Professor Matthew Gilliham, Director, Waite Research Institute, University of Adelaide.
Blog Post
The Future of Food Off-world and On
Professor Matthew Gilliham
Agricultural research supports long-term space habitation possibilities, while accelerating sustainable food production research for Earth.
In the next five years there will be a new space station orbiting the moon, by the end of the decade a crewed lunar base will have been established, and by 2040 humans will have stepped onto the surface of Mars. These are the aspirations of Earth’s space agencies and, whilst the propulsion systems to reach our off-World targets are well-advanced, critical technologies that will ultimately enable remote human habitation lag far in development.
In particular, the challenge of providing the adequate and varied diet to ensure healthy space explorers is one of the greatest obstacles for mission planners. This is because mass and volume restrictions prevent enough food being taken on the voyage to Mars, and resource resupply from Earth is not a viable option; furthermore, even if enough food could be sent in advance, food stability of essential vitamins and nutrients for longer periods of time is not yet achievable.
Space and Mars missions provide the ultimate microcosm environment in which we will need to achieve sustainable food in a closed loop system. Everything must be supplied from the outside making waste a luxury that cannot be afforded. As such, the lens of space provides the ideal laboratory in which we can innovate to provide new opportunities for achieving sustainability on Earth. It would be remiss to not deploy the enabling technology needed to achieve this for space, here on Earth, long before humans step onto Mars surface 20 plus years from now. In light of this, the goal of supporting long-term space habitation is an opportunity to accelerate the research needed to reach sustainability on Earth.
There is a strong rationale for plants to be the ultimate base material for food production in space due to their autotrophic nature – requiring carbon dioxide, light, water and a minimal set of nutrients to produce nutrients and oxygen to support human life. In return, humans use the carbon fixed by plants as energy and complete the cycle by respiring carbon dioxide. Additionally, the intricate metabolism of plants can provide a platform to produce complex flavour molecules, nutrients, and even biomaterials such as plastics. The innovation required to provide the nutrition and biomaterials to sustain long-term space habitation, and to deploy this technology here on Earth to improve sustainability, is an area where Australia can claim to have the critical mass that would be capable of providing global leadership.
The research needed to sustain human life in space will produce nutrient rich, highly efficient plants, nutritionally fortified plant-based foods and space-ready functional materials and pharmaceuticals – all readily translatable to Earth markets. Developments in modern gene technology and zero-waste plant production in controlled environments will also result. These breakthroughs in the emergent field of plant processing would firmly establish Australian competitiveness as a leader in high-value sustainable agricultural production, as well as enabling the moonshot of the 21st Century.
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As a Landcare group, one of our main interests is to increase ecological resilience in our local area. Many of our landscapes have been cleared of vegetation in previous decades, so we have the task of supporting landholders to plant trees and shrubs to replace those that are missing. The benefits of revegetation are manifold. They include providing habitat for a range of native animals; controlling erosion and salinity; increasing farm productivity through nutrient cycling and shade and shelter for stock; and drawing down carbon from the atmosphere. But as weather patterns become more variable and we experience more climatic extremes, we need to think about which plant species – and which plant genetics – are most appropriate in our revegetation efforts. We are forced to ask will our local plantings be able to survive our future climate? Up until recently, it has been common for people to preference locally sourced seed when re-planting. This has been based on the idea that such plants will be best adapted to local conditions. However, there is growing understanding among scientists and land managers that we need to shift our focus to plants that can persist as the climate changes. This involves looking at which plant species are most appropriate by focussing on species that have a wide distribution and grow in our area and also in hotter areas, and increasing the genetic diversity of our tubestock so they have the best potential to adapt over successive generations. Our Landcare group has been tackling this issue for the past several years, working with scientists and AdaptNSW to find the best way forward. There are several key steps involved: understanding our local future climate, analysing whether selected local species can survive in climates like the one projected for our area, and sourcing seed for those likely-to-survive species from a range of areas to increase the genetic diversity of our plantings. Planting the right species with good genetic diversity gives revegetation projects the best chance of survival into the future. It’s not just about making sure the individual tubestock will grow, but that future generations of those plants will be able to survive and thrive. Luckily there are some good resources available for farmers, land managers and groups interested in climate ready revegetation. The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney has launched the Restore and Renew Webtool ( https://www.restore-and-renew.org.au/ ), which is a wonderful way for people to incorporate both climate change and genetic information when sourcing seed or plants. The NSW Niche Finder is invaluable for those who want to dig further into climate variables and species distribution ( http://www.nswnichefinder.net/ ). For future climate information, the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology have joined forces to provide a user-friendly online tool ( https://myclimateview.com.au/ ). And AdaptNSW also provides projected climate change information for different regions of the state ( https://www.climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/projections-map ). The Yass Area Network of Landcare Groups also has detailed information about our work on climate ready revegetation and relevant resources our website: https://yan.org.au/projects/climate-ready-revegetation-project As the climate changes, our revegetation efforts are more important than ever. And we need to make sure that they are ‘climate ready’ so that their benefits persist well into the future.
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