Plant and animal health is of global importance for sustainable agriculture and competitive agriculture and forestry, as well as for the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems. Globally, between 10 and 28 percent of crop production is lost to pests and contamination of food and feed by mycotoxins can severely threaten the health of humans and livestock. Also, the food chain, from harvest of agricultural products, throughout processing, distribution and until consumption can be challenged by several (hybrid) threats, which are increasingly taking non-conventional forms and possibly targeting the agriculture and food chain with severe consequences.

Current EU capabilities to detect and respond to agro-terrorism and bio-criminal acts are dispersed across different national practitioners, normally handled by regional or national bodies and are very limited in terms of coordination. Different countries have different governmental authorities for agricultural and feed and food domains, different collaborative networks, different border controls, different inspection bodies and different regulatory references and reporting mechanisms as well as different investigative bodies in the case of suspected feed/food crime. The EU institutions have to start to consider the agri-food chain as a critical infrastructure which can suffer from attacks and which need to be protected. The most effective way to accomplish this goal is through international cooperation by a multi-sectorial approach combing different expertise, such as from law enforcement, the feed and food sector and health emergency services.

The main challenge is to increase the resilience of European agricultural production, feed and food processing and distribution chain in case of sudden shocks. Agriculture and food chains will be included as an important dimension to be analysed in the context of protection of European critical entities in case of emergencies. It is also crucial to address the interrelations between the food chain shocks and different types of critical entities with the objective of developing tools and methods to minimize cascading effects and allow rapid recovery of service performance levels after incidents. In the new context also the interaction with climate change, global trade and internet trade (spreading often plant material not controlled at all and of low quality) need to be taken into consideration. Artificial intelligence provides new tools for better coping with many of the most important challenges.

In this context, research should address agri-food systems shocks, taking account of the increasing effects of climate change and global trade (and their interaction) on pest outbreaks and spread, feed/food commodity shocks, due to external challenges, feed/food supply chains interruption and organised agri-food terrorism attacks.