With Victoria's meat processing businesses linked to hundreds of cases of coronavirus in the state, is it time to rethink the industry's reliance on human labour?

The director of the University of Queensland's Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, Professor Robert Henry, said new technologies had been in various stages of planning prior to COVID-19, but food producers would now consider fast tracking automation to prepare for the next pandemic.

"We need to think much more seriously about mechanisation and automation of the food production system in ways that make it less susceptible to the adverse impacts of a pandemic," Professor Henry said.

He said food processing facilities where people worked together in close confines presented a risk of transmission of pathogens and the spread of viruses via food products.

"COVID-19 doesn't seem to survive very long on food, but we have the risk with future pandemics that the organism might be one that's transmitted through the food itself," he said.

Professor Henry said agriculture's heavy reliance on human labour also presented a challenge during a pandemic.

"One of the issues is the availability of labour, particularly migrant labour if they have to move internationally or across borders," he said.

"We will need to design crops to suit automated systems, for example for fruit to grow in places where it can be harvested robotically."

Professor Henry said increased investment in agricultural research and development would support enhanced food security.

"The amount of investment in innovation that would be required in some of these areas is not trivial, but I think the seriousness of the current situation will probably induce many people to think much more seriously about making that investment," he said.

The Australian Meat Industry Council said, while in the short term the industry was focused on getting through current COVID-19 impacts, especially in Victoria, it was already looking at automation, robotics, and new technologies.

CEO Patrick Hutchinson said even during the coronavirus crisis the industry had used technology to cope with the restrictions and remain compliant.

"Some of that includes automated auditing or remote auditing where people could have things like Google glasses and be reviewing carcasses from a remote location," he said.

Mr Hutchinson said the sector was already short of labour and continually searching for ways to improve.

"Overall, we're often looking for in excess of about 4,000 jobs a day to be at full capacity across Australia in semi-skilled and unskilled [work]," he said.

Subscribe to Rural RoundUp: Stories from the farm.

"The jobs of the future as we see it within our industry is that we're not just an abattoir, it's a big meat processing facility and as such we're looking for engineers, we're looking for food technicians, food scientists, laboratory technicians right through to individuals that are going to be high level in IT, artificial intelligence and augmented reality."

Mr Hutchinson said industry was planning for the medium to longer term and it was not simply a case of replacing jobs.

'We don't see this as being something futuristic like something like an i-Robot film, where it's just robots running everything,' he said.

"We see it as a gradual progression towards opportunities for the jobs of the future."

The Australasian Meat Industry Employee's Union agreed that automation was the way of the future, given this country's relatively high costs of production.

Queensland Branch Secretary Matt Journeaux said it was a trend already being seen in small stock processing.

"Pig and sheep [processing] already has a significant amount of robotics being used and I am sure beef processing will be next," he said.

Mr Journeaux urged the industry and governments to join with the union to soften any displacement of meat workers by retraining staff for new roles within the sector.

"These programs need to be put in place ready to go before any worker loses their job," he said.

"We cannot simply live in a world run by machines with no work for people to do.

"Meat processing is an important source of income for many rural and regional workers and if that was to disappear it would be devastating for them and their local communities."

Excerpt from:

Should abattoirs be automated to protect food security in pandemics? - ABC News