At Food Agility, we saw an
opportunity in digital agriculture
and we see ourselves
as helping that adoption,
helping companies get
over that first hurdle
of validating early stage technology,
driven by science and research,
where we can actually
supercharge R&D in this area.
This is what every
CRC is trying to do,
is improve that translation
between research and impact in industry.
In this CRC, we've tried
to capture partners
from all parts of the food system.
We have projects in meat and livestock,
we have horticulture, we
have wine and of course,
our celebrated, successful
project in the oyster industry.
The food safety in the
oyster industry project,
it's a wonderful collaboration
between New South Wales
Food Authority, The Yield,
the technology partner
and we have the research team here at UTS.
So, it's an industry led
combination of partners that bring
the technology smarts,
the research smarts,
all those elements together beautifully.
The New South Wales oyster industry
and oyster industries generally,
have issues with water quality
because oysters are filter feeders.
Anything in the estuary
water ends up in the oyster.
The regulator needs to shut
down the oyster harvesting
industry when the water quality's bad
and this can be for longer periods
than is actually required.
So what the oyster project
is seeking to achieve
is to reduce unnecessary closures.
In peak season and for
some oyster growers,
a loss of one day in harvesting
could cost them up to $100,000.
We've got 13 estuaries across the state
that have been collecting samples
on a weekly basis for the last two years.
So our role as biological scientists
is to pick up the
microbiological contaminants
and then couple that
to realtime temperature
and salinity sensing,
and to look at the link
between those things.
Having the Food Agility
project working in the estuary,
particularly with the salinity monitoring,
means that we're checking
when the rainfall
is actually impacting on the harvest area.
And it's meant that we've been
able to stay open for longer,
harvest more oysters, protect our business
and supply more regularly
for our customers.
We're trying to farm in
a really dynamic system,
so being able to partner
with government agencies
and research centres allows
us to put a bit of science
behind what we're actually doing.
It's one of the exciting
things about working
in the CRC movement.
You get to see almost
every day researchers
that have that aha moment and say,
"Okay, this is how I'm
going to have an impact."
Working with the industry
so closely keeps us aware
of exactly what their
concerns are and also,
it makes us think a bit more creatively.
For Pambula Lake to be a
part of the CRC Food Agility
project has been a fantastic advantage
for the local oyster farmers.
There's 28 farmers in Pambula Lake,
but we're all family businesses,
so it would be difficult for us
to fund this kind of research.
And I think that the
benefits of the project
are more broader reaching
than just the oyster industry.
There's benefits for the community
and for other people that
use the estuary as well.
The impact that we're trying to have,
it is about efficiency and
it's about profitability,
but it also is about the environment.
Whether it's about looking after your soil
or reducing your water use,
it's actually doing more with less.
The aquaculture industry
has got the same issues
all over the world,
that their major problems
are water quality issues.
So, a lot of what we're
learning here will be
directly applicable to other countries
and we really hope that
they will take this on
and follow our example.
We think this is a world first,
we're starting to see
leading edge research
and technology coming to
bear to have a real impact.
So, these types of technologies
and digital being showcased
in this oyster project
have much broader scope
and opportunity,
and we're starting to see that in some
of the other projects
that we're working on.
For industry partners,
because the projects tend
to be of a high risk nature,
the co-investment from the Commonwealth
through the CRC Program is critical
to get them over the line and
get them to that next level.
It accelerates how we can
actually have that impact,
taking those ideas into industry.
