information technology controlling it -
similar to the impact the WannaCry ransomware attack
had on the U.K.'s National Health Service [9].

Case Study - Precision Dairy Farming
With this case study, we aimed to construct a snapshot
of the different considerations and attitudes towards
cybersecurity across different stakeholders of the food
sector, focusing specifically on the dairy farming sector
in Israel. We focus on this case because the dairy industry leads the technology in precision livestock farming
[25], and Israel is a global leader in the dairy industry
[29], which makes it particularly relevant to understand
how new innovative technologies may come about. In
our analysis, we compare case study data from Israel
(technology developers and early adopters) with the
political and commercial context of the U.K., where
efforts to mobilize early-adoption of precision agriculture are taking place [10].
We performed a qualitative study using in-depth semistructured key informant interviews [23] and site visits,
interviewing key stakeholders to build a picture of the
cybersecurity situation for dairy farming in Israel over the
span of two weeks. As it is challenging to conduct interview-driven studies in commercial sectors where the aim

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020

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