Minister talks alternative food in Australia
DUBAI: Mariam Bint Mohammed Almheiri concluded her trip to Queensland and New South Wales, Australia, by meeting high-level federal government officials and visiting innovative private sector food production facilities to discuss important issues relating to future food security.
Alongside, Dr Obaid Alketbi the Ambassador of UAE in Australia and representatives of the Food Security Center, Abu Dhabi, she met David Littleproud, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources and Niall Blair, NSW Minister for Primary Industries and Minister for Regional Water and Minister for Trade and Industry. During their visit, the delegation attended the Queensland Parliament, the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Australian Trade and Investment Commission to receive more insights on Australia’s food landscape.
During their visit to University of Technology, Sydney, she discussed the UAE’S research agenda regarding alternative food and applications to bring algae to the forefront of food applications, with the blooms used for human, animal and ish nutrition, and cosmetics and biofuel. The delegation reviewed how algae can provide threefold more protein yield than beef using virtually no land or freshwater.
The visit to Queensland University of Technology saw the UAE delegation looking at the applied research to utilise the robotics in harvesting and reviewing how to minimise food loss in the value chain. The research combined robotic vision and automation to develop new agricultural prototypes designed to identify and robotically harvest food produce, ensuring that it doesn’t leave any crops bruised or destroyed in the process. Discussions with the research team in charge assessed the commercial viability and potential application of the technology in the UAE to reduce food loss and enhance future food security.
The UAE delegation also visited a number of world-leading Australian companies that are embracing mega trends and piloting transformational initiatives to optimise both the supply and demand sides of food security by improving food production systems. The delegation looked at applications to change the proile of food currently eaten to make it both tastier and more nutritional. The company incubates research ideas from the food industry and accelerates their application to make it commercial – it is hoped that similar applications in the UAE could lead to healthy, sametaste, alternative food to their original unhealthy versions.
At a communal level, discussions on how to reconnect with food in urban settings was demonstrated through a visit to urban community farms that bring people of all ages together to educate them about how food is grown and prepared.