Towards a novel framework for measuring the resilience of the EU Food System

Resilience is a cornerstone of the European Green Deal, essential for ensuring food security, economic stability, and environmental sustainability amid challenges such as climate change, market volatility, and socio-political disruptions. To tackle these challenges, the European Commission developed the EU Food System Sustainability Model (https://datam.jrc.ec.europa.eu/datam/mashup/EU_FOOD_SYSTEM_MONITORING/), a fit for purpose framework that integrates environmental, social, and economic dimensions. With 37 headline and supporting indicators, the framework monitors the transition toward sustainable food systems within planetary boundaries. Resilience is emphasized as a key horizontal thematic area, reflecting the system's capacity to absorb, adapt to, and recover from shocks while maintaining functionality and ensuring long-term sustainability.

However, existing frameworks for assessing food system resilience often rely on indicators that fail to fully capture the unique aspects of resilience within the European context and lack integration across key dimensions. To address this limitation, we propose an innovative methodology that integrates the four key aspects of resilience - preparedness, shock resistance, adaptation, and transformation - each linked to specific capacities and vulnerabilities. Indicators are carefully selected, categorized as either capacities (positive trends like crop diversity) or vulnerabilities (negative trends like soil erosion), and scored relative to the EU median. These scores are aggregated and normalized to produce a composite resilience score ranging from 0 to 1, offering a robust metric to evaluate resilience across Member States and the EU27. This score supports targeted strategies and interventions, enabling policymakers to strengthen the adaptability and sustainability of the food system.

While the proposed methodology marks significant progress, its full potential relies on addressing critical data gaps, particularly in underrepresented areas of the food supply chain and sustainability criteria. We will discuss the need for improved data availability and greater collaboration among public and private stakeholders at national and regional levels. Addressing these challenges is key for refining the framework and strengthening evidence-based policymaking.