UQ’s unique plan to keep new supercomputer up to date

Professor Paul Gauthier The University of Queensland's newly appointed Professor of Protected Cropping has big plans to reshape farming in Queensland. Professor Paul Gauthier has joined The Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), directing a project which will establish UQ as a leader in protected cropping for tropics and subtropics. "Building a sustainable and reliable food production system is one of the biggest challenges we face," Professor Gauthier said. "My priority is to empower the next generation of farmers with a focus on tropical and sub-tropical crops, which is an emerging industry with a high growth rate." The project will look at high-value pharmaceutical and nutraceutical crops that can be grown indoors. "Climate change, natural disasters, digital disruption, population growth and the pandemic all reinforce the need for innovation in the Agrifood sector in what is a rapidly changing landscape," he said. Professor Gauthier is one of the world's leading proponents of vertical farming which has boomed globally since the advent of COVID-19 but is still in its infancy in Australia. "The yield of some crops can be multiplied up to 100 times with vertical farming," he said.