Accelerate Magazine of the AHK Australien: The Future of Food

Food & Beverage Cluster

The Quest to Feed a Growing Planet

By Mathias Suter, German-Australian Chamber of Industry and Commerce

With a rapidly growing global population, producing enough food to feed everyone is becoming ever more challenging. As if this challenge wasn’t enough, we are forced to achieve it whilst also solving the climate crisis.

According to the United Nations’ 2019 World Population Prospects Report (WPP) we are set to experience major shifts in global population growth. The global population is expected to grow from 7.7 billion in 2019 to 8.9 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion by 2050. At the same time, the population centres around the world will shift, too. The WPP forecasts that India is set to surpass China as the world’s most populous country, and African nations such as Nigeria will grow at faster rates than other regions . This growing population will need to be fed, raising questions about how we can create more effective, productive food systems globally.

The Climate Challenge

For many years now, specialists have warned about climate change and global warming, and there is considerable action being undertaken to achieve a net-zero emission economy in many countries around the world.

One of the main contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions, however, is the food industry. According to a joint study between the UN Food & Agriculture Organization and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre released in 2021, food systems contribute about one-third of global emissions. In Australia, emissions from agriculture alone amount to 13% of the total greenhouse gas emissions, making it the fourth-largest contributor.

Knowing the above leads to the question: How can we feed the rapidly growing population sustainably whilst reducing the climate impact of the Food & Beverage Industry at the same time?

Three Main Pillars for the Future of Food

In the next few paragraphs, we’ll have a look at three major approaches to address the problem, and we’ll investigate how and where the German and Australian industries can contribute to the solution.

First, we’ll look at the approach of using R&D in agriculture to become more productive, resistant to climate change and reduce waste. In a second step, we investigate the manufacturing industry, in particular how automation will drive productivity and cost-efficiency. And lastly, we’ll dive into the world of alternative proteins to find out if there are ways to produce food quicker and with a smaller footprint.

Digital Farmhand, an agricultural robot developed by Professor Salah Sukkarieh and team from Australian Centre for Field Robotics, the University of Sydney.

R&D and Agriculture

Over the last few years, the effects of climate change have been felt strongly across the globe, but particularly in Australia, with drought, bush fires and once in a thousand-year floods hitting the eastern seaboard predominantly . The agriculture sector has been hit hard by those events, with farmers having to put down large parts of their herds during droughts, crops being washed away in the floods, or even whole vintages of wine being tainted by smoke from bush fires.

Whilst extreme events like this can’t really be controlled, companies, such as AHK members Bayer, or BASF, work tirelessly to find solutions for some of the more subtle challenges climate change poses. Developments include work on more sustainable, more targeted herbicides and pesticides, or even fertilisers with specific properties aimed at the target crops. The modification of genetic markers can further be helpful in creating crops that display certain traits, such as being more resistant to spoilage or changes in temperature due to weather.

Lastly, research also takes place to make existing agricultural processes more environmentally friendly. One such example is the production of Asparagopsis seaweed to be fed to cattle. The use of this seaweed has been shown to dramatically decrease the methane production of cows whilst making them up to 20% more productive. In other words, only 10% of global livestock on that feed would have the same impact as removing 100 million cars from the world’s road.

Advanced Manufacturing

Once the process on the farm is complete and the produce is grown, the journey of many a food product is only about to start. Ingredients will have to travel through factories for stages of refining to be combined into the final product.

Just like other industries, the Food & Beverage industry has followed along in modernisation steps over time. One of the most promising developments yet, however, is the advent of Industry 4.0. The automation and digitalisation of food production simultaneously carry the potential for enormous increases in productivity whilst also increasing the energy efficiency in production. A great number of AHK Australien members are active in this space and supply the Australian market with innovative solutions.

Leonie Wong from Siemens, a panellist at the F&B panel during the AHK Growth Summit in Sydney earlier in the year, summed the need for automation up well when she said that it wasn’t about replacing humans with machines but freeing up humans from repetitive, low-value tasks, to focus on tasks machines can’t do. In this way, organisations can scale their production in a sustainable way.

Just like other industries, the Food & Beverage industry has followed along in modernisation steps over time.

Alternative Proteins

Traditional agriculture and food production demand extensive land use and whilst new innovative solutions enhance productivity, it is unlikely that a growing population can be fed by existing means only. The majority of land in agricultural use is directly or indirectly used for the production of livestock. Meat is a valuable source of protein; however, if the whole world is to be fed, we will need alternative solutions.

Responding to this, the CSIRO, Australia’s national science organisation, has recently released their Future Protein Strategy, a roadmap to guide the development of alternative protein sources. Some of the most promising trends in this area are plantbased proteins, cultured/cultivated meat, insect protein and precision fermentation.

Plant-based protein ranges from existing, protein-rich crops to specially developed crops with enhanced traits, such as high protein chickpeas.

The space of cultured or cultivated meat is looking at growing actual meat cells in bioreactors, allowing the production of meat without agricultural land-use and without animal suffering. AHK member company Merck is working closely with start-ups in this realm to drive innovation in the sector. Insect protein, as the name suggests, is a protein found in insects that are bred for that very purpose. Whilst oftentimes regarded as an exotic alternative in western countries, some cultures have been consuming insects and even arachnoids for centuries. Insect protein has an edge thanks to the fact that its production has the lowest per-unit resource requirement of any animal protein source. Lastly, precision fermentation is the process of adapting fermentation processes and modifying yeast strains to achieve desired outcomes. A popular example of this technology is the company Impossible Meats, which has had great success with their plant-based burgers, which get their realistic, meaty taste from the fermentation using genetically modified yeast.

The Way Forward

Considering the wide variety of trends in the F&B Industry, this space is a powerhouse of opportunity to tackle both the growing global population as well as climate change. German and Australian businesses are at the forefront of creating and driving the trends, but also in creating the technology needed to make those future trends a reality.

As Cluster Manager of the Food & Beverage Cluster, I am excited to be a part of this journey for the German-Australian business community, and I look forward to seeing what the future will hold.