In this episode of the Discover India 101 Podcast, I speak with **Dr. Rimjhim Agarwal** about the fascinating intersection of **agriculture, food, research, innovation, technology and market intelligence**.
We explore how scientific research can move beyond laboratories and create real-world impact through **research translation, innovation and entrepreneurship**.
In this conversation, we discuss:
• Agri-food innovation and the future of agriculture
• How research can be translated into practical solutions
• Market intelligence and understanding emerging opportunities
• Agriculture, food systems and technology
• Innovation and entrepreneurship
• Organic farming, seeds and agricultural research
• Technology and AI in agriculture
• Education, careers and opportunities in research
• Life and work in Australia
• Farming and agriculture in Australia
• Differences between agriculture and food systems in India and Australia
• The journey from education and research to real-world impact
• Opportunities for young people interested in agriculture, science and innovation
Dr. Rimjhim Agarwal was also a **7NEWS Young Achiever Awards Semi-Finalist in 2026**.
This conversation is particularly relevant for students, researchers, entrepreneurs, agriculture professionals and anyone interested in the future of food, farming, technology and innovation.
🎙️ **Guest:** Dr. Rimjhim Agarwal
🌱 **Topics:** Agri-Food | Agriculture | Food Systems | Innovation | Research | Research Translation | Market Intelligence | AI | Technology | Australia | Farming
If you found this conversation interesting, consider **liking, sharing and subscribing** to Discover India 101 for more conversations about education, careers, technology, society, entrepreneurship and life around the world.
#DrRimjhimAgarwal #AgriFood #AgriFoodInnovation #Agriculture #Research #Innovation #ResearchTranslation #MarketIntelligence #FoodInnovation #AgriculturalResearch #Australia #AI #Technology #Podcast #DiscoverIndia101
**Disclaimer:**
This podcast is intended for educational, informational and conversational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the guest are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Discover India 101 or its host. Information discussed during the conversation should not be considered professional, scientific, agricultural, financial, legal or medical advice. Viewers should independently verify information and consult qualified professionals where appropriate.
Some statements may reflect personal experiences, interpretations or opinions and should not be treated as universally applicable facts.
We explore how scientific research can move beyond laboratories and create real-world impact through **research translation, innovation and entrepreneurship**.
In this conversation, we discuss:
• Agri-food innovation and the future of agriculture
• How research can be translated into practical solutions
• Market intelligence and understanding emerging opportunities
• Agriculture, food systems and technology
• Innovation and entrepreneurship
• Organic farming, seeds and agricultural research
• Technology and AI in agriculture
• Education, careers and opportunities in research
• Life and work in Australia
• Farming and agriculture in Australia
• Differences between agriculture and food systems in India and Australia
• The journey from education and research to real-world impact
• Opportunities for young people interested in agriculture, science and innovation
Dr. Rimjhim Agarwal was also a **7NEWS Young Achiever Awards Semi-Finalist in 2026**.
This conversation is particularly relevant for students, researchers, entrepreneurs, agriculture professionals and anyone interested in the future of food, farming, technology and innovation.
🎙️ **Guest:** Dr. Rimjhim Agarwal
🌱 **Topics:** Agri-Food | Agriculture | Food Systems | Innovation | Research | Research Translation | Market Intelligence | AI | Technology | Australia | Farming
If you found this conversation interesting, consider **liking, sharing and subscribing** to Discover India 101 for more conversations about education, careers, technology, society, entrepreneurship and life around the world.
#DrRimjhimAgarwal #AgriFood #AgriFoodInnovation #Agriculture #Research #Innovation #ResearchTranslation #MarketIntelligence #FoodInnovation #AgriculturalResearch #Australia #AI #Technology #Podcast #DiscoverIndia101
**Disclaimer:**
This podcast is intended for educational, informational and conversational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the guest are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Discover India 101 or its host. Information discussed during the conversation should not be considered professional, scientific, agricultural, financial, legal or medical advice. Viewers should independently verify information and consult qualified professionals where appropriate.
