Food Security Data Challenges

The Challenge

The food industry is a strong contributor to the Australian economy. The agriculture industry – farming, fishing and forestry sectors – is forecast to be valued at $71.2 billion in 2020–21. The agriculture industry has set the goal to reach $100 billion in production by 2030 (Ag2030). To achieve this challenging goal by 2030, the agriculture sector and the broader Australian economy need to address some challenges. Long-term strategies are needed to ensure Australia has a resilient and sustainable food industry that maintains its reputation for delivering high-quality food nationally and internationally.

A food security data challenge will support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identified by the United Nations. The goals are even more important now as they provide a critical framework for COVID-19 recovery. The goals are vital for a recovery that leads to greener, more inclusive economies, and stronger, more resilient societies.

The Approach

The ARDC established its Food Security Data Challenges program to create innovative digital infrastructure solutions with the aim of improving research into Australia’s production, consumption and distribution of safe and high-quality food. Projects are mission driven, national scale, collaborative, unique, enduring and integrative across technological, cultural and organisational silos.

As part of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), the program is developing national scale data and digital infrastructure capability aligned with national priority research areas.

We took a participatory design approach to developing projects within the Food Security Data Challenges program. 

This program will be providing data solutions in a variety of areas, including agriculture, aquaculture, antimicrobial resistance, traceability and food provenance, nutrition, food equity, and food relief.

More information on the program intent is in the full program description.

The Projects

The following 10 projects make up the Food Security Data Challenges initiative. They are addressing priority areas for national digital research infrastructure to improve Australia’s food security research capability.

Connecting/Federating Stable Isotopic Data Resources

Exploreabout Connecting/Federating Stable Isotopic Data Resources

Enhancing Models for Rapid Decision-Support in Emergency Animal Disease Outbreaks

Exploreabout Enhancing Models for Rapid Decision-Support in Emergency Animal Disease Outbreaks

Advancing Agribusiness: Digital Transformation to Prevent Pathogen Resistance and Improve Food Security

Exploreabout Advancing Agribusiness: Digital Transformation to Prevent Pathogen Resistance and Improve Food Security

Enhancing the Apparent Consumption of Foodstuffs Dataset to Inform Food Consumption Patterns

Exploreabout Enhancing the Apparent Consumption of Foodstuffs Dataset to Inform Food Consumption Patterns

Implementing GS1 Traceability Standards for Orchard Chemical Use and Beehive Movements

Exploreabout Implementing GS1 Traceability Standards for Orchard Chemical Use and Beehive Movements

Building A Traceability Data Infrastructure to Track Provenance and Quality in Australian Seafood Supply Chains

Exploreabout Building A Traceability Data Infrastructure to Track Provenance and Quality in Australian Seafood Supply Chains

Increasing Food Security Through Liberation of Fishing and Aquaculture Data

Exploreabout Increasing Food Security Through Liberation of Fishing and Aquaculture Data

Mapping Food Insecurity and Food Relief in Australia

Exploreabout Mapping Food Insecurity and Food Relief in Australia

Multi-Scalar Crop Characterisation Network (MCCN)

Exploreabout Multi-Scalar Crop Characterisation Network (MCCN)

Data Sharing Initiative

Exploreabout Data Sharing Initiative

Collaboration

To fill the strategic gaps in digital infrastructure and address these priority areas, the ARDC co-designed projects in collaboration with key national stakeholders from the research and public sectors, industry and not-for-profit organisations.

We conducted 11 months of targeted consultations, including a series of facilitation meetings, participatory design workshops and roundtable discussions with over 300 stakeholders to identify the data challenges in Food Security Research. Through this process, we identified priority areas for national digital research infrastructure to improve Australia’s capability in food security research.

The Outcomes

Projects in the Food Security Data Challenges program aim to build digital infrastructure solutions to support translational research. Projects will:

• establish new or improve existing data collections
• adopt platform solutions (or elements thereof) that enable researchers to collect or generate data, analyse those data and produce FAIR output data
• use underpinning infrastructure to store, access and analyse data
• create legal, governance, policy, technology, collaboration and participation frameworks to enable success.

Key Resources

• Announcement of the projects for Food Security Data Challenges
• Food Security full program description
• Translational Research Data Challenges

Register Your Interest

Register now to hear from us about the Food Security Data Challenges program: