MEDIA RELEASE 27 March 2013

Seizing the great opportunities ahead for dairy

Over the next 30 years there will be an unprecedented demand for food, fuelled by rapid world population growth. There is a huge opportunity for Australia to supply more food and especially more protein to the world. It is estimated that by 2050 the world will need 80% more food than today. Most of the increased demand will come from Asia with a dramatic shift to higher-protein foods. The Victorian dairy industry, the States largest rural industry with a gross value of raw milk production of around 2.5 billion dollars per year, accounting for two thirds of national milk production, can be a significant beneficiary of these opportunities to supply high-protein foods to world markets. Production of the extra food the world requires will not be automatic, nor will it be easy, particularly in the face of dwindling world farmland, water, fertiliser and fossil fuel reserves, a warming climate and environmental degradation. This is where science and technology will be crucial. In delivering an address to industry leaders on The global competitive advantage of the Australian Dairy Industry, Distinguished Professor Paul Moughan *, Director of the Riddet Institute in New Zealand, and Director of the Gardiner Foundation, said that the future will be led by science and of great significance will be its application to agriculture. Professor Moughan said: I have a vision of a science-led industry adding value to its unique raw material to produce specialised food ingredients and premium branded food products targeted particularly to our Asian neighbours, many of these products addressing nutrition and health. We do not need re-structures, just as we do not need more plans. What we do need is to create incentives to achieve critical masses of interdisciplinary research. Demand for protein particularly milk-sourced protein will soar as Asia becomes home to the biggest middle class the world has ever known, he said. Farming needs to perceive itself as a high-tech industrialised biological economy. It needs to support science and embrace science for what is going to be a very bright future. That future needs more talent, he warned. The new order is doing to need more agricultural science, food technology, food engineering and nutrition and health graduates, reversing a steady decline in enrolments in those disciplines over the last decade. The science must be transferred and have impact. Investors such as the Department of Primary Industries, Dairy Australia and the Gardiner Foundation have important responsibilities to encourage the best science, the correct scale of investigation, the right vehicles for delivery, and the right vehicles for knowledge transfer.

All the fundamentals are here high quality raw material, a well-structured system of R&D funding, world class R&D provision, an advanced competitive manufacturing sector and proximity to a burgeoning market in Asia. What an opportunity to capture a slice of world growth, to be at the top end of the market, to lead the marketing of high value dairy proteins and functional foods. In many ways, this is Our Time. Professor Moughan delivered his address at a Reception in Queens Hall, Parliament House, hosted by the Minister for Agriculture and Food Security, the Hon. Peter Walsh MP. He was introduced by Dr Graham Mitchell AO, Chief Scientist of the Victorian Departments of Primary Industries and Sustainability and Environment.

Media contact:
Mary Harney, Chief Executive, Gardiner Foundation 03 9606 1900, info@gardinerfoundation.com.au For event photos or interview requests please contact Cynthia.Mrigate@gardinerfoundation.com.au or 03 9606 1911

* PROFESSOR PAUL J MOUGHAN, B Agr Sc (Hons), PhD, DSc, FRSNZ, FRSC Professor Paul J Moughan holds the position of

Distinguished Professor, Massey University, New Zealand and is Director of the Riddet Institute. The Riddet Institute, a New Zealand government funded Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE), is a partnership between the

University of Otago, Auckland University and Massey University and two New Zealand Crown Research Institutes, Plant and Food Research and AgResearch, and is dedicated to research and postgraduate education in the area of food science and human nutrition. He was formerly foundation head of the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Human Health at Massey University, Director of the Universitys Monogastric Research Centre and Foundation Scientific Director of the Fonterra-funded Milk and Health Research Centre.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England. In 2011 he was appointed Chair of the FAO Expert Consultation to review recommendations on the characterisation of dietary protein quality in humans. He is a non-executive Director of the Gardiner Foundation. Professor Moughan was awarded the New Zealand Prime Ministers Science Prize in 2012. His research encompasses the fields of human and animal nutrition, food chemistry, functional foods, mammalian growth biology and digestive physiology.