Some statements may reflect personal experiences, interpretations or opinions and should not be treated as universally applicable facts.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00ही बाएज़ गजी हैं मैं इस ड्रीम्जिम अगर्वाल व्लिकम टॉब कोड़ कास्ट कार्षिय।
00:07अ अब्राइब करें दो कि आखे देखिगे हैं?
00:12I actually started with biotechnology as you mention in India and I did my bachelor's from JP University in Vaknagadh
00:25and so basically biotech was my main choice of subject because I was interested in plants in general
00:37and basically using genetic engineering or those kind of things to make plants like pest resistant
00:45or have some nutritious fruits through plants using gene editing so after finishing my
00:53high school i was looking into what is the most suitable field to do this kind of work so i
01:00came
01:00across various kinds of um bio related technology work biophysics biomedicine
01:09bioengineering a lot of stuff but biotech was something that i thought that probably what i
01:14wish to do i will be able to do through this particular degree so i started i started my
01:21bachelor's doing that and then i realized that biotech is quite broad and biotech can be used in
01:29plants animals humans for some reason i did not think that vaccine generation was part of
01:36biotech i was thinking it would be part of medicine or something so when i was going through those
01:41courses over the for over the four years time i realized that i'm very much interested in food and
01:48plant biotech other than animal and human biotech so even when i was doing my bachelor's degree
01:55thesis project i chose something to work with food so that was some traditional wine making using
02:06some traditional knowledge and him from himachal pradesh it was quite exciting um even at even during
02:14that time i was quite interested in something called plant tissue culture i'm not sure if you have heard of
02:19plant tissue culture yeah i heard about it but i don't know deeper inside yeah so plant tissue
02:27culture is growing plants in labs instead of doing outside so i was quite interested in that but you
02:34can say fortunately or unfortunately i didn't get that project and i got this wine making project so
02:40so after that i was like i have to like specialize further and also like working day in day out
02:46in lab
02:48i was feeling like i was losing the touch with nature because it was very secluding work
02:54so then when i was thinking of like doing my further studies
02:59um i was like probably masters of agriculture science sounds like something that i'm interested in
03:05anything related with plants that was my main criteria when i was choosing for masters and the
03:11reason why i chose masters or even phd for that matter it was because i wanted to be a scientist
03:19since like forever i wanted to be a scientist and that was the pathway that i had to take so
03:25um
03:26while looking for masters courses i was like applying in u.s i applied in netherlands i applied in
03:33in australia and new zealand so there were like a lot of things happen i think
03:40just by the flow of it there were many universities in u.s which were going to start a year
03:47later
03:48just because the bachelor degree finishes in may or june so probably their intake would have happened
03:54the next year when i graduated um i wasn't aware that australia does two intakes
04:00uh for all the masters programs so they do two semesters and you can join in anytime
04:06so that was a surprise and in doing so i actually got an offer letter from university of queensland
04:13um university of melbourne and there was another one in new zealand lincoln university
04:21so all these three came like within a short frame of time and then i also got reject from
04:28some universities because of my background in biotech they thought that i wasn't suitable for
04:33agriculture and needed to have botany as my subject to qualify for their masters program so i think like
04:40while choosing for masters program it's much more about like you might be interested in some subjects but
04:47a lot of times for some reason you don't meet their criteria it can be any criteria it can also
04:53be english criteria a lot of people don't make it to masters program because they don't satisfy the
04:58english requirement or some grade requirements so i think a lot of these things play when you're
05:05choosing a masters you might want to go to howard or places like that uh cambridge but then you need
05:13to meet all the criteria to be in those universities so then um when i got the offer
05:21letter from the australian and new zealand unis i was just looking at things like um what kind of
05:29ranking the universities have what kind of um courses i would be doing over the course of two years
05:37so looking at all those things i kind of chose university of queensland where i did my masters it
05:46was just that the subjects were a bit more interesting and that's what i wanted to do and learn about
