1MG FlippingBooks
Food waste to fuel Australia’s first sustainable food city
Vivien Lin
A new Food Agility CRC project will establish Australia’s first ‘sustainable food city’ south of Brisbane.
The initiative will integrate a digitally-enabled community compost system and a small-scale food production business at a new master-planned community at Yarrabilba, south of Brisbane. It aims to establish a national model for digitally integrated, sustainable urban agriculture and the ‘circular food economy.’
“The world is grappling with a major food challenge: how to make enough healthy food to feed a growing population with less available land while minimising waste and environmental impact,” says Food Agility CEO Dr Mike Briers. “Yarrabilba will be a test ground for how we can embed cutting-edge digital technologies into the design of our cities to create local food systems fuelled by food waste.”
The first stage of the project will see researchers from QUT collaborate with Lendlease to develop a prototype digital composting system for sustainable local food production. By using sensors to track when food waste is added to compost, composters can earn credits and swap them for local goods and services.
The second stage will involve establishing a digitally-enabled produce garden fed by the community compost system alongside a local food market.
“We’re looking at environmental sustainability and community health in a whole new way and building the necessary infrastructure from the beginning,” says Yarrabilba Development Director Michelle Wooldridge. “We also think this will generate economic opportunities, whether that’s through urban farming, creating value out of waste or food-based tourism.”
This ‘circular economy’ approach represents a new way of dealing with the growing problem of food waste.
“In a circular economy, waste is put back in the system to create value,” says QUT food and agricultural sociologist Dr Carol Richards. “In this case, we are using food waste to grow more food and create a valuable resource for the community. Working with residents to co-design their own sustainable food city is a key aspect of this project.”
Researchers from QUT’s Institute for Future Environments are also currently working on a range of projects related to the circular economy and considering how this approach might reduce the growing levels of food, plastic and textile waste globally.
You can learn more about the Yarrabilba project here.
NEWS
High-precision GNSS has typically been too costly and complex for all but the most critical agricultural operations, but recent RTK GNSS innovations have made centimetre accuracy scalable to all applications in Ag-Tech.
Every Aussie farmer knows that the difference between a “good” crop and a “record-breaking” one often come down to the smallest details. At BioFlora, we’ve spent years perfecting the balance of plant nutrition, and the result is IsoGreen – our powerhouse liquid formula designed to push your yields and crop taste to their absolute peak.
Plant, spray and harvest with confidence using reliable centimetre level positioning. Hexagon SmartNet provides fast, accurate RTK corrections across Australia to reduce overlaps, lower input costs and maximise productivity. With no base station required, simply connect, get a fix and get to work.
Built for the demand of Aussie farmers. Designed for every day performance.
They’re wriggly black grubs more commonly tossed to backyard hens than served at the dinner table, but black soldier fly larvae could soon play a key role in building a more sustainable food system, according to new research from Adelaide University.
After four years of customer research and 500,000 test kilometres, Ford says the Ranger Super Duty brings farmer-driven customisation into the factory, with more towing, payload, and durability built in.
