ASH CLOUD

Denmark made headlines in 2024 as the first country to implement a carbon tax on livestock emissions. The country's ambitious 70% emissions reduction target by 2030 includes agricultural reductions of 55-65%. What makes Denmark's policy truly remarkable isn't the tax itself—it's the 60% tax deduction corresponding to mitigation potential. This signals that Denmark's approach isn't anti-livestock, but rather pro-innovation, explicitly avoiding targets on livestock numbers while incentivizing farmers to adopt technologies and practices that can reduce emissions by up to 40%.

The impact of Denmark's inclusive policy-making approach through the tripartite agreement cannot be understated. Ministers, farmer representatives, nature organizations, labor un...

Animal Health as a Climate and Food Security Solution

In this episode of the Ash Cloud podcast, we explore an often-overlooked opportunity in the fight against climate change with Dr. Nick Wheelhouse, Professor of Comparative Infectious Disease at Edinburgh Napier University and co-lead of the Global Research Alliance Animal Health and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intensity Network.

Dr. Wheelhouse brings unique expertise spanning both veterinary research and animal science. After completing his BSc in Agricultural Biochemistry and Nutrition at Newcastle University and PhD in Animal Science at the University of Aberdeen, he worked as...

The cost living is an increasing global challenge. Food inflation in 2023 was 13.6%, however food prices increased by up to 30% in many low income countries. Currently 60-80% of voters consider food price as a decisive factor in their choice of candidate and across 60% of countries food costs represent more than 25% of the CPI basket. 

Right now, 670 million people—8.2% of our global population—are going hungry. By 2030, projections show that 300 million people in Africa alone could face food insecurity. But here's the paradox: we have the technology, the knowledge, and the resources to address this crisis. So what's holding us ba...

"Sustainability means leaving the land in a better place, preparing the next generation for a turbulent future in agriculture... and it's probably also a license to produce." Robert MacKenzie and his farms on the mid north coast of NSW was the first Australian beef operation to become net zero through pasture carbon sequestration. Roberts journey began with a dedication to understand the numbers around all metrics on the farm and then adjusting his management to improve these metrics.

The initial seed in his journey to sustainability was planted by Meat & Livestock Australia announcing in 2015 that...

AgriFoodTech Venture Capital investment is down by roughly 90% from the high of 2021 with the lack of exits or creation of profitiable agtech companies resulting from the billions invested frequently taking the blame for investors looking for alternative places for put their money. But there are success stories. 

Today we are joined by Mike Seely, the CEO of Native Microbials. Over the last 10 years Mike and his team has built a profitable animal biotech company. I recently caught up with Mike to hear about this journey and how Native created a product farmers wanted, were willing to pay f...

There is a huge amount we can learn from Brazil’s transition from being a net food importer to one of the world’s largest food exporters over the last 50 years. Since deforestation across the Amazon peaked in the mid 1990’s Brazil has continued to invest in both driving productivity increases alongside increasing efforts to preserve wilderness areas and restore degraded lands. To help address climate change the government has doubled investment including doubling investment in low carbon agriculture from $1Billion to $2 Billion through their ABC plan. This program includes making low interest credit available for Brazilian farmers to adopt...

Today we are joined by Jason Rowntree from Michigan State University where he is working on systems increase the resilience and to reduce the environmental harm of our food systems. Finding the driver across rural America that encourage farmers and ranchers to adopt management practices that improve soils, and protect local environments and the climate are a key priority of his work. Jason has built and runs the centre for regenerative agriculture at Michigan State University where he is increasingly seeing benefits for farmers that adopt regenerative principles to improve soil health which include:

The epigenome is essentially the control software for plants and animals that dictates when, where, and to what level different genes in the genome are expressed. Moderating the epigenome has the potential to upgrade crops in real time, during the season, to adjust photosynthesis and warn crops of upcoming droughts, diseases, or other threats. While traditional plant breeding and genetics requires trait selections to be made prior to planting and establishing the crops, epigentics enables these traits to be managed after the plant is already growing. 

