FBI creates center to protect domestic food supply.

The FBI and a leading private food trade organization agreed last week to form a center to assess threats and protect food supply in the United States from tampering. The Food Industry and Analysis Center, or ISAC, will coordinate information between the federal government and the food industry on threats to food "as well as the food industry's physical assets and its computer infrastructure," a CNN report says.

The new center aims to merge information from the intelligence community, law enforcement, the Department of Defense and the private sector, according to Ronald Dick, Director of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center.

The Food Marketing Institute, which signed the agreement with the FBI last week, will staff and operate the ISAC. The center's alliance with the FBI will help the food industry better evaluate threats against the food supply as credible or hoaxes. The report adds that ISAC will help the government to "quickly and effectively disseminate information about food threats and vulnerabilities, and will be the latest organization to serve as an intermediary between the government and the private sector.

"Similar associations already share information and coordinate activities in the electric power, banking and finance, telecommunications and water industries," the report concludes.