Food Is Strategic Infrastructure: Why Animal Proteins Matter for Europe’s Food Security
I had the pleasure of speaking at the ASSICA Annual Assembly in Rome, dedicated to the future of pork meat and cured meats in an age of global uncertainty. The event brought together entrepreneurs, institutions and policymakers, including Italy’s Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Francesco Lollobrigida.
My message was clear: the agri-food sector, and especially mature animal-protein value chains, must be recognized as strategic infrastructure for Italy and Europe. Food security cannot remain an emergency topic, discussed only when a crisis occurs.
READ MY FULL TALK HERE
Key Takeaways
- Food is strategic infrastructure: no society can be secure, competitive or free if it cannot feed its citizens.
- Animal-protein value chains connect farming, land, water, energy, logistics, technology, territories, consumers, exports and institutions.
- The future is not a protein war, but protein coexistence: animal and plant proteins, tradition and innovation, nutrition and sustainability can coexist within a balanced food system.
- Sustainability must become measurable performance, not ideological narrative.
- The sector must move from defensive communication to strategic leadership.
Europe has learned to speak the language of energy security, defense security, technological security, critical minerals, semiconductors and pharmaceutical supply chains. Yet food security is still too often treated as an emergency issue: something to discuss when a war, drought, logistics disruption or price shock occurs.
This is no longer enough.
Food is strategic infrastructure. And within that infrastructure, animal-protein value chains play an essential role. Pork meat and cured meats are not only traditional products. They are part of a complex system connecting farmers, land, water, energy, industrial processing, logistics, technology, local territories, export markets, consumers and public institutions.
ARE WE LIVING IN A SIMULATION?
In a world shaped by Covid, wars, energy shocks, protectionism, trade barriers, climate pressure, regulatory uncertainty, artificial intelligence and declining trust, food chains compete on much more than product quality. They compete on resilience, reputation, transparency, measurable sustainability and the ability to explain value.
The risk is that animal proteins are increasingly reduced to symbols inside simplified narratives: meat as a climate symbol, cured meats as a health symbol, farming as an ethical symbol. But good public policy should start from reality, not from a caricature of reality.
This does not mean denying the challenges. Environmental impact, animal welfare, traceability, health, nutrition and regulation are real issues. They must be addressed with data, innovation, investment, responsibility and proportional rules. But they cannot be governed through demonization, ideological shortcuts or food wars.
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The future of food is not a protein war. It is protein coexistence.
Animal and plant proteins, tradition and innovation, nutrition and sustainability, value and accessibility can coexist within a mature food system based on balance, quality, freedom of choice and responsibility.
WHAT POLICIES FOR AFFORDABLE DIETS: MY TALK AT SMEs CONNECT
If technological platforms are infrastructures of knowledge, mature and resilient food chains are infrastructures of food security.
This is why the sector must move from defense to leadership: not simply saying “we are not the problem,” but demonstrating that it is part of the solution — for food security, Made in Italy, rural territories, exports, balanced diets, innovation and a more serious public debate on food, health and sustainability.
