Plant oil production is currently almost entirely directed to human food uses. Yet these oils also represent the most prospective renewable resource for production of numerous industrial products, such as transportation fuels, industrial chemicals and polymers, which are currently derived from petroleum. A major challenge, and opportunity, is to dramatically increase global production of plant oils to not only meet increasing food demand for a burgeoning world population, but also to provide sufficient surplus to enable use as renewable industrial oils. This challenge is very important for the oilseed industry, and is the subject of the upcoming AAOCS meeting biennial meeting:-

Food vs. Fuel Dilemma Program Highlights

Julian Cribb – “Food and Fuel Forever” Heather Bone – “A sustainable Australian biofuels industry – challenges, opportunities and

the elephants in the room” Nick Goddard – “Australian Oilseeds industry present production and future potential” Scientific contributions are welcome for this meeting (info here)

Registration for AAOCS members for the biennial meeting is $350

The biennial AAOCS meeting: “Fats & Oils – The Food vs. Fuel Dilemma”, Noah’s on the Beach, 6-9th November, Newcastle, NSW. This event includes a day-long Deep Frying Workshop (6 th Nov) and an Omega-3 Symposium (7 th Nov) covering the latest news on health benefits, sources, and future

R&D needs for long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids.

More information on the conference and deep frying workshop here

Dr Matt Miller Dr Karen MurphySecretary PresidentMatt.Miller@plantandfood.co.nz Karen.Murphy@unisa.edu.au

Omega-3 Symposium in collaboration with:

Julian Cribb is an author, journalist, editor and science communicator. He is principal of Julian Cribb & Associates who provide specialist consultancy in the communication of science, agriculture, food, mining, energy and the environment. His career includes appointments as newspaper editor, scientific editor for The Australian newspaper, director of national awareness for CSIRO, member of numerous scientific boards and advisory panels, and president of national professional bodies for agricultural journalism and science communication.His published work includes over 8000 articles, 3000 media releases and eight books. He has received 32 awards for journalism. His internationally-acclaimed book, The Coming Famine explores the question of whether we can feed humanity through the mid-century peak in numbers and food demand.

Heather Bone is the Manager of Sustainability for Downer EDI Limited (Downer), a leading provider of engineering and infrastructure management services. Heather is responsible for a broad array of innovations and projects, initiatives and achievements, including increasing Downer’s use of alternative fuels and reducing the GHG emissions intensity of the sites on which Downer operates.Heather has worked for nearly twenty years in environmental and sustainable development law, commercial, business development and marketing roles in mines and energy, transport and logistics in Australia, Asia, Africa and the Americas and has worked extensively with numerous government departments, industry associations, scientific bodies, OEMs and international organisations. Prior to joining Downer, Heather was the CEO of the Biofuels Association of

Australia, the peak industry body for the Australian biofuels industry, representing ethanol and biodiesel producers, feedstock suppliers, technology providers, independent and major oil companies, equipment manufacturers, mining and construction companies and others. Heather is currently the Chair of the Mirror Committee of Standards Australia that is developing sustainability standards with ISO.

Nick Goddard is the Executive Director of the Australian Oilseeds Federation (AOF). The Australian Oilseeds Federation in the peak industry body for the oilseeds industry, representing all players along the value chain, from seed breeders, and growers, through to processors, exporters and end users of both oil and meal. Nick has had a long and successful career in the food industry, working for the end-user portion of the oils value chain, with companies such as Goodman Fielder and Unilever. Nick draws on his end-user and consumer knowledge in bringing a ‘market driven’ approach to the oilseed value chain. Recently, Nick has been a panel member of the Blewitt Review of Food Labelling; a member of the DAFF Ministerial Task Force on Export Certification Reforms and is currently a member of the DAFF Grains Export Industry Consultative Committee. Nick also chairs the Food and Nutrition Committee of the National Heart Foundation. Nick holds a B.Comm (Marketing), an MBA and a Grad.Dip in Rural Science, is based in Sydney, and married with 2 children.