How does an applied researcher, academic, and advisor interested in the safety, health, and inclusion of our communities end up involved in the agri-food industry? For Janos Botschner, Senior Associate with the Community Safety Knowledge Alliance (CSKA), his experience in these areas made him a perfect fit to lead the Cyber Security Capacity in Canadian Agriculture initiative.
This project focused on understanding cyber security in Canadian agriculture and developing supports for farmers and others in the agri-food system.
Describe your job or product in one or two sentences.
The Cyber Security Capacity in Canadian Agriculture initiative was a multi-year research, engagement and knowledge mobilization initiative funded in part by the Government of Canada which aimed to understand the cybersecurity situation in Canadian agriculture, develop supports for farmers and others, and identify opportunities to enhance preparedness across the food sector. As the lead of this project, I led a multidisciplinary group in conducting applied research to tackle real-world challenges, as well as collaborated with experts and stakeholders to ensure the project generated findings that advanced knowledge and supported action toward addressing cybersecurity in the food system.
Where did you grow up? Was it an agriculture or urban environment?
I grew up in a suburban area of Montreal. The anglophone side of my family has roots in Quebec going back two centuries, initially owning agricultural land. I have lived in southern Ontario for the past 36 years.
What was your dream job when you were a kid?
That’s hard to say. I was always interested in understanding how things work at a big level, and in ways that people can build thriving communities. I’ve always loved food, as well!
How does digital agriculture or agtech play a role in your current job?
A number of years ago, I, along with my friend and collaborator, Dr. Evan Fraser at the University of Guelph, noticed that the agri-food sector was extremely vulnerable to the threat of cyber attacks. We started to do some work to raise awareness and build capacity. When the Government of Canada opened the Cyber Security Cooperation Program, I saw this as an opportunity to take this work to a new level. I’ve had the great good fortune to be able to assemble a team and advisor group that includes Evan Fraser and two of Canada’s top cybersecurity and security and intelligence experts, Dave McMahon from Sapper Labs Group, and Ritesh Kotak. We’ve also worked with big thinkers and researchers in this area, including Dr. Lenore Newman from the University of the Fraser Valley, and Dr. Ali Dehghantanha, from the University of Guelph/Canada Cyber Foundry. More recently, I have been involved as a senior consultant and advisor in a number of initiatives that fall under the heading of community safety and wellbeing.
What first piqued your interest in agriculture and agri-food?
Members of my family have, for generations, owned value-added businesses using agricultural inputs. These included linen production, wine and spirits, bakeries and tanneries. My wife’s family has been farming in southwestern Ontario for over 160 years. These windows into production and processing gave me an understanding and respect for the skill and commitment of those involved in the food value chain, which is essential to the wellbeing of every Canadian, the vitality of various regions, and the prosperity and global leadership of the country, as a whole.
What’s your favourite part about working in digital agriculture and agri-food?
Two things: the topic of cybersecurity touches on everything and is both a central part of business risk management and business development and prosperity, and the people I’ve come to know and engage with from the sector are terrific, practical, smart and deeply committed to their communities. It really has been a pleasure and an honour to work in this area, and my work continues in other areas related to food system cybersecurity.
Listen to a discussion on the importance of equipping digital agriculture for today’s cybersecurity risks:
Agri-food cybersecurity expert Janos Botschner, and agri-food marketing leader Marty Fisher shared their experience with a cyber hack during Equipping Digital Agriculture For Today’s Cybersecurity Risks at Agriculture Enlightened 2022.
What’s something that surprised you when you started working in digital agriculture?
At the beginning, awareness of cybersecurity as an important issue to manage across the agri-food sector was low compared to other critical infrastructures. I would have expected that the growth of attention to this issue would take a long time. Instead, there have been some very important changes in awareness among key sector stakeholders that have started to make a difference in a short period. The Canadian Agri-Food Data Initiative at EMILI and the launch of the Canada Cyber Foundry at the University of Guelph are helping to build knowledge and response capacity. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture, OFA, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ontario Pork, and a number of other key organizations are leading the way in raising awareness and flowing supports to their stakeholders. A recent announcement by Ontario about a program supporting cybersecurity capacity development among sector-serving organizations also stands to make a difference. Finally, work we’re doing with CSA Group on the topic of cybersecurity standards will help round out a new wave of attention to this important issue. So, I’m more optimistic now than I was several years ago, which is great!
Why do you think digital agriculture is important, now more than ever?
Digital agriculture is changing the way we produce and distribute food at a critical time in human history, as we deal with a host of global threats to food security. This is also an opportunity for Canadian agriculture – and for Canada – to leverage our knack for innovation and our skills as a major food producer and trade partner, to lead on the world stage, and to support more adaptability and vitality across our rural communities and geographic regions.
Our ability to safeguard our food value chain against rapidly emerging cyber risks will be critical to fulfilling this promise. But cybersecurity and cyber resilience can never be on the shoulders of producers, alone. This is a situation of shared risk and shared opportunity. So, what we need is to build networked capacity and resilience across the entire food system. Because of the collaborative aspect of this work, CSKA has developed a sector cybersecurity framework that we call Cyber Barn Raising. If we can focus together on four practical areas – workforce capacity; education and training; public-private collaboration; and policies, incentives, regulation and standards – we can grow this capacity and nurture the resilience that will strengthen Canadian agriculture in the years ahead.
This profile is part of EMILI’s This is Agriculture series, highlighting talented and diverse individuals across the digital agriculture sector. While individuals working in agriculture come from a variety of backgrounds, they share a common interest in growing and strengthening Canadian agriculture to ensure an environmentally and economically sustainable future for generations to come.