The DEFENSEFOOD project aims to enhance the resilience of the EU food supply chain against chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) threats, ensuring robust preparedness, rapid response, and effective recovery. This comprehensive approach addresses critical areas of threat management, fostering cross-border collaboration, technological innovation, and capacity building to protect public health, bolster economic stability, and secure food systems. The project’s structured strategy, encompassing seven interconnected work packages (WPs), ensures a full spectrum response from anticipation to post-crisis learning and communication. WP1 focuses on proactive anticipation and prevention by leveraging horizon scanning, predictive tools, AI, and real-time data to monitor potential disruptions and strengthen preparedness. WP2 enhances rapid detection using advanced laboratory techniques and both targeted and untargeted analyses to swiftly identify contaminants, reducing response times. WP3 implements impact mitigation and recovery measures by establishing effective containment protocols and outlining strategies for rapid operational restoration, minimising public health and supply chain disruptions. WP4 promotes continuous learning and adaptation, integrating lessons from past incidents to bolster future resilience. WP5 advances knowledge management and communication through user-friendly decision-support tools that disseminate best practices and strategic recommendations across the supply chain. WP6 focuses on training and capacity building, equipping public and private stakeholders with essential skills via workshops, training sessions, and simulation exercises, fostering coordination and preparedness. WP7 ensures cohesive project management, aligning WPs, optimising resources, and achieving milestones. It oversees governance and scientific coordination through consistent monitoring, ethics considerations, and advisory board facilitation.

Regulated or non-regulated pests (bacteria, virus, fungi, nematodes, arthropods or weeds) are responsible of major crops’ losses. Accurate and reliable detection and identification of pests are essential to avoid or reduce economical costs and trade disruptions and to support surveillance activities. In recent years, numerous tests based on new technologies have been developed to meet the different needs. However, most of them are validated on an intra-laboratory basis, through limited test performance studies (TPS) or ring trials, and there is a need to further harmonize practices. The project aims at producing validation data and will include two rounds of TPS. The first one will include combinations of pest/test/matrix, prioritized based on the expertise of the project's consortium. The second round will include other combinations based on the needs expressed by various stakeholders. Priorities for validation will then be better aligned to their needs and to the market. To maximize the impact of the project, calls of interest will be organized to include in the validation programme, kits of suppliers outside the consortium and allow participation to the TPS of voluntary proficient laboratories. Current harmonized procedures in Plant Health for validation and organization of TPS will be improved by including appropriate statistical approaches and by adapting the process for new promising technologies, such as Next Generation Sequencing. Liaison with regional and international standardization bodies will allow large dissemination of validation data obtained in this project especially by their inclusion in harmonized diagnostic protocols. The outcomes of the project will stimulate, optimize and strengthen the interactions between stakeholders in Plant Health for better diagnostics and lay the foundations for structuring the quality and the commercial offers for plant health diagnostics tools thanks to a dedicated association and a quality charter.

The objective of EEPLIANT 2014 (Energy Efficiency Compliant Products 2014) is to help deliver the intended economic and environmental benefits of the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC and the Energy Labelling Directive 2010/30/EU by strengthening market surveillance and increasing compliance with the Directives and the relevant implementing measures. EEPLIANT 2014 will achieve this by: -Implementing systems that coordinate, in the most cost-effective manner, the monitoring, verification and enforcement of ecodesign and energy labelling requirements across the European Single Market; -Increasing the adoption of best practice amongst Market Surveillance Authorities (MSAs). The Consortium (13 MSAs and PROSAFE) will design, carry out and evaluate coordinated market surveillance actions across three different product sectors over the next two years. It will deliver a higher level of surveillance activities that go beyond testing and will target products that represent the highest energy saving potential. The consortium will work closely with other non-participating MSAs across the EEA through its liaison with the Energy Labelling and the Ecodesign ADCOs. Additionally, the Consortium will work together with a Steering Board comprising of business, consumer organisations and environmental NGOs to draw on their knowledge and experience and to communicate through them with all stakeholders about the progress and results of the project. The expected results are: -Adoption by Member States of best practices on how to conduct market surveillance most effectively. -Greater compliance due to increased market surveillance of products in the EEA with the Implementing Measures of the Energy Labelling and Ecodesign Directives. -Increased awareness of (and respect for) market surveillance by industry and amongst users. -Market surveillance being undertaken in a more cost effective and consistent manner across the EEA with an overall greater impact in the product sectors investigated.

Soil-borne plant-parasitic nematodes are a biosecurity risk for global food production with an estimated annual loss of €110 billion worldwide. Root-knot nematodes (RKN) and potato cyst nematodes (PCN) rank 1 and 2 in the Top 10 of high-impact plant-parasitic nematodes with RKN alone accounting for ~5% of global crop losses. RKN and PCN are A2 quarantine pests or emerging species listed on the EPPO Alert List. The two PCN species are also included in EU Commission implementing regulation 2021/2285. Recent reports document the emergence of new RKN and PCN problems in tomato and potato cropping across Europe and beyond due to two independent drivers: global warming and genetic selection. For decades, non-specific, environmentally harmful agrochemicals have been applied to manage RKN and PCN. The increasing awareness about their negative impact prompted the phasing out of most nematicides. Consequently, there is an urgent need for novel, durable control strategies that enable adequate responses by stakeholders to prevent crop losses in the EU and beyond. NEM-EMERGE will provide a spectrum of sustainable, science-based solutions for both the conventional and organic farming sector based on the principles of IPM, including (1) optimized crop rotations schemes including cover crops, (2) tailored host plant resistances, and (3) optimal use of the native antagonistic potential of soils. Moreover, monitoring and risk assessment tools will be generated to support Plant Health Authorities in decision and policy making. To ensure the adoption and implementation of NEM-EMERGE tools in the sector, a bottom-up co-creation process and multi-actor approach will be used based on stakeholder demands from both the conventional and organic sector. This makes NEM-EMERGE a key driver for the transition to sustainable farming in line with the Farm to Fork Strategy thereby contributing to the challenging targets set by the Green Deal.