Students had the opportunity to help solve some of the problems of the state's agriculture industry, when they took part in a ThincLab Collaboration workshop, during the Growing the Future event.
Conducted by ThincLab's Eloise Leaver and Zrinka Tokic, students were each assigned a existing challenge and given the opportunity to come up with a pitch a solution.
The challenge issued was for a plan to re-activate Riverland properties left vacant since irrigation water buybacks.
Ms Leaver said they were looking for pitches of creative and productive uses of the land that could increase biodiversity and diversity of the Riverland's horticulture industry.
The top four pitches were then put to the entire conference, who had the chance to vote for their favourite.
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Two of the pitches looked to the native food sector, with a focus on hardy native herbs and plants already adapted to the dry conditions, which could tap into a growing market and tourism dollars, while another pushed for algae troughs for fertiliser, biofuel and compost.
But the winning pitch belonged to second-year Bachelor of Agriculture student Nick Sneath, who proposed industrial hemp for the building industry, saying it was low maintenance and suitable to low rainfall environments.
As winner, Mr Sneath received two tickets to the EvokeAg conference, which will be held in Adelaide in February.
Elizabeth Anderson
Editor of Stock Journal.
Editor of Stock Journal.