05:52so that was one reason why i chose university of queensland for doing masters and then so um
06:01maybe something about when i moved to australia it was um it was quite shocking for me honestly
06:10because a lot of agriculture kind of fields happen in rural campuses of the universities so
06:17you might see a lot of things online which talk about the main campus of the university
06:25and so that might have all the facilities it might be the most multicultural place to be and
06:31a lot of student facilities but um many times the rural campuses don't have that so specifically
06:39moving from india where you have a lot of services it was kind of shocking to go to the campus
06:46that i went
06:47to it's 100 kilometers from grisbane it's the agricultural campus of university of queensland
06:53i was taken aback by it i didn't imagine that australia is going to be like that in my
07:00i think in my memory most of it was what i had seen through videos youtube
07:06and movies so i had a different image of it so i would say that probably the first three months
07:13or
07:13the first semester was quite challenging coming here everything was like probably i would say 1990s in
07:21that campus and also it was my first time like being surrounded by like actual agriculture like
07:30i haven't been um on field yeah so like because i did biotech and then i grew up in delhi
07:40so of course
07:41there was a disconnect between water and water so actually australia have a lot of landscape uh
07:48open landscape compared to india and brisbane is also agriculture hub right in australia
07:54they grow lots and lots of things and do a lot of research as well compared to sydney well-born
08:01birth
08:02yes so for various reasons of course the university had better ranking as you said the weather here
08:08is very similar to that of india like northern india so we can grow like heaps of fruits and vegetables
08:14here while if you compare it with melbourne it's quite cold it's it falls under temperate region so
08:20most of the time it's winter there so that makes it really hard for them to do any agriculture
08:27and with sydney also it's quite metropolitan they do some kind of things but i would assume
08:32that's going to be more lab specific than actual field work so i think yeah that was my first
08:39impression of it having courses all around the campus there were people still using voicemail
08:46having a tape recorder using fm and stuff like that so that was really an unusual experience for me
08:55to see um and then after three months i actually decided
09:02that i would move to brisbane and i would go to that campus as in when required
09:07um just looking at all the facilities that were there in brisbane and i thought it would be easier
09:12for me to actually study rather than just trying to um adjust to the place did you live on a
09:19campus or
09:20you uh live in a brisbane and go to the campus like that by car or yes so the first
09:29semester i lived on
09:30campus the campus was gatton um universities of university of queensland's campus so the first
09:37three months were on campus and after that once i had seen how easily i can commute between the two
09:47campuses there was like a inter-campus bus that the university had so i was like i might as well
09:53live in
09:54in the city in brisbane and a lot of other um colleagues of mine were also living in brisbane
10:01and they were doing the same thing so i was like okay most of my classmates are living in brisbane
10:07i
10:07will also go and live in brisbane so for the next one and a half years i stayed in brisbane
10:13and then
10:14there were a lot of courses that were being taught in both the campuses so i could attend the class
10:21either
10:22in brisbane or at the garden campus and there was some which i could zoom in into so i didn't
10:28have to be physically there so mostly it was like once a week if i had to go for a
10:34practical or something
10:38so that worked out okay it wasn't that big of a hassle once a week was doable and if anybody
10:46wants to do agriculture science and they haven't spent a lot of time on sale uh or the quiet life
10:53i would suggest to them also to probably live in brisbane and then commute on and off
11:01um so yeah during um what is the exact difference because uh in india we can't
11:10uh get a time to go for a job while studying but uh if you study abroad anywhere probably you
11:19get a little bit of time not little bit you can uh work uh and study together so how it's
11:25possible if
11:26you can explain or i also heard about that uh people apply for university and after one or two
11:34semester they shifted to colleges so they can work more because they have less project work or
11:41assignments is it true or is okay so for both the questions um for the first question yes you can
11:49work while being on student visa but the number of hours are capped it's 20 hours uh 20 hours fortnightly
12:00if i'm not wrong or 20 hours weekly something like that they keep changing the requirements um
