Offensive–Defensive Governance of Biological Defense and Food Security
(With Popular Participation, Coalition-Building, and Self-Reliance under Conditions of the Enemy’s Economic Threat)
✍️ Amirhossein Khodai — Researcher
The Front Line of the Economic–Biological Battle
Under conditions in which the enemy, by changing the paradigm of threats, has focused on economic pressure and comprehensive sanctions, food security and biological defense can no longer be regarded as secondary issues or merely current expenditures. These areas constitute the front line of a new form of asymmetric warfare. The annual budget that is currently being drafted is not merely a financial document; it should be regarded as a roadmap for national survival.
With an understanding of this strategic threat, the government is pursuing the presentation of offensive initiatives (aggressive and preventive) and defensive initiatives (strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability) in the fields of biological defense and health as a priority. This paper seeks, from a non-governmental and participatory perspective, while reforming the budget structure, to outline an operational roadmap for transforming biological threats into strategic opportunities.
1. Institutional Architecture and Governance: Moving from Government Management to Non-Governmental Governance
One of the chronic weaknesses of the budgeting system is its failure to recognize the extensive capacities outside the government. To confront fluid and complex biological threats, a transition from government-centered management to networked governance is unavoidable.
Establishing a Supreme Council for Food and Biological Security Governance with a non-governmental composition including the government, parliament, military and public universities of medical sciences and agriculture, the Medical Council and Veterinary Council, and specialized non-governmental organizations. Policymaking within this council should be structured so that academic knowledge, the experience of local communities, and the capacity of the private sector are brought together.
Establishing a Biological Cooperation Foundation, with universities of medical sciences, agriculture, and veterinary medicine serving as the link among knowledge-based companies, scientific centers, and industry. By supporting the generation of capacity for the implementation of viable projects, this foundation would facilitate collective financing and technology transfer.
Establishing a transparent periodic reporting system requiring executive agencies to publish progress reports on food-security projects for the public and members of parliament. This transparency is a safeguard against rent-seeking and the diversion of resources.
2. Offensive Strategy (Aggressive and Preventive): Coalition-Building, Market Penetration, and Threat Containment
The objective in this section is to turn threats into opportunities, create active deterrence, and gain a position in regional markets in order to overcome sanctions.
1. Strategic Biological Coalition (Iran Biological Alliance)
Biological threats recognize no borders, and confronting them requires transnational cooperation. It is proposed that an Iran Biological Alliance be formed with aligned and allied countries (China, Russia, Yemen, Lebanon, North Korea, Afghanistan, Armenia, Venezuela, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, India, South Africa, Belarus, and neighboring countries). The mechanism of this alliance would include technology exchange, joint biological-defense exercises, and the creation of a shared database of hazardous biological agents.
A successful model: the strategic cooperation between China and Russia in May 2025, through the signing of a memorandum of understanding by the bilateral consultative commission on ensuring biological security and training the two countries’ military personnel in chemical and biological defense, shows that biological coalition-building is being pursued at the highest strategic levels.
2. Vaccine Diplomacy and Export of Biotechnological Products
By relying on the capabilities of knowledge-based companies, the design and implementation of vaccine diplomacy should be placed on the agenda. Obtaining international approvals (WHO and the food and drug regulatory authorities of target countries) for human and veterinary vaccines would not only generate significant foreign-exchange revenues, but also, by creating mutual interdependence, neutralize sanctions and enhance Iran’s geopolitical position as a regional vaccine-production hub.
3. Restoration of 90 Million Hectares of Rangelands and 30 Million Hectares of Deserts: An Offensive Initiative to Reduce $16 Billion in Dependence
In previous years, about $16 billion in government foreign currency was spent on importing livestock inputs. This large figure indicates a strategic weakness. It is proposed that, using seed-spreading drones, the planting of native resistant species, and grazing management with the participation of livestock farmers, a program for the restoration of rangelands through rainfed methods and desertification control be launched.
A successful global model: Africa’s Green Belt initiative, which began in 2005, has, with the participation of local communities and the use of simple indigenous technologies, restored more than 100 million hectares of degraded land, created 10 million green jobs, and absorbed 250 million tons of carbon. This initiative showed that desertification control is not a dream but a smart managerial choice that can solve a major part of Iran’s problems related to livestock feed, dust storms, and even unemployment.
