Tackling Climate Change with Tasty Food
Originally from Singapore, Ming Fung Chua lived at St Catherine’s from 2015 to 2018. While at College, she completed a Master of Agricultural Science studying soil and plant nutrition and held various leadership roles, such as Residential Advisor and Student Support Coordinator. She currently works for Wide Open Agriculture (WOA), Australia’s leading regenerative agriculture company. Currently, our food system accounts for 34% of the world’s carbon emissions, meaning the agriculture industry has huge potential to address climate change.
What is your current role at Wide Open Agriculture?
I am a Digital Project Coordinator, meaning I manage the digital channels for our regenerative food and agriculture brand Dirty Clean Food. In my role, I connect customers to our farmers and suppliers to help them understand and show them where food comes from and how it is grown. In my work I am responsible for sourcing and purchasing delicious, regenerative, ethical and sustainable products that are both good for the planet and people. I am passionate about food transparency and how we can best represent paddock to plate in a way that empowers our customer to be conscious consumers.
Why is regenerative agriculture something we should know about?
Regenerative agriculture is one step beyond sustainable farming. Being sustainable is about maintaining the current state we are in while regenerative is more about improving farming practices and helping to regenerate the land. Regenerative farming takes into account the entire ecosystem – biodiversity at the soil microbial level, not just the flora and fauna that exists and thrives in the same environment, improving your water cycles, rotational grazing and capturing carbon. It’s like going back to what nature intended. It’s about making our environment more resilient to climate change and ensuring food security for our future generations to come. More people should learn about this as it is the complete opposite of conventional agriculture. When you eat or purchase from a regenerative farmer, you are supporting the environment and consuming a product from an extremely passionate farmer who cares about their land.
At Dirty Clean Food, we pay a premium to those farmers to encourage them to continue to practice regenerative farming. We call it “for purpose, for profit”. Without a monetary incentive, there just isn’t enough motivation to get more people onto it. It’s not a new idea, and it’s been practiced for a very long time. We work with amazing farmers, such as Blythe from Runnymede Farm, and the entire team at WOA are the most passionate people you will ever meet.
What are some of your current professional goals?
One of my current goals is to continue to expand my network and support other young women in the agriculture space. I’m also looking to learn as much as possible about the alternative plant protein space.