Wichita ? Kansas will get $1.67 million in federal funds to protect agriculture against potential terrorist attacks, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced Friday.

Veneman joined Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., for a brief stop Friday in Kansas as part of her two-day schedule of news conferences across the country announcing distribution of $43 million earmarked for farm states.

About $900,000 will go to Kansas State University for a rapid detection network focused on plant diseases.

The remaining funds will go Kansas Department of Agriculture and Kansas Department of Animal Health, where $460,000 will be spent on animal disease response, $240,000 on animal disease surveillance and $75,000 on plant diseases and detection.

“Secretary Veneman and the department have given Kansas agriculture the means to take the real initiative and leadership in protecting our state’s economy and our nation’s food supply,” Roberts said. “Now it is our turn … to remain very vigilant and to really commit ourselves to continue the effort that is needed to face this very serious challenge.”

Roberts said that although he was not aware of any specific threats to agriculture, the possibility is real and the probability of such an attack has increased since Sept. 11.

“We know an intentional attack is not the only threat to our food security,” Roberts said. “An unintentional outbreak of a plant disease, such as Karnal bunt, or an animal disease, such as foot and mouth, could also devastate our agricultural economy if it were to occur.”

Veneman said the USDA had a task force working on Karnal bunt, and was looking at every option.

The fungus is harmless to people but sours the taste and smell of flour made from infected kernels. It also slightly cuts production in infected fields. The disease’s main impact is economic: 80 countries ban imports of wheat grown in infected regions.

Since Karnal bunt’s discovery in northern Texas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has looked at deregulating it as quarantined pest. Texas A&M Extension Research Center in Lockett has estimated the four northern counties where it was found had a $27 million loss associated with the fungus last year.

“We can’t let them do deregulation in a vacuum, however, because wheat is a very important export crop,” Veneman said. “So as we look at how we control Karnal bunt in terms of deregulation … we also have to look at how it impacts our international trade.”

She said no Karnal bunt had been found this year. Testing for Karnal bunt contamination is voluntary, and Veneman said she did know whether the task force was looking at mandatory testing for it at this point.

The agency has a compensation program for people affected by Karnal bunt, and Veneman said the agency believed it was an incentive for people to be willing to test.