Food Defence Research Centre: Deterring, Detecting and Mitigating Attacks Against the Food System

The global food system is under pressure.

Major factors, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and geopolitical tensions, expose the vulnerability of these critical systems and our urgent need to act.In all its complexity, including production, processing, distribution and consumption, food supply is an evident target for antagonistic attacks, aimed at harming the population, businesses, and governments, coercing into submission or contributing to chaos and distrust.

There is a pressing need for interdisciplinary collaboration between all actors involved in food supply chains to be able to prevent, detect, and respond to all kinds of antagonistic threats.The Food Defence Research Centre is a broad and strong coalition with the ability to develop revolutionary new methods to detect antagonistic attacks against the food system and to test and evaluate mitigation strategies.

Our primary focus will be on biological, chemical, information, and economic warfare. The work will be transdisciplinary, forming new partnerships between academia, the public sector and industry. This ensures that innovative knowledge and capabilities can be adapted and implemented by stakeholders.

The methods developed by the Centre will not only be useful for contingency planning but will also contribute to the transition towards increased sustainability and competitiveness of the food sector, especially under crisis.