Author and advocate Hellen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
It’s a quote that perfectly underpins the strength of industry collaborations led, sourced, supported and achieved by the University of Southern Queensland’s Agricultural Science and Engineering programs.
Director of the Centre for Agricultural Engineering (CAE), Professor Bernadette McCabe, said agriculture, as one of the university’s research focus areas, offered infinite collaboration possibilities between industry and academia.
“We’ve been delivering solutions to our collaborators and industry partners for nearly three decades now and we’ve always been at the forefront of finding answers to questions that have traditionally posed risks for farmers – from soil health to energy costs or water scarcity and many other issues,” Professor McCabe said.
“The programs we have in place – both from a teaching and research perspective – continue to meet all these issues and more. And, we’ve moved with the growing environmental concerns too.
“We’ve also been critical in agtech advancements and led that innovation of the sector around problems such as fertiliser runoff and waste management and biodiversity issues.
“It’s exciting to work for a university that is constantly working to meet the diversity of challenges that farmers are facing and delivering practical, profitable and productive solutions to those problems.”
Director of the University’s Institute for Life Sciences and the Environment, Professor Gavin Ash said the Institute was a focal point for the agricultural research undertaken throughout the region, particularly around climate variability and risk, biosecurity and sustainability.
“At the moment, we’re engaging very heavily with the community with local businesses but also we provide that conduit to the state and national governments around the agenda for agriculture in Australia,” he said.
Head of the university’s new School of Agriculture and Environment, Professor Craig Baillie, said the depth of the university’s investment in future agricultural outcomes was something past, present and future students and academics alike could be proud of.
“I think the key thing with the new school is it is both a research and teaching school and I think that’s important because it means we connect our students with the cutting-edge research that’s being done here at the University of Southern Queensland and then also connecting that with industry,” he said.
“So, our students are learning from the latest and the greatest but also connecting to an industry outcome so that they’re highly employable.”
