Europe has no shortage of ideas. The challenge is turning them into innovation. A new EU strategy aims to do just that for food and agriculture.
How much of its food should a country be able to produce itself? On 27 September, Swiss voters decide on the ‘Ernährungsinitiative’, which seeks to raise Switzerland’s net food self-sufficiency rate to at least 70%. The proposal places a broader question at the centre of the debate: how can a food system remain reliable when climate change, pressure on natural resources, and import dependencies challenge its foundations? Just weeks before the vote, the same concern moved up the EU agenda. On 8 September, the European Commission presented a new strategic approach to research and innovation for more competitive, resilient and sustainable agriculture and food systems.
Unlike the Swiss initiative, the EU strategy does not propose a target for domestic food production. Instead, it asks how research and innovation can make Europe less vulnerable in critical parts of its food system. These vulnerabilities are tangible: the EU depends on third countries not only for some food production technologies but also for fertilisers, energy and protein feed. The Commission also points to dependencies in essential food ingredients such as vitamins, amino acids and enzymes. Its response: greater capacity to anticipate disruptions, diversify supply and develop technologies and production capacities within Europe.
This new approach brings together two previously separate policy strands: AgRI 2040, covering agriculture, forestry and rural areas, updates the EU’s 2016 agricultural R&I strategy, while Food 2040, covering food systems including fisheries and aquaculture, builds on the Food 2030 framework. Together, they are intended to steer future EU research and innovation priorities, notably under Horizon Europe 2028–2034 and relevant parts of the future European Competitiveness Fund. Thematic priorities cover sustainable natural resource management and biodiversity, resilient agriculture and forestry, thriving rural and agri-food economies, digital and technological innovation, and the transition towards healthy, sustainable and resource-efficient food systems. However, the new strategy is not only about what research should be done but more importantly also about how scientific research can be turned into innovations that farms, businesses and markets are ready to adopt.
Europe has many of the right ingredients: strong research, ambitious policy goals and a pressing need for new solutions. But its results do not yet translate sufficiently into market-ready solutions, according to the strategy. Limited private investment is part of the problem, reflecting a structural weakness in Europe’s innovation ecosystem. In the agri-food sector, however, the gap is reinforced by its particular structure: the predominance of small and medium-sized enterprises, their limited investment capacity and the sector’s high labour intensity make commercialisation especially difficult. Fragmented funding, complex regulation and insufficient support at higher levels of technological maturity make it even harder, while start-ups and SMEs remain underrepresented in Horizon Europe projects.
To make this easier, the Commission wants EU-funded research to think about possible users and practical applications from the project start. Businesses should be more involved in assessing project ideas, and smaller companies should face fewer administrative hurdles. Cascade funding could make room for smaller sub-projects, complemented by support that helps start-ups and SMEs find suitable Horizon Europe partners. The Commission also wants promising ideas to receive support beyond the end of a research project. Results should have clearer routes towards follow-up funding, testing or business advice, including through closer links with the European Innovation Council.
But even good ideas do not automatically reach farms, forests or rural communities. The Commission therefore wants researchers to work more closely with the people who would actually use new tools or methods. One way to do this is through Living Labs: real-life testing spaces where farmers, foresters, researchers and other actors develop and test solutions together. The idea is simple: if people help shape a solution from the start, it is more likely to fit their needs and be used in practice.
Through its association to Horizon Europe, Switzerland can currently participate in and coordinate projects across the programme. But the Commission is signalling that future agri-food projects should do more than produce strong research: they should involve users early, provide credible settings for testing and connect results to investment or deployment. PATH2DEA shows what this can look like in practice (see SwissCore article). The project asks a simple question: what stops farmers from using digital tools, and how can research results be shared with the people advising them on the ground? Under AgRI 2040 and Food 2040, such links between research, users and implementation are moving closer to the centre of EU funding policy.