By Professor Owen Atkin, Director, ANU Agrifood Innovation Institute

March has highlighted both the complexity of the challenges facing agrifood systems in Australia and globally, and the importance of working across disciplines to address them.

I started the month at ABARES Outlook 2026, which reinforced the complexity of the agricultural sector. While production remains strong in the short term, the outlook indicates increasing volatility, with pressures on prices, profitability and export performance in the coming years. This emphasises the need to build resilience across the system, not only through technology but also through better alignment of investment, policy and practice. Victoria Taylor , Chair of our Advisory Board shared her insights from the conference on our website. 

We capitalised on having representatives from Sugar Research Australia, Australian Pork Limited and Forest and Wood Products Australia in Canberra for ABARES Outlook by inviting them to visit ANU for an agrifood infrastructure tour. The visit provided an opportunity to showcase the breadth of ANU’s capabilities supporting Australia’s food systems, agricultural innovation and national research priorities. The tour highlighted a diverse range of facilities and expertise, from gene editing and phenomics to climate modelling, high-performance computing and advanced imaging, demonstrating ANU’s strength as a multidisciplinary research ecosystem. The strong interest in the tour points to a valuable opportunity to expand these in the future.

Image

Like others, the recent events in the Middle East have taken our attention this month, exposing this vulnerability in Australia’s agrifood sector to imports of fuel and other inputs. In regional and rural areas, we have seen the effects through fuel supply constraints and rising prices in recent weeks. The situation underlines how dependent agricultural production and food supply chains remain on reliable access to imported fuel and other inputs. Diesel is crucial for both on farm operations and the transport networks that connect producers to markets. Farmers also rely on overseas supply chains for nitrogen-based fertilisers, with those supply lines being disrupted by the crisis in the Middle East.  While short-term disruptions can be managed, more prolonged interruptions could have increasingly noticeable impacts on production, distribution and ultimately food availability.

Our reliance on imported fuel highlights the importance of enhancing Australia’s strategy for low-carbon liquid fuels, not only as part of our decarbonisation efforts but also for fuel security.

At ANU, this is an area of active research, including work to develop reliable, scalable supplies of crops such as canola and brassica that can be produced alongside food. Australia already has a strong foundation to build on. We are the world’s second-largest exporter of canola, with a significant proportion currently directed into sustainable fuel production overseas. Despite this, domestic processing capacity for renewable diesel remains limited. The technology pathways are relatively well understood and, in some cases, can be integrated into existing refinery infrastructure with targeted investment. Expanding this capability will be an important step in strengthening both the resilience and sustainability of Australia’s agrifood and energy systems. You can learn more about how ANU researchers are helping address these issues on our recent interview on Win News.

The challenges of fuel, food and national security sit within a broader policy context, reflected in the Australian Government’s Ambitious Australia: Strategic Examination of Research and Development, released this month. It was encouraging to see several themes from our submission reflected in the final report, including the need for stronger national coordination of Australia’s R&D system, clearer mission-led investment in strategic sectors, and closer connections between research, industry and commercial outcomes. Our 2025 submission and full response is available on the AFII website.

A highlight in a month marked by negative news and global conflict was our International Women’s Day event, Careers in an evolving world, delivered in partnership with the ARC Training Centre for Future Crops Development and the ANU Gender Institute. The discussion, led by Brondwen MacLean and Lyndall Strazdins, brought together diverse perspectives on careers, gender inequality and leadership. It was a thoughtful exploration of how non-traditional career pathways are evolving, and the role leaders play in enabling meaningful cultural change.

Across all of this, there was a consistent theme for me: the central role of collaboration. Whether through industry engagement, policy discussions, research partnerships or community events, the challenges we face are increasingly interconnected and require coordinated responses from multiple experts.

There is a strong sense of momentum here at AFII as we move into the next part of the year, and I look forward to continuing to build on this work with our partners and broader community.