12:07so during masters you can do 20 hours of work um uh your visa allows that but uh for the
12:15second
12:15question that you asked about students coming here and then changing to their different lower level
12:21universities and colleges that actually has been banned recently like last month it has been banned
12:29because a lot of people were using these kind of loopholes to not come and study but to work and
12:34earn
12:35money so they have actually completely shut down that you can no longer do that so whatever uni you
12:41come in you have to study in that uni and finish that course um and also they have shut down
12:48the fact
12:49that you cannot move from one bachelor degree to another bachelor degree a lot of people used to do that
12:54so sideways jumping in courses has been completely stopped you can do a higher degree if you're doing
13:01bachelor's you can do a master's and master's to a phd but you cannot move sideways
13:08so but uh how how people get a time you know if you're an example if you study in jp
13:16new city so
13:18can you go for a job uh means do you get a time to go for a job yeah so
13:26um to answer that
13:28i think universities in india are a bit more structured in the sense that they have a fixed
13:35timetable so when i was in jp i was i had classes 9 am to 5 pm which leaves me
13:41no time to work if
13:43probably i was living off campus in india maybe if someone hires me after 5 pm maybe i can do
13:49it
13:49but being on campus you cannot leave campus um after 6 pm or 7 pm and then also because i
13:57my university
13:58was in a very remote area in india also it was close to solon and shimla and himachal pradesh so
14:04there weren't many avenues for you to be doing such kind of work and i also think in india a
14:10lot of
14:10people look down on you if you're working maybe because of the finances or social status or
14:16whatever but a lot of people in india do not are not in the support of people working if you
14:21can
14:22manage your fees i feel like whereas in australia i mean a lot of immigrants um international students
14:31work as well as domestic students work and like kids started start working here when they are 15 years
14:39of age so they are quite used to the fact that i have to earn some money if i'm going
14:44to do
14:44something extra other than the basic things that my parents can support but for example you want to go
14:50for a holiday or if you want to do some extracurricular competition that is costing
14:57a lot of money so a lot of kids go and work in mcdonald's and places like that to make
15:02their own money and
15:03sponsor themselves so they are in a habit of doing that and as far as international students um
15:11i feel like as i said so i had to go to the gatton campus only once a week other
15:19classes were also
15:20there but mostly classes are there three to four days maximum it's never five days a week so there are
15:27few days where you either are studying on your courses your subjects you're exploring something
15:33else you're working on your assignments um and even on assignment front it's very like it's very free
15:41as compared to india in india you would know that this is the question someone has asked me and i
15:46have
15:46to just answer it there is only one way to answer it whereas in australia i feel like most of
15:51the
15:52universities give you very open-ended assignments so for example if you are interested in
15:57um say growing plants just for example so you are free to choose any plant that you want to study
16:05nobody is going to force you that you have to do an assignment on rice or you have to do
16:09an assignment
16:10on wheat maybe you're not interested in it maybe you're interested in something like flower growing or
16:15fruit growing or something like that so you're fully like free to choose whatever subject interests
16:23you within the scope of that area and then you can go to the libraries and you can find more
16:29information
16:30about it i'm not going to say that it's a very easy job it is quite hard as compared to
16:36doing assignments
16:36in india because you really have to invest your time and you have to think about so basically you can't
16:45do that and also there is a policy in most of the big public universities so there is a plagiarism
16:53software which checks for all the plagiarism that you have done and it's also in india right
17:02um i'm not sure how many universities use it mine didn't use it um and also a lot of our
17:08assignments
17:09for many times written also handwritten as compared to here where everything is digital so it's easy to check
17:15for what has been copied and pasted so if if you are flagged for a high plagiarism for example 10
17:2120
17:22or they see a paragraph has been copied from somewhere your lecturer is actually going to
17:28like ask you to come have a chat with them and they will ask you why have you done this
17:33have you copied it
