We bring together QUT’s expertise in agriculture and bioeconomy research to help feed the world sustainably and develop cleaner, greener bioproducts from agricultural wastes.
As environmental and economic conditions change, finding ways to support and grow Australia’s agricultural sector, maintain global food security and efficiently transform agricultural residues into high-value products is vitally important.
Our research is enabling farmers to grow more food with less resources, developing crops that are more nutritious and resistant to drought and pests, and discovering innovative ways to make renewable fuels, chemicals and other products from agricultural wastes.
How can we help farmers grow more food using less resources? How do we make our agricultural systems more resistant to climate change? Can agricultural waste be processed into valuable, renewable products? These are some of the research questions being investigated by the Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy.
We’re helping to feed the world by developing more resilient and nutritious tropical crops such as bananas, sugarcane, chickpeas, mungbeans, pigeonpeas, rice, sweet sorghum and tropical fruits for Australia, Africa and South-East Asia.
Our research is discovering innovative ways to manufacture renewable high-value fuels, chemicals, animal feeds and other bioproducts from agricultural wastes.
We’re generating knowledge and solutions to make Australia’s farms more sustainable and profitable, improving productivity and biodiversity through better management of crops, soil, water and energy.
Professor Prentis is an evolutionary geneticist in the School of Earth, Environmental and Biological Sciences at QUT. His current research employs a combination of high throughput genomics, bioinformatics and ecological experiments to address questions in human dominated and marine ecosystems.
Our vision is to create a more profitable, sustainable and resilient future for agricultural and bioeconomy systems in Australia and around the world.
We combine expertise in crop biotechnology and genomics, sustainable agriculture, industrial biotechnology, bioprocessing and synthetic biology with world-class research infrastructure, such as the Central Analytical Research Facility and our pilot plants at Banyo and Mackay, which enable research that can be scaled from the laboratory all the way to large-scale industrial settings.
The Centre for Agriculture and Bioeconomy contributes to solutions for Australia’s national science and research priorities, including:
This research supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
A QUT-led study analysing data from NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered compelling evidence of multiple mineral-forming events just beneath the Martian surface – findings that bring scientists one step closer to answering the profound question: did life ever exist on Mars?
QUT and the Cancer Council Queensland have been recognised with two Oceania Geospatial Excellence Awards for the Australian Cancer Atlas 2.0.