With global food demand set to increase 70 per cent by 2050, the challenges around food production have never been greater.
This issue was at the forefront of a forum on the future of animal agriculture at the University of Queensland’s Gatton campus on Monday.
Queensland’s beef and chicken industries are predicted to be in a good position to take advantage of the fact that in just over three decades 9.3 million people will need to be fed.
AgForce Queensland’s Dale Miller said it will be a massive challenge for animal industries here and internationally.
“The beef industry has been kicking goals in recent years,” he said.
“They are responsible for about 47 per cent of the nation's beef production, over half the grain-fed turnoff, and 300,000 live export cattle, worth about $5.5 billion,” he said.
“Food demand is expected to double in Asia and there's projections that they won’t be able to meet that demand through their domestic production systems, so that represents an opportunity for us.”
Golden Cockerel’s David Bray said the future of chicken meat was also looking bright.
“Chicken meat's one of those products which continues to rise,” he said.
Mr Bray said about 50pc of the protein consumed by people came from chicken.
“And that's continuing to grow, and grow at about 2.5pc per anum,” he said.
Monday’s forum was told that before Australian producers addressed the increasing global demand for protein, access to food domestically also needed to improve.
Of the 25 million people that call Australia home, more than 3.6 million people experience food insecurity at some point every year, 27pc of which are children, the forum heard.
Foodbank Australia reports that the demand for food relief is rising, with charities reporting a 10pc increase in demand last year.
Foodbank agencies provide food relief to 652,000 people every month.
Sadly though, 65,000 people are turned away every month because of food shortages, with 14,600 of these being children.
