Damian Hine: Professor

Damian Hine is a Professor with the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation at the University of Queensland. He is an Evolutionary Economist, which means he studies change and innovation processes and the sprints in particularly into areas of science and technology and the change driven by scientific endeavours.

His work ranges widely, having been an advisor to the World Bank on the impact of small enterprise programs on remote communities in Southeast Asia, developing industry investment plans for Hort innovation, undertaking national studies on productivity in horticulture, regulation in digital health, freight and logistics, investment in the biotechnology sector. He has contributed to international reports for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Bank, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), and international research with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), The Pacific Community, innovation and commercialisation for the Vietnam and Chilean governments, using whole of farm economic models to build viable pearl industries in Fiji and Tonga, as well as horticultural innovation in the Pacific.

He has worked extensively with non-government organisations particularly in marine ecosystems where his work focused on enterprise led solutions to overfishing, bomb fishing and cyanide fishing in Indonesia and the Philippines, particularly by shortening supply chains. He has also worked with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on water scarcity and cross-border solutions to water security and food security, and helped design a major international project with the FAO on modelling the trade-offs between the sustainable development goals for FAO funded and operated projects. He has also consulted far and wide, and run consulting companies.

Damian is a member of the Steering Committee for Food System Horizons.