Low Carbon Liquid Fuel

Biofuels: The big opportunity for Australia's food system

The 2026 conflict in the Middle East and the resulting disruption to fuel and fertiliser shipping were a stark reminder of how deeply Australia's agrifood system depends on imported fuel and other critical inputs.

Diesel powers the entire agrifood supply chain, from the ships that deliver fuel and fertiliser to on-farm machinery, product processing, and the road, rail and air transport networks that get products onto supermarket shelves. Short-term disruptions can be absorbed, but prolonged interruptions raise production and freight costs, which flow through to farm businesses and consumers. This pressure is likely to reshape what producers grow, where they sell it and, ultimately, what Australians pay at the checkout.

The solution grown here

A domestic low-carbon liquid fuel supply chain would strengthen Australia's fuel security and reduce emissions. It would use abundant Australian feedstocks, process them locally into Australian-made fuels, and underpin the net zero transition in hard-to-electrify sectors. It would also secure the fuel supplies needed for the future growth of our food, agriculture, mining, transport and manufacturing industries.

Processing plant and waste oils into fuel is already commercially proven overseas and is the lowest-cost route to sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel. Scaling up will require a significant increase in domestic renewable oil production, or the industry will be permanently constrained by feedstock scarcity and exposed to global competition for finite waste oil supplies.

Australia's extensive agricultural resource base, combined with recent breakthroughs in oil-crop technologies, puts this industry within reach, but getting there will require sustained innovation.

Collaborative systems approach

At ANU, world-leading crop scientists and metabolic engineers are working with colleagues across Australia to develop a collaborative project that will intensify oil production in the leaves and stems of high-biomass crops already grown at scale in the country's major cropping regions, drawing on research infrastructure including Plant Synbio Australia, the Australian Plant Phenomics Network and Bioplatforms Australia.

Processing capacity, infrastructure, technology, logistics and regulation need to be developed alongside feedstocks. The decisions made now will define Australia's agrifood future, shaping what the nation grows, exports and pays for food for decades to come.