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Sustainable development
Latest Sustainable Development Goals Progress Report
Monash Progress Report 2021 – Goal 2

Monash Progress Report 2021 – Goal 2

Monash University Progress Report 2021 on the Sustainable Development Goals

End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

Research

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Land Use Futures View

The Land Use Futures program at the Monash-hosted ClimateWorks Centre is developing advice and analysis on what it will take to achieve a sustainable food and land use system for Australia. The program is a partnership between Climateworks, Deakin University, and is using the Land Use Trade-offs, or LUTO, model as a foundation for research and analysis.

Transformational model for school food education in Pacific coastal communities View

The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) has partnered with Monash Education to undertake a scoping study to inform the design of a novel model of community engaged food education in the Pacific. The model moves beyond simple nutritional knowledge acquisition to develop a broader range of context-appropriate food literacies that reach across individual nutrition, agricultural practices and food environments.

The new model will serve to empower young people, their families and communities to take action towards transforming agricultural production practices and local food environments.

Improving food security View

Global food systems are inequitable. Two billion people are overweight or obese, yet one billion are starving. The Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute is investigating the health impacts of food quantity and quality, as well as take strategies to increase security of our food systems. Focal areas include: Impacts of food quantity and quality on metabolism, obesity, and diabetes Preventing and treating pathogens of livestock and crops Partnerships to enhance health, development, and productivity of livestock Next-generation feeds through microbial waste-to-protein conversion

2021 Publications Performance View

Mean Field Weighted Citation Impact of Monash Outputs: 1.72

Number of Monash Research Outputs: 96

Education

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Unit statistics and highlights View

In 2021, 90 units directly related to SDG2 were offered across Monash University, with a total enrolment of 5,683 students.

The units highlighted below are a small sample of the units at Monash relating to food security and nutrition:

BIO2030 Food security in a changing world
FSC5070 Future food supply and security
NUT3082 Public health nutrition

Master of Food Science and Agribusiness View

Monash University continues to offer one of the world's first interdisciplinary Master's degrees focusing on food: the Master of Food Science and Agribusiness. One of the enormous world-wide challenges we face in the coming decades is to achieve an adequate supply of food under sustainable conditions. Through SDG 2, 'zero hunger', the United Nations has called for a rethink on how we produce, process and consume food. This course recognises the urgency of the challenge and covers all aspects of food science, supply chain and marketing, including the future of food production and supply.

Food as Medicine short course View

Monash's Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food has developed a short course Food as Medicine, now offered through FutureLearn. Certified by the Association for Nutrition, this course explores the role of food in health.

Engagement

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AgTech at Monash View

AgTech at Monash brings together multidisciplinary teams of researchers, together with industry, to develop sustainable solutions for food and nutrition security. It uses a strong Community of Practice approach to facilitate the exchange of ideas and knowledge, access to state-of-the-art technologies and the development of multidisciplinary projects to directly address major food and agriculture needs and develop the next generation of sustainable agricultural technologies. It draws on capabilities from across the university, with expertise in areas that include data science, artificial intelligence and simulation, automation and robotics, sustainability and ecosystem health solutions.

Monash Food Innovation View

Monash Food Innovation is a leader in the successful collaboration between academia and the domestic and global Agrifood sectors, driving end-to-end food innovation that is demand-led and market-fit. Now eight years old, the Monash Food Innovation initiative co-creates with partners to improve the competitiveness of Agrifood businesses through the application of value adding innovation, research and education, towards designing solutions to help nourish a growing and hungry world within planetary boundaries.

Current initiatives include tackling looming challenges in packaging; a changed understanding how our food ingredients impact our health; innovative membrane technologies for energy efficient separations; and exploring blockchain technology for Agrifood farm-to-fork value chains.

Using Food as Medicine in Healthcare Practice View

At a time when food and nutrition information is at an all-time high, there is a lot of confusion and misinformation about food based recommendations for health. This set of courses aims to provide healthcare professionals (including GPs, nurses and midwives) with improved knowledge of nutrition and health topics, and give them practical skills for providing simple nutrition and food based advice to patients.

Transforming our food and land use systems – global trends and opportunity View

On 20 July 2021, Climateworks Australia (now the Climateworks Centre) hosted a UN Food Systems Summit Independent Dialogue on Transforming our food and land use systems – global trends and Australia’s opportunity. The session put the spotlight on sustainable food and land use systems, and the role Australia can play in supporting climate outcomes, in support of the UN Food Systems Summit in September 2021.

Australian Household Food Insecurity Information Hub View

The Australian Household Food Insecurity Information Hub is a central location where practitioners, volunteers, academics and students can access information about household food insecurity in Australia. The Hub is led by Monash University’s Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food-Public Health Nutrition Research Theme.

Monash-Industry Palm Oil Education and Research Platform View

Based at Monash Malaysia, the Monash-Industry Palm Oil Education and Research Platform (MIPO) is a platform for university-industry-government cooperation aimed to improve the sustainability of the oils and fats processing in the country and beyond. The palm oil industry is a significant contributor to the socio-economic growth in southeast Asia. However, the large scale production of palm oil has become a global issue because it has been linked to deforestation, loss of habitat, and other social issues. In 2021, the platform hosted the first E-Symposium on Green Transformation of Agro Wastes.

Operations

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Campus food waste View

Monash has committed to implement a food organic waste program to divert our organic waste from landfill by 2025. The rollout of organic bins in staff kitchens and retails outlets commenced in 2019, however the program was paused during 2020-21 due to ongoing lockdowns and significantly reduced activity on our campuses.

Healthy food choices View

Monash Wellbeing provides a range of resources, services and programs to assist staff and students to improve their eating habits and ensuring a range of healthy food, drinks and catering available at work. The Monash catering webpage supports Monash retailers to provide healthy, sustainable and COVID safe catering to staff. The Monash Healthy Food Procedure outlines the University’s ongoing efforts to create a healthy food environment. The Try for 5 campaign, launched in 2021 at Monash, encourages staff and students to increase their vegetable consumption to 5 serves per day.

Sustainable food choices View

Wholefoods is a student-run, not-for-profit, vegan & vegetarian restaurant, cafe & grocery located at Monash University in Clayton. Established in 1977, it has long history of providing affordable and healthy food to students, facilitating workshops and social events, and bringing people together to create a community on campus.