17:35why haven't you paraphrased it so it's it has quite serious repercussion here so and how they implement
17:42artificial intelligence means uh or adapt in university because now people can use it you know
17:50to do their yes assignment or job research work as well specifically people uh indian people who
17:58are not comfortable comfortable with english language so they can use it so do they allow it or
18:05they want everything do it from your mind like something so as far as i know because ai has come
18:14in last three years and i did my masters 10 years ago okay so um i know that ai is
18:21welcome but the thing
18:23is the idea should be original of yours they don't have any problem for you to polish your english using
18:28that kind of software there were such softwares before also like grammarly was one of them you
18:34could use it to fix your english but as as long as you are only fixing your english rather than
18:39generating ideas through ai which i know is going to be really hard going forward because the ai
18:45algorithms are becoming smarter and smarter and they can do a lot of idea generation also
18:50so i can't speak much on that but there has been like a lot of policy work happening in universities
18:56even in schools because in schools also here a lot of people use most of the homework is done
19:03using digital platform so so maybe teacher is also making it hard using ai to kids do or students do
19:11using ai you know teacher also maybe use the artificial intelligence to make a little bit harder
19:19maybe i don't know yeah that can be done but we'll have to see how that ai goes
19:24in our universities yeah and how is about like uh uh i guess uh in iria north indian new york
19:34cities are or specifically himachal university solan university uh in solan there are also very
19:42big agriculture universities also there right other than jp yes yes so himachal pradesh parmar
19:50university is shulini universities there are heaps of agricultural universities there
19:57so i guess uh there are a lot of agriculture students from there they are doing a lot of work
20:03but
20:04one one question is that do they grow things from seeds or how do they grow or hybrid seeds or
20:14do they have
20:14seed banks because in india now a lot of people so actually uh american uh companies uh want us to
20:23grow uh using their hybrid seeds uh so basically we our natural seeds will go away and after that we
20:32have
20:32to buy from them so the same kind of concept is implemented over there like you need to buy seeds
20:38from
20:38company every time every year or how it works yeah unfortunately that's the reality of the world
20:46and most of the countries are forced to do this because of the monopoly that people have on seeds so
20:54yes you cannot re-germinate if there was like a plant breeders right on one particular variety to be
21:02grown in one particular region of the property but if for example that seed has fallen into neighbor's
21:08property so you have violated the plant breeders right there in australia is something like that
21:15yes okay yeah so the biosecurity laws yes no seed bank or something like that i mean even the seed
21:28banks
21:28are made from hybrid seeds they're collecting seeds some of them the professors that are working on
21:34breeding they have their seed banks they can do crosses for one generation one generation two
21:41generation three but that has to be used for research purpose only they can't sell it to normal people
21:48to grow and uh means is there any kind of uh research uh happen like uh effect of this hybrid
21:56food on
21:57uh people's uh people's health right is there any kind of research happen in australia what means
22:03have you ever seen i haven't come across it but i'm sure because i have seen that uh uh in
22:14the usa they
22:15protest against this kind of hybrid food this uh food generator generated from hybrid seeds so a lot of
22:23lobbies are also opposing this kind of thing that uh natural seed should not be destroyed even if
22:30you want everything seedless or something like that so one question on that so by hybrid seeds do you mean
22:37only any kind of hybrid seeds or do you mean gmos yeah gmos like you cannot reproduce from or you
22:45cannot get the seed actually so um so genetically modified seeds are different to hybrid seeds
22:53genetically modified seeds are not in use in australia they are not legal there are no gmos
23:01um but for um hybrid seeds hybrid seeds is just a breeding way of creating to make it one parent
23:09the second parent maker another hybrid seed um that is there and that is how even in nature hybrid
23:16seeds are used so i i don't see any issue there until and unless is genetically modified australia is okay
23:24with it but from the customer perspective yes there is a big push against not having any gmo products in
23:32in australia and how about organic because uh i feel in india organic farming is kind of different
23:41compared to australian organic farming right so in what is like in india we have a lot of local
