Food Security as Strategic Autonomy
Fertilisers, inputs and agricultural resilience
Europe’s food security is no longer only an agricultural policy question. It is a resilience issue shaped by fertilisers, gas, seeds, crop protection, machinery, water, logistics, cold chains, fisheries, digital systems and imported inputs. Recent crises have shown that food availability can remain broadly intact while the system beneath it becomes more fragile: farmers face volatile input costs, fertiliser producers depend on energy and raw materials, supply chains rely on ports and transport corridors, and climate stress is increasing pressure on land, water and yields. For DFM, the strategic issue is not consumer food demand, but whether Europe can maintain the industrial, biological, logistical and technological conditions that allow food to be produced, processed, stored and distributed during prolonged disruption.
The report is structured in four sections. The first frames food security as a second-order strategic-autonomy and preparedness theme within the European resilience architecture. The second examines the input-dependency layer, with particular attention to fertilisers, plant reproductive material, plant health, crop protection and protein-feed exposure. The third analyses the technology, infrastructure and climate-resilience layer, covering precision agriculture, agricultural machinery, controlled-environment agriculture, cold chains, logistics, fisheries, aquaculture and water stress. The fourth provides the DFM interpretation, identifying the companies, assets and programmes that merit monitoring because they sit at the intersection of food security, critical infrastructure, industrial inputs, energy, climate resilience and crisis preparedness.