3. Defensive Strategy (Strengthening Resilience and Reducing Vulnerability): Self-Reliance and Resilience
The objective in this section is to create resilient infrastructure, reduce dependence, and increase the country’s resilience against biological threats, whether natural or deliberate.
1. Securing the Food and Production-Input Chain
Biological control from farm to table, including livestock inputs, feed, water, soil, and food transportation, is one of the most vital priorities. The annual budget should, by creating specific and non-transferable budget lines, focus on intelligent prevention of contamination in the food chain rather than concentrating on costly treatment. If food security is regarded as the front line of national health, a large share of cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and metabolic diseases that impose heavy costs on the health system would naturally decline.
2. Strategic Self-Sufficiency in Human and Veterinary Vaccines
With guaranteed support and procurement, dependence on imported vaccines under sanctions makes the country vulnerable. In the veterinary sector, we have nearly 97% self-sufficiency, but in poultry vaccines, with only 35% self-sufficiency, there is a significant gap from the 70% target of the Seventh Development Plan. It is proposed that targeted investment in the production of strategic human and veterinary vaccines be placed at the top of budget priorities. The experience of funding during the COVID-19 period for institutions such as Pasteur and Razi, despite some managerial imbalances, showed that with targeted resources, a major leap in research and development can be achieved.
3. Strengthening the Science and Technology Tower and the Innovation Ecosystem
The Science and Technology Tower project, intended to become an innovation hub, faces problems such as insufficient infrastructure and coordination. It is proposed that, through redesigning the tower and providing facilities, reference laboratories, and tax exemptions to the knowledge-based companies located there, the conditions be created for the aggregation of resources and the formation of innovation clusters.
4. Financing and the Role of the Private Sector and the Public (Countering Sanctions through Capital)
To operationalize these strategies, a new financing system is needed that reduces pressure on the government budget and, through maximum public participation, neutralizes the effects of sanctions.
Establishing specialized Venture Capital funds in the fields of health, biotechnology, and food security with the participation of the private sector and pension funds.
Providing tax and legal incentives for knowledge-based companies and actors involved in vaccine and pharmaceutical production.
Creating a legal framework for investment by professional associations’ funds (employees, physicians, students, the Nursing Organization, the Medical Council, in each province) and non-governmental organizations in viable projects. Building the capacity of qualified public participation can have a remarkable impact on financing and reducing the effects of sanctions.
A successful global model: the Biovac project in South Africa, supported by the European Bank and IFC, is an example of public-private partnership (PPP) for large-scale investment in vaccine production.
5. Executive Priorities and Concrete Reforms in the Annual Budget
To move this paper from analysis to implementation, the following proposals should be incorporated into budget provisions and executive programs:
- Establish specific, independent, and non-transferable budget lines for food security, production of strategic vaccines, and combating biological threats.
- Allocate part of the foreign-exchange resources of the National Development Fund (such as $1 billion) to domestic production of livestock inputs and rangeland restoration projects, instead of complete dependence on imports.
- Define binding legal provisions in the budget requiring government agencies to cooperate with the private sector, universities through the establishment of a cooperation foundation, and public institutions in implementing infrastructure projects.
- Increase the share of the agricultural and health sectors in the total development budget and review allocation priorities with an emphasis on prevention and resilience.
- According to 1403 (2024) statistics from the Ministry of Health, 15% of deaths in the country are caused by air pollution, which further underscores the need for greater attention to hybrid and electric vehicles while simultaneously addressing the imbalance.
Strategic Conclusion: From Threat to Power
The annual budget should become a turning point in national governance—a budget that:
Regards food security and biological defense as the front line of national health and security.
Is non-governmental and participatory and makes use of academic knowledge, people’s experience, and private-sector capital.
Strengthens domestic production through targeted investment instead of imports.
Regards public health and the environment as national capital, not as a cost to be passed over.
Today, reforming the budget means reforming the country’s future path. Let us not allow ourselves to pay tomorrow the heavy cost of neglecting these strategic warnings. By adopting an offensive approach through coalition-building and exports, and a defensive approach through self-reliance and resilience-building, it is possible to create, from the enemy’s economic threat, an opportunity for a leap in production, national power, and the improvement of people’s quality of life. This is the same win-win game in which families live healthier lives, the government is relieved of the pressure of treatment costs, and the country’s resources are devoted to building the future—where the health of the people is the greatest national asset.
