You might think it’s the stuff movies are made of: bomb threats, product tampering, sabotage, and kidnapping. You might think it will never happen to you because you’re a small, relatively obscure company, but that could actually be what makes you an attractive target to an extortionist.

Being a victim of extortion or threats is not a factor of size, and it’s not always connected to a perception of wealth. You can become a victim for many reasons. A small company might be an easier target than a large multinational, because the large companies are often perceived as having a very significant security force in place. And whereas a large company might be able to weather the costs stemming from a kidnapping or product recall and negative press campaign, for a smaller company, the damage could be irreparable, which makes them more likely to give in to the threat.

The first step in protecting your company from various forms of corporate terrorism is to understand that it can, indeed, happen to you. The source will likely be one of five types of perpetrators:

- Disgruntled employees, either current or former, or someone else with a grudge against you or the company;

- Criminals who are looking primarily for financial gain;

- Psychotic or mentally ill individuals;

- Terrorists; and

- Hoaksters.

Possible scenarios include an unhappy employee who threatens to release company secrets or plant a virus in your computer if you don’t take certain described actions; threats from a stranger or a fanatic to injure people or damage property if a ransom is not paid; actual or threats of product tampering; and threats to generate negative publicity if the company fails to take specific actions.

The next step is to develop a crisis management plan. Though you certainly can’t plan for all contingencies, think in advance about what steps you will take so you can react calmly and with a sense of purpose to resolve a situation. Decide who will be in charge of what, and plan for communicating with law enforcement, the media, your customers, and your employees. A good way to develop a plan is to meet with a crisis management consultant before anything happens; establishing such a relationship in advance may cost a small amount of time and money, but it will be invaluable if a real need arises.

Consider, too, how you will handle the costs associated with an incident. Some of the expenses may be covered under your regular business insurance, or you may want to investigate special policies. For example, some insurance companies offer kidnap and extortion and product tampering insurance.

The companies that survive extortion threats are usually the ones that were prepared for the “attack” well before it happened and were able to quickly and efficiently implement a crisis management plan.

Today the business of agriculture is going very high-tech, very fast. More mechanized equipment, robotic systems, and high-tech tools.

The massive productivity increases and crop yields is completely astounding, unfortunately, this also causes a problem for people, workers who make their money on farms and picking crops – they just will not be needed in the future.

Today Dairy Farms have 25 to 35 head of cattle per employee, the cows rest on water bed mattresses, and robotic stainless steel equipment hooked up to a computer milks the cows. Higher milk yield, happier cows, less infection, sounds like a good life to me, and that my friends is the future of the agriculture business in a nutshell.

The modern day combine is over half-a-million dollars, runs on GPS coordinates, and looks more like the space shuttle inside than anything close to a 1940s tractor. In fact, once you put the combine in position, just hit go, like you would in a 747 cleared for take-off and it will fly the whole trip and land in zero-zero visibility at the designated airport.

So too, will a modern day combine, it can do the entire job in dense fog and tell you when it’s done, while you are merely along for the ride “just in case” as you sit in complete comfort with surround a sound music, air-conditioning and you can even watch the game. Yah, farming is hard work? Not anymore, never again will it be.

And just as the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) works on telerobotics, they have high-tech farm equipment that can do the same. Instead of a flying UAV, it’s an unmanned agricultural vehicle (UAV), the military version would be an unmanned ground vehicle or UGV, but rest assured this technology is coming to a field near you soon.

Interestingly enough, these high-tech pieces of equipment are also getting harder and harder to maintain, meaning Farmer Joe in the future might have a computer degree from MIT. Please consider all this.