23:50way to make up uh fertilizers for you know but i have never seen this kind of thing in australia
23:59so i guess they just control control the pesticides so that is open farming i don't know there has been
24:09there has been a move to go towards organic farming and in last few years a lot of organic farmers
24:16have
24:17also popped up but again they are very localized as you said because they cannot do mass production and all
24:24often their product is quite expensive as compared to a large field that has produced tons
24:30and tons of fruits and veggies so at this point this organic segment of fruits and vegetables is very
24:38premium and mostly rich people like to buy that but if you come to normal people who are having like
24:47middle class salaries and stuff like that they still are happy to buy the pesticide or insecticide food
24:53just because of the cost of growing those kind of products so basically i just want to ask that
25:01you know as an example in india people use this plant maybe i don't know how does it called in
25:09hindi it's a keletrophy plant giant keletrophy plant i don't know you heard about it or not
25:18or it's grown in uh north part of india or not i don't know
25:24so i haven't heard its name
25:27c-a-l-o-p-e-t-r-o-p-e okay so this is a they use it for
25:38maybe potassium or something
25:40after maybe a week they do fermentation or i don't know but they use it very much they use it
25:52good jaggery for organic farming but i never heard in australia they do it this kind of
26:02local stuff you know actually they provide this kind of training
26:07yeah they use gao mutra for organic farming and uh so that's in that terms uh i just want
26:14to know that uh means what kind of things they do you know they just don't use the pesticides
26:21and whatever they grow they sell something like that because production will reduced
26:27that's why production will reduce yeah so um they do a lot of like manuring and stuff
26:36they have composts in their own fields the people who are doing organic farming so they kind of use
26:42those kind of things like warm compost vermicompost and stuff like that i haven't heard of cow dung
26:50specifically um i haven't been to an organic farm so i can't really speak about it but i do know
26:59that
26:59vermicompost is quite popular even among people who have um garden in their backyard they would use that
27:06kind of um manure for their house gardens okay um so this award is actually given by um a channel
27:19here
27:20called seven news um and it is focused on people who are under the age of 30 who have done
27:28some
27:28achievement or who have created some real world impact so seven news does a lot of categories it can
27:37be anything from social help to social and legal justice a lot of um those kind of awards are also
27:45there and they do do it annually in all the states of australia so this particular one
27:56yes so there are around six to seven categories like mining then women help empowerment and then
28:05there was the food industry one which i was in but these were the main fields for this particular award
28:15there are specific other awards also um depending on what you're interested in interested in
28:22like women in technology award which covers a lot of um tech kind of awards so if you're looking
28:28for computer science or ai or those kind of fields that can be one of the awards that you look
28:33into
28:35so um the the food innovation award is actually um sponsored by one of the food companies called
28:46to rosie they do a lot of aviation meals and so they were also the sponsor of one of this
28:53young
28:54achievers award so basically um you have to be nominated for this award by someone you can also
29:02self-nominate it yourself but many times it's someone else who is nominating you for this award
29:10and so then you have to like go through the application process pretty much like how most of
29:15the competition works and you need to have like reference letters from your managers or someone you
29:21have worked with showing the credibility of your work and then there were multiple rounds like the top
29:3120 top 10 and then the finalist who actually won the award it's a very rigorous process very difficult
29:39process i guess uh not everyone can uh participate uh this of uh people also tried it right something like
29:51that i mean people follow people smart people you can say something like i would say it's both it's
30:01being smart and also being able to position yourself as the award one said which is the case with most
30:07of
30:08the awards it's not really awards don't really judge you on your intelligence if i may say so it's my
30:15experience but they also want to see how you present yourself and that is most of the world today
30:27so even at work you can be the most smartest but if you're not presenting yourself in a way your
30:32boss
30:32wants to see it you might not get the promotion it's true so pretty much i that's something like that