Today we are joined by Travis Bayer who recently founded Decibel B...

Over human history animal protein has always been a luxury food. Meat is the first thing people generally chose to buy when they rise from lower to middle income.  With the current cost of living crises across the world, further food price inflation predicted due to climate change, geopolitical instability, and biodiversity loss, increasing impacts on productivity due to climate change, as well as the growing impact of dietary related disease, the big question is how much longer will we be able to afford this luxury. 

The answer is it’s complex. 

Today we are joine...

Beef supply chains have been described as the most dysfunctional and least organised supply chains of everything available in the supermarket. Today we are joined by Lamar Steiger and Neil Mellers from Ranch2Retail who are building connected beef supply chains to improve economic performance of the whole chain and environmental outcomes. Data across all participants is a key component of creating and sharing the extra value. 

It took over 100 conversations before Lamar found a rancher who was interested in rising to the challenge of creating a premium supply chain for Walmart that provided consistent product, reliably a...

In this episode I am exploring the rapidly growing rates of obesity globally, the rapid rise in the use of GLP-1s or obesity drugs,  how these are impacting our food systems, and how obesity and poverty seem to be linked. In the US around 10% of all Americans are either using GLP-1s or have tried GLP-1s, with early data showing a 5-10% decrease in food spending and a significant change in the foods people are purchasing. Yet, it's only the wealthiest that can afford these drugs. 

Today we are joined by Jack Bobo, Director of th...

Today we are joined Aimable Uwizeye, Livestock Policy Officer for the Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations where he is part of the team that implements the Sustainable Livestock Transformation initiative within the Animal Production and Health Division. Increasingly the impartance of animal health is being identified as a key aspect of improving sustainbility and reducing emissions.

Aimable's mission is to promote global change towards a sustainable livestock sector by tackling climate change, reducing methane emissions, enhancing biodiversity, and reducing nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Join me in this journey to create a more...

The Australian livestock industries now produce high quality product, that is full tracebale, quality assured, with real time market information coming from a sophisticate supply chain that sells into high quality markets with preferential access including 16 FTAs. This has transitioned from an absolute commodity industry with only one free trade agreement, no traceability, national ID system, limited market information and a disconnected supply chain just 30 odd years ago. 

Today we are joined Jason Strong, a long time advocate and leader in the Australian livestock industries including as the former Managing director of Meat and livestock Australia and f...

Humans have been selectively breeding animals since before Roman times. Modern technologies and tools including genomics and artifical intelligence has hugely increased the rate of progress. Increasingly, sustainability traits such as the enviromneatl footprint of production are being included in breeding programs in addition to productivity, efficiency, and profitability traits.   

Today we are joined Matthew Clevlend, a geneticist who leads sustainability at ABS Global across their beef and dairy genetic improvement programs. Early indications are that the heritability of methane emissions are between 20-30% which is similar to many traditional production traits. In addition, these improvements are bo...

Political scientist Sparsha Saha from Harvard University joins us to challenge the status quo in meat politics. How can a sector so vital be so overlooked? Sparsha shares groundbreaking insights, exposing the unusual political dynamics surrounding animal welfare and the unexpected urban-rural divide on climate policies related to meat consumption. We grapple with the low prioritization of food and water in political discourse and the urgent need for heightened awareness in tackling ecological crises.

Our conversation takes a deep dive into the path toward building inclusive strategies in the plant-based and regenerative agriculture sectors. By bridging gaps...

The least productive 10-20% of producers are causing 60-80% of the environmental impacts but only produce 5% of the food. Incentivizing these farmers and ranchers to change can significantly improve the sustainability of our food systems with minimum impact on global food production.

Today I am joined by Jason Clay from WWF who focuses on working with the  private sector to improve supply chain management especially addressing habitat, biodiversity, soil health, irrigation, effluent, and green house gases. Jason leads the Markets Institute to improve sustainability in internationally traded food and soft commodities, known as Codex Planetarius.

W...

The 350 million hectares of global irrigation consume 3-4 Mississippi’s worth of fresh water every day. This volume of fresh water used for Irrigation is continuing to increase, especially across the global south, exacerbating the challenge of how we produce more food with less water. Today we are joined by Bruce Lankford, who has been working on Water and Irrigation Policy across the developed and developing worlds for over 30 years.

In a recent blog post Bruce wrote about how Irrigation is colonising water and is being colonised; on research and teaching gaps in irrigation. He concluded that be...

Economics, markets, and policy all have significant impacts on human behavior and decision making. Nick Parker is an environmental economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Hoover Institution who has been studying the human interaction with wolves, and especially the indirect effects wolves have on environments they live, to examine if it was possible for wolves to actually benefit humans and reduce threats to human lives and property. He found that the reintroduction of wolves into Wisconsin and other US States led to a 25% decrease in deer vehicle collisions. The research suggests that two thirds of this...

Low- and middle-income countries house 76% of the global cattle herd, and by 2050 will be home to 8 billion people. They are the projected epicenter of both increased animal source food demand, and livestock-related emissions. The most promising approach to address this demand while limiting greenhouse gas emissions is to improve the efficiency of livestock production systems in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia through interventions in genetics, feeding and health. Boosting livestock productivity can improve both food security and producer incomes. Alternative proteins may play a limited role in addressing projected demand, but currently most companies are located in high-income countries...

Our food systems are orders of magnitude more complex than other sectors of our economy so how can tools such as Artificial intelligence help farmers across the world make better decisions to improve the sustainability and productivity of our food systems.

Today we are joined by Aidan Connolly a animal agtech entrepreneur, investor, and author of The Future of Agriculture who has spend his career working on agricultural innovation. 

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Today Ash Cloud is partnering with CSIRO to bring you Andy Sheppard, the Chief Research Scientist Biosecurity at CSIRO where he leads efforts to protect Australia, it’s neighbours,  and trading partners from plant, animal and human pests and disease threats. Building local and global partnerships to understand the biology of the threats across their native and invaded range so intervention opportnities can be implemented is a key part of his work. Andy is also the Co-Executive Director of Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and CSIRO Catalysing Australia's Biosecurity Initiative. 

You can listen to our conversation here...

The US military has recognized climate change as a national security threat for decades our guest today, Sherri Goodman, has been credited with educating a generation of US military officers and government officials about the complex interactions between climate change and national security. She is Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate & Security  and the author of Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.  

I recently spoke with Sherri about her 30 odd years experience working on the nexus of climate and security, including the risks posed by climate change and the ma...

The intersection between climate change and armed conflict is complex. For those who have not witnessed the difference between the devastation and social upheaval that results from war compared with any other form of social upheaval it is almost impossible to explain. This is why I see great importance in further understanding these intersections. Climate related violence is a messy marriage of climate stress and poor governance.

ISIS profited from collapsing agricultural positions to bolster its ranks in Iraq and Syria. The recruitment rate of jihadis was three times higher from villages reliant solely on rain than...

Depending on who you speak with cattle can be vital to the sustainability of our food systems and our ability to provide health nutrition to humanity or they can be one of the largest sources of climate pollution. The culprit in this debate is methane, especially enteric methane emissions that is derived from the foregut of all ruminants including cattle.

Frank Mitloehner is the Director of the UC Davis Clear Center that researches the intersection of animal agriculture and the environment and leads communication efforts across the complex interactions between the environmental health, human health, our food...

Regenerative ranching has recently gained traction across the main stream media but the idea of using  livestock to mimic nature and managing a landscape holistically was largely led by Allan Savory from the 1980s. Rich Bradbury' parents attended the Savory Institute in the 1980's which was when he was first exposed to the holistic approach that Allan Savory brings to ranching.  I recently caught up with Rich to hear how this has impacted his thinking and the way he manages his ranch to this day.

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Nitrogen is absolutely essential for all forms of life, plants, animals and microbes. Nitrogen is the basis for making amino acids, and amino acids are the basis for making proteins, enzymes. The historic nitrogen system was balanced and based on microbial activity transforming atmospheric nitrogen into soluble forms usable by plants and microbes.

Eric Davidson's has been working to transform our food systems through better understanding terrestrial nutrient cycling, cycling, greenhouse gas emissions from soils, global biogeochemical cycles, and how they impact sustainable agriculture.

Charles Brooke has been working to accelerate the rate of action...

The efficacy of methane reducing feed additives constantly varies between cows and herds because the rumen microbiome is constantly changing. Certain feed additives that worked really well at that one given her may stop working, or the other way around. Feed additives that were not working can become effective. Using AI based on the genome sequences within the microbiome so that the right additive is used at the right time can triple the impact of feed additives.

Yaniv Altshuler has been working on Artificial Intelligence for the over 20 years focusing on decentralized and scalable AI methods. He...

California has been leading efforts to implement climate change policy since Governor Schwarzeneger signed the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006 to begin the transition to a carbon neutral economy with food and agriculture are a key component of California’s strategy. 

Agriculture sits right in the middle of the climate debate, agriculture is a significant emitter and that needs to be acknowleded. Agriculture also has the potential be big part of the solution and the conversation needs to evolve beyond blame into how can we work together to address this ciritcal issue. 

Secretary Karen Ross has...

Rob Jackson is a climate scientist who has been leading global efforts to reduce millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions and improve human health, safety, and air and water quality. Methane emissions are a major focus of Rob’s work as there is nothing else that gives as much power to slow global warming over the next decade or two. 

Rob’s new book, "Into The Clear Blue Sky” the path to restoring our atmosphere is being released at the end of July by Simon & Schuster.  In the book Rob tells the story of the people creating...

The Zero Net Emissions from Agriculture Cooperative Research Council (ZNE-Ag CRC) is a key component of achieving the commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2040. The CRC comprises of 73 partenrs who have committed $AU87 million in cash which is matched by the Austrlain Federal Government. This becomes a $AU300 million program when in kind contributions are included.

Richard Heath is the CEO of the ZNE-Ag CRC who brings decades of experience across research policy and hands on farming. I recently caught up with Richard to hear more about the pans for the ZNE-Ag CRC. You can listen...

Maik Kindermann, the inventor of the methane inhibitor 3-NOP or  Bovaer®. Earlier this week it was announced that Boaver has been approved for use by the FDA adding the United States to the other 59 countries where its available. Following a directive in 2008 from Feike Sifbesma, the former Chairman and CEO of dsm-firmenich Maik began working on a product to inhibit enteric methane. 16 years later Maik and his team have completed trials 119  and published 80 peer reviewed papers with another 31 in the pipeline. I recently caught up with Maik to hear about his journey developing Boaver and how the conversation on ent...

The security communities around the world  including European, UK, US, and Australia have all recognized climate change as a National Security threat with climate change not being necessarily a direct cause of conflict but compounding the risks of conflict. The impact of climate change on food and water security is a key component of this increased threat. 

Neil Morisetti  leads efforts to develop society's and policy makers understanding of the security implications of a changing climate, including the impact on the key natural resources of food, water and land at University College London and Chatham House. His wor...

There are currently 350 million people globally living with extreme hunger, with a plus 2°C rise in global temperatures this is forecast to rise to 539 million people, and with a plus 4°C temperature rise it is predicted that 2.1 billion people worldwide will be living with extreme hunger. Failing to adequately address this rise in extreme hunger will be a growing national security and global security issue as food insecurity is linked to increased migration and clonflict. 

Ismahane Elouafi is the  Executive Managing Director of CGIAR here she is building on her experience leading agrifood research and advocacy to deal...

 This  episode of Ash Cloud is brought to you in partnership with CSIRO.

Proteins play many critical roles in our bodies, and in the plants, animals, fungi and microbes that are our source of food and nutrition. Disease, brain function, appetite, movement, allergies, and thousands of other metabolic process all require proteins. This is  in addition to the need for protein to build and maintain  muscle. Growing global populations are dramatically increasing protein demand and this demand is putting ever greater pressure on our climate and environment. Meeting this demand sustainably requires new thinking on how we prod...

Climate change is a global challenge, but interventions can only be implemented locally. Understanding the local cultures, economies, politics, language, and production systems is critical for any intervention to make an impact. Across the developing world the greatest opportunity to limit livestock methane emissions and improve food security is through improved animal nutrition and livestock genetics. In the developed world the opportunity lies in absolute methane emission reductions with genetics, the use of feed additives, and increasingly through a much improved understanding of the microbiome having the greatest potential to make significant impact.

 Ermias Kebreab from UC D...

Reducing methane emissions is the greatest opportunity to limit warming in the short term. With roughly 30% of current temperature increases are caused by methane, global food systems being responsible for 60% of methane emissions as a continuum from production to waste, and  80% of recent emissions have come from non-OECD countries  the methane challenge intimately linked to the International development challenge.

To address this solution that are fit for purpose need to be developed. With feed additive solutions being only  applicable to 2% of global production systems other mechanisms to reduce methane are needed that do not compromise livelihoods and foo...

Recent farmer protests across Europe have highlighted the political battleground around sustainable agriculture. The absence of effective policies and support for a just transition to Net Zero is positioning farmers as political pawns who are being exploitation by people outside the farming community pushing their own agendas.

Farmers are increasingly being squeezed between decreasing margins, increasing costs, increasing regulations, less market power.  At the same time the growing politicisation of  the rural urban divide is not focused on actually addressing farmer livelihoods but is being fuelled to drive the political agendas of people outside the agricultural community.  At...

The climate impact of animal agriculture is only one of the aspects that needs to be addressed for sustainable productions systems. The importance and urgency to mitigate methane emissions must be integrated with the social and economic aspects of livestock production and the other environmental issues such as nutrient management and biodiversity. 

The current state of our food systems are the result of decades and even centuries of the choices people have made which will take time to change. When it comes to global warming methane is the emergency brake that can limit temperature rises in the s...

Growing anthropocentrism is one of the underlying root causes of our ecological crisis. In recent decades humans have become increasingly disconnected from our food. While for thousands of years obtaining food and water was the top priority of most human societies. Today, this is no longer the case and in today's society food is increasing becoming an a political issue, especially for meat and animal products.

I recently caught up with Dr Sparsha Saha from Harvard University to discuss research focuses on how voters respond to issues around meat, animal rights, and the links between animal agriculture...

Less than 5% of climate finance is focused on addressing methane, and less than 2% of that finance is for the livestock sector. This is despite the fact that 155 countries agreed that rapidly reducing methane emissions from energy, agriculture, and waste is  the single most effective strategy to keep the goal of limiting warming to 1.5˚C.

The EPA estimates that 37% of methane emissions are from agriculture, with livestock contributing 32% of those emissions.  Low and middle income countries contribute over 70% of global livestock methane emissions, yet the climate is agnostic about the source of GHG emissions, so the lack of inv...

Of the 25 countries that are least able to adapt to the impacts of climate change about 14 of those countries or 56% are currently affected by armed conflict.

The intersection of conflict and food insecurity is an area of series concern in many of the places where the International Committee of the Red Cross works. The 2023 global report of food crises reported that around 250 million people globally were food insecure and in need of urgent food assistance. This is the highest level in the seven year history of the report. There are currently 100 armed conflicts globally involving around 60 states...

Currently over 50% of the world’s population is undernourished. There is generally not a shortage of food calories but a shortage of nutrients. This issue exists in rich countries, middle income countries, and poor countries. The traditional solution that has provided these nutrients to human populations for thousands of years is animals, both farmed livestock and hunted wild species.

In recent decades the vast increase in the numbers of farmed livestock and how they are produced has created severe environmental burdens which are unsustainable. The larger the concentration of these systems the higher is the risk of en...

Everyday choices are made about the food we eat by all 8 billion people on the planet. These choices impact our health and the health of the environment and climate. But what drives us to make the decisions we do and what would need to be done to change our decision making to improve both our health and reduce the environmental impact of food production. 

I recently caught up with Prof. Barbara Mullan from Curtin University to discuss these issues. Most of us know that many of the things we eat will likely have detrimental effects on our h...

Creating a win win for farmers/ranchers and the environment would be game changing across the whole livestock climate space. The key is to understand the kinetics of methane production by the rumen microbiome and identify opportunities to capture that energy within the animal for production. This approach mitigates methane emissions and decreases feed costs. Plus, creating this win win overcomes the not insignificant implementations/uptake challenge. 

Methane is the end point of a whole series of complex microbial metabolism in the rumen of cattle and sheep. Most current research is simply trying to prevent this last s...

Management is the greatest limitation to reducing the environmental impact of livestock systems. Farming is managing an ecosystem. When we work with nature to manage that ecosystem, then nature works with us to improve the water cycle, improve the nutrient cycle, and to sequester more carbon in the soil. The challenge is, how do we improve every individual farmer understanding of their landscapes, the ecology, and businesses so they are managing their properties in an optimal manner.

Currently the management of only 5% of Australian livestock producers is at an optimal level. The greatest barrier to...

In East Africa, what we are now calling regenerative agriculture is basically kitchen gardening for food security, without the reliance on inputs, which is the traditional method of growing food. How do we evaluate the sustainability of  production systems in the Global South and how do these compare to those in the Global North?

Comparisons are challenging. In the Global South most animals are multifunctional providing food, income, ecosystem services, finance, services, and cultural status.  Evaluating the environmental footprint of livestock is largely through tools developed by the Global North which do not account for the other fu...

Microbes communicate, they make decisions, they collaborate, and they fight. Sometimes they are good guys and other times they are bad guys. Understanding the importance of individual species withing the ecosystem and how species interact is critical for navigating our food sustainability challenges.

The good news is that animals with higher feed efficiency produce less methane. However, our understanding of the ecological forces driving that double benefit is limited and the natural variation is huge with a five fold difference in methane emissions from animals in the same herd. 

Itzik Mizrahi is a microbial ecologist s...

Humans are the cause of climate change.  Climate change is also biodiversity loss, desertification, mega fires and climate change that are all feeding off each other and spiralling out of control.

The way humans manage fossil fuels, livestock, and the the environment is what is leading to the continual degradation of the natural world.

In the 1960's Allan initiated an elephant culling program in an effort to protect native habitats in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe today) from over grazing. The results were devastating.  Not only were thousands of elephants killed, but the land degradation became worse. This le...

The question of what is a good microbiome all depends on the perspective you are asking. The answer differs if your lens from the perspective of the animal, humans, the microbes, or the climate. The relationships are complex. Microbes produce vital energy and nutrients for the animal. They allow our grazing animals to transform fibrous herbs, shrubs, and grasses into nutrient dense food. They recycle plant carbon and nutrients back into the soils. 

Since the first ruminants evolved around 50 million years ago the microbiome and these animals have coevolved together. Our understanding of this process is still v...

Climate policy has been weaponised in Australia over recent decades. The situation in other countries is frequently not dissimilar. The lack of real action on climate change resulted in over one third of Australian voters rejecting the major parties in preference of environmentally progressive ‘Teal’ independents at the 2022 federal election. Zoe Daniel is one of seven Teal Independent who are now working to drive positive and constructive climate policy changes across the Australian Federal Parliament. 

The political will to generate and implement policies that effectively address climate change, including the economic mechanisms required for these policies to succe...

We are always going to have emissions from growing food. There is no way agriculture can get to zero emissions. More than any other industry climate change affects agriculture and agriculture effects climate change. Britt Groosman leads efforts to decrease the environmental footprint of food production at the Environmental defense Fund (https://www.edf.org/). The initial focus are the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, the United States, China, India, and Europe. Her team concentrates on understanding where emissions come from, how these emissions affect farmers, rural communities, broader society, and nature, then identifying big leverage points for ch...

There is arguably more land under the management of people producing beef, sheep, and goats than under any other industry. Having access to all these people and the land they manage provides an opportunity to impact a significant percentage of the world’s land area. Creating the incentives to encourage and reward climate friendly and nature positive livestock management practices is both one of the greatest challenges and largest opportunities to limit global warming.

The Global Roundtable on Sustainable Beef (https://grsbeef.org/) has grown to include 24 countries across 12 Roundtables. In 2021 GRSB set three goals, to reduce th...

When Lance Baumgard first started working with the Arizona dairy industry, he quickly noticed the existing dogma around metabolic disease, inflammatory disease, and animal productivity didn’t stack up. Questioning why the aggressive attempts to treat metabolic disease over the previous 30 years had led to no reduction in disease incidence he concluded that the industry could be focusing on the symptoms rather than the cause.

Cellular health is key to maintaining productivity and profitability in agricultural systems. When Lance began leveraging cross species scientific data and adjusted his focus to infectious disease and the resulting inflammation, things st...

The concern is not just climate change itself but how climate change relates to other parts of our society. Our current political and societal system is not able to deal with the complex interactions between all the issues. Population growth, climate change, the pandemic, economic crisis, energy transition, supply chain disruption, and the conflict in Eastern Europe are all being dealt with reactively and as components, with security implications for our country and our region. 

Many current solutions being discussed amongst the agricultural community are at the tactical level, focusing on what a farmer should do without l...

When a delegate stood up and said to the audience “I just can’t understand why a strategy of cheap food could ever be wrong,” at a 1995 Common Agricultural Policy conference no one questioned the wisdom of this statement.  Almost 30 years later, this and other well ingrained paradigms are being re-evaluated. The big questions are whether cheap food is sufficiently valued by our society and how much does cheap food drive increased food waste. Current USDA estimates are that between 30-40% of food is wasted. This is a radicle change from only one generation ago where all table scraps and lef...

There’s a battle going on in the rumen of all cattle over hydrogen. When the methanogens are winning, livestock methane emissions rise, and milk and meat production decrease. When the acetogens win, milk and meat production increase, and methane emissions decline. The best opportunity available to limit the climate impact of our food systems and provide highly nutritious food to the world’s population is to resolve this hydrogen war within our cattle and sheep.

Professor Sharon Huws is a rumen microbiologist at Queens University Belfast who is leading global research teams working to develop solutions that...

High tech production systems can produce highly nutrient dense foods. Food processing is a technology, it’s an enabler. It’s the formulations that are usually the conundrum.  

Every component in food has an important role to play. There are thousands of biologically active compounds above and beyond the few dozen essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. These all work together to impact our health. We are only starting to scratch the surface on understanding how these all work together. A huge part of this is the interconnections between our heath and our microbiome. Whenever we eat, we are f...

One or two healthy chickens can significantly improve the health and prosperity of marginalized communities. Poultry recycle food scraps and garden waste, forage insects and worms to produce eggs which provide much needed protein and income. The Kyeema Foundation (https://kyeemafoundation.org/) is working with some of the world’s poorest communities to protect household poultry from disease. Kyeema started out vaccinating village chickens across Africa and the Pacific to protect them from disease. They have more recently expanded into restoring coral reefs and mangroves to revitalise local fisheries. 

 Small holder farmers provide food to around 80% of the...

Food, movement, social engagements, play, and stress.  These are all key drivers of how well our brain’s function and how cognitive function declines with age. It’s also the same for our dogs and cats. At a cellular level its largely about maintaining mitochondrial function, managing inflammation, and managing oxidative stress. What that means for the less technical of us is that exercise, social function, cognitive training, and a good diet are hitting multiple pathways in your brain to help it in 1000 different ways. To maintain cellular health in our brains we must feed our mitochondria and help our b...

Anastasia Volkova discusses sustainable farming, incentives for behavioural change, and  the importance of understanding the farming system when implementing regenerative agriculture. 

