Food and agriculture precinct to encourage science, industry collaboration

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane has launched the National Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Precinct (NAESP) at CSIRO’s redeveloped $200 million Black Mountain site in Canberra.

The NAESP will bring together researchers from CSIRO and The Australian National University (ANU) to foster research and innovation essential to food security in the context of global population growth and manage issues such as sustainable land management and climate change.

“Creating stronger relationships between science and industry and boosting the rate of collaboration between business and research will be essential to maximise our productivity and economic growth in the decades ahead,” Macfarlane said.

“The National Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Precinct will encourage further collaboration in this area of strength and will be an important part of the economy-wide action to ensure Australia is ready to compete globally, particularly in the Asian region, where demand for food is growing rapidly,” he said.

As part of the NAESP, ANU and CSIRO will set up a new Centre for Genomics, Metabolomics and Bioinformatics, to underpin research projects in transformational agriculture.

“The collaboration will transform the way agricultural and environmental research and innovation is conducted in Australia,” said ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Young AO.

“NAESP will become a one-stop shop for integrated plant breeding and natural resource management, which will also create opportunities for new biologically based industries,” he said.

The NAESP will also include an automated greenhouse system and state-of-the-art crop analysis equipment.