There is a new movement sweeping not just the region, but the country: fighting hard to secure our food supply chain, making it unbreakable in the face of adversity.
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David Lamb is the Chief Scientist behind an agrifood push called 'mission food for life'.
It's a $10 million initiative bringing together a consortia to develop new data-driven solutions to help the agrifood industry rebound quickly, to reinvent business models and build resilience.
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A professor at the University of New England, Mr Lamb's belief in the project is comparable to none.
He says while no-one likes a shock, and the region has had plenty of those, the waves of each shake-up help create better ways forward.
"If you go through drought and fires and floods, they tend to expose fragilities at production and logistic levels," he explained.
"The pandemic has thrown up another dimension, like the ripple effect of the panic buying, which sends shocks all up the chain back to the producers.
We've realised now it's not just about paddock to plate shocks from environmental challenges, but also plate back to paddock from the way consumers are behaving.
- David Lamb
"We've realised now it's not just about paddock to plate shocks from environmental challenges, but also plate back to paddock from the way consumers are behaving."
Throw in denial to certain geo-political markets, as well as supply issues across the various states and territories.
Supply chains have been pulled and strained in ways we have never experienced before.
Sharing and collecting the ways each business has stayed the course can help pool ideas, he says, creating a model of success which can be implemented across the board.
A landmark study jointly produced by KPMG Australia and Food Agility CRC has found that better use of data, interoperability of technology and platforms, as well as cybersecurity, were key areas to focus on.
A shift in mindset was needed for the agrifood sector to 'survive and thrive in the new normal', Prof. Lamb explained.
"In Tamworth, Uralla, Armidale or Inverell, they are the same things experienced by regions and states and the country - the whole experience is scale-able - everything we learn from mum and dads' small businesses in our immediate communities to large corporate companies, they can shed light on global times and their economies."
If you'd like to join the 29 organisations already signed up to take part, visit www.foodagility.com/mission-food-for-life.
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