The Horizon Europe project EFRA (Extreme Food Risk Analytics) has published a new Discussion Paper titled “AI for Resilient Food Systems and Risk Intelligence”, exploring how Artificial Intelligence can support Europe’s transition towards more resilient, anticipatory and trustworthy food systems.
The publication brings together expert contributions from leading researchers and Horizon Europe initiatives examining how AI can help move food safety and food systems from reactive practices to proactive and predictive risk intelligence. It addresses how AI can strengthen early warning mechanisms, enhance traceability and transparency and support coordinated cross-border responses to emerging food system risks.
The Discussion Paper is structured around three core thematic areas:
• AI Methods and Autonomous Systems, focusing on predictive models and autonomous technologies for real-time risk detection
• Food Safety and Agriculture Applications, highlighting the use of AI in traceability, hazard forecasting and supply chain visibility
• Cross-Disciplinary Science and Technology, addressing interoperability, trustworthy AI and coordinated risk intelligence across sectors
Within this context, PLIADES contributed to the publication by presenting how AI-enabled interoperable data spaces and full data-lifecycle optimisation can support proactive and trustworthy risk intelligence.
Although PLIADES does not target the food sector directly, its architecture and methodologies provide a transferable framework for food system applications. In its contribution, PLIADES highlights how:
• AI-assisted data quality monitoring, semantic alignment and integrity validation can support early risk detection
• interoperable and federated data spaces enable trusted cross-border data sharing without compromising data sovereignty
• explainable and transparent AI mechanisms strengthen trust and accountability in high-stakes decision environments
• governance frameworks and metadata-driven traceability are essential enablers for resilient data ecosystems
The PLIADES vision aligns strongly with the Discussion Paper’s outlook towards 2035, where federated European data spaces supported by trustworthy AI could continuously monitor, analyse and anticipate risks across complex value chains. Applied to food systems, such an approach could enable real-time collaboration between farms, industry, logistics actors and regulators, making resilience an inherent property of future food ecosystems.
PLIADES’ participation in the EFRA Discussion Paper underlines the project’s broader mission to build interoperable, AI-enabled and trustworthy data infrastructures capable of supporting resilience across domains including mobility, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, robotics and Green Deal applications.
The EFRA Discussion Paper “AI for Resilient Food Systems and Risk Intelligence” is available online and includes the PLIADES contribution on pages 16-17:
