This event is part of our Innovation Nation webinar series
Presented by the Agriculture & Food and Industry & Innovation Forum
WEBINAR
Australia’s agricultural industries have remained internationally competitive for more than two centuries through continued innovation leading to increased productivity. Since 1980, the agricultural sector has continued to achieve annual productivity gains through the joint industry- and government-funded network of Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs) to fund research, as well as the willingness of Australian farmers to adopt new innovations.
In this Innovation Nation webinar, we will hear from three experts on the many innovations continually being developed in the agricultural sector to illustrate the increasing use of digital, molecular, and biological technology to increase the sector’s productivity, profitability, and sustainability.
This webinar will be moderated by Professor Snow Barlow FTSE, Chair of ATSE’s Agriculture Forum.
This event is free and open to all.
Speakers
Professor Neena Mitter FTSE
Director, Centre for Horticultural Science, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), the University of Queensland (UQ), and Director, Australian Research Centre (ARC) Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Sustainable Crop protection
Professor Neena Mitter FTSE is the Director of the Centre for Horticultural Science, Queensland Alliance of Agriculture and Food Innovation, the University of Queensland and the Director of the Australian Research Council Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Sustainable Crop protection. She has >140 publications and has supervised >20 PhD students. She is globally renowned for her leadership of innovative platforms namely ‘BioClay platform for ribonucleic acid (RNA) based crop protection’ and ‘Clonal propagation of avocado using plant stem cells’. These are ground-breaking platform technologies influencing agricultural production, environmental sustainability, and socio-economic dynamics of farming community. Prof Mitter is also championing a UQ wide initiative on ‘Protected Cropping for Tropics and Subtropics’. With increased scrutiny on use of chemicals as crop and animal disease control agents, Prof Mitter is focussed is on developing clean technologies for the agriculture of tomorrow.
Prof Mitter actively contributes into diversity and inclusion as Chair of Cultural Inclusion Council at UQ and the Deputy Council member of the Leadership Council of Cultural Diversity led by Australian Human Rights Commission.
Eve Faulkner
Head of Marketing and Communications, FutureFeed
Eve is a passionate marketer and communicator with a history of establishing and growing marketing and communications departments across various industries. Eve is a firm believer in the power of communication to engage stakeholders and drive business results. Eve specialises in long value chains where many groups need to align to drive behavioural change and is responsible for all FutureFeed’s media engagement and external communications.
Guillaume Jourdain
Co-Founder and CEO, Bilberry
Guillaume Jourdain is the co-founder and CEO of Bilberry, a French startup that develops Green on Green camera systems to spray herbicides only on the weeds. Born and raised in Paris, trained as an engineer, he was eager to create a company that would help tackle important issues while using state of the art technology. It happened to be agriculture and artificial intelligence.
Bilberry was created in 2016 and develops embedded cameras, fitted on sprayers, that spray only where it is needed. The company is now leading the Green on Green revolution, with 30+ patents, sprayers equipped in 7 countries and a new office in Perth.
Moderator
Professor Snow Barlow FTSE
Chair, Agriculture & Food Forum
Snow Barlow is Professor of Viticulture and Horticulture at the University of Melbourne. He has been intimately involved in climate change research and policy within agricultural and food sector for more than 30 years. He was a member of the Australian delegation to the Conference of Parties in Kyoto (COP 3) that resulted in the Kyoto Protocol. Subsequently he chaired the Expert Advisory Panel of the Department of Agriculture’s Filling the Research Gap and Action on the Ground Carbon Farming Futures RDE programs.
As President of Science and Technology Australia, he was a member of the Prime Minister’s Science, engineering and innovation Council chairing the development of 2 influential PMSEIC reports.
He is an ATSE Fellow and in 2009 he was awarded the ‘Australian Medal of Agricultural Science’. Snow currently chairs the ATSE Agriculture Forum and is a Commissioner of the NSW Independent Planning Commission.