When it comes to sustainable food production, we are all responsible. 

The world forced farming to be this way because we wanted to support growth that is not sustainable. 

Regrow is the infrastructure for decision support and incentive exchange in sustainable agriculture. Regrow is working with farmers and food supply chains across over 200 million acres in 45 countries to reduce the climate impact of agriculture and improve yield resistance. 

I rec...

The effects of antibiotic use in livestock are far greater than the human health impacts of antimicrobial resistance. It is estimated that 90% of the antibiotics given to livestock end up in the soil. Despite these antibiotics no longer being detectable in manure they still significantly impact the soil microbiome. Research shows that these antibiotics reduce the ability of the soil to capture and store carbon, and the ability of soil to respond to increased temperatures. Livestock manure and the soil are breeding grounds for antibiotic resistant microbes increasing the potential impact on human health. 

Dr Carl Wepking i...

Agriculture impacts climate change and climate change impacts agriculture. Dr Richard Eckard from the University of Melbourne has spent the last 20 years working on better understanding these interactions. In conversation, with Ash Sweeting, Richard discusses how today, changes in management practices can reduce livestock emissions by 10-15% and the potential for new products in development to reduce emissions by over 50%. Critical to enabling farmers to benefit from reduced emissions are the open source carbon accounting tools his team has developed, are maintaining, and deploying across industry. Richard also explores the nuances between emission reduction credit can be traded daily...

Joe McFadden Discusses – Collaboration, the value of existing research, innovative ways of leveraging the energy and passion of students to get the most of Cornell’s new respiratory chambers. 

Livestock sustainability is a much more complex issue than inhibiting methane production. Holistic solutions are needed that also maintain nutrient digestibility, reduce nitrogen pollution, maintain efficiency, are scalable across different production environments in the developed and developing world and are acceptable to the public. After coming to Cornell University in 2017 solving these critical issues have become the core focus of Prof. Joe McFadden. 

Corne...

We don’t understand what it is we are eating! Our health is directly connected to the soil health in which our food is grown.

Research is showing that the nutrient composition of foods can vary over 100 times between two identical looking food items. A tomato is not a tomato and an apple is not an apple. The research is showing that the greatest determinant  of nutrient density is cover cropping as part of the system. Livestock productions systems also greatly influence the nutrient composition of meat wth the quality and variability of pasture leading to an inc...

With $500 billion how would you design a completely new city and food system from scratch, to feed and house 3 million residents? The city of NEOM is being built on the Red Sea coast in Saudi Arabia. There are no legacy systems to deal with, no existing infrastructure that needs considering and maintaining. The city is literally rising out of the desert and you have an open book when it comes to planning sustainable food production and linking that with sustainable energy and water use. Funded by the Saudi Sovereign Wealth with an aim of 100% renewable energy and no ultilzation...

Could nature provide a map to greatly reduce the climate impact of animal agriculture. Dr Athol Klieve has spent his career researching the microbiome of ruminants and kangaroos and why ruminants produce methane and kangaroos do not. In our conversation Athol also explains how there are no identifiable patterns in nature as to why a particular species produces methane or does not produce methane and that with us humans, some of us produce methane and some of us don’t. The exciting thing is that the current situation is not fixed, things can be changed. 

Athol also del...

Harry Lawson runs Australia’s largest Angus seed stock business. Lawson Angus (www.lawsonsangus.com.au) sells 1000 bulls annually across all states. While working to breed cattle that bridge the sustainability demands of beef consumers with the productivity requirements of his beef producing customers, he realized that collaboration among highly educated and skilled young people is critical. Sustainability and productivity are not mutually exclusive but much of the current thinking is moving the whole industry in the wrong direction.  

The issue is that very few people actually understand the whole livestock production system, biologically these systems are ver...

For the billions of people living on less than $5 a day the only available option with rising food prices is to buy less food. It’s easy to blame this current crisis on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, when you look at things more deeply there are bigger issues at play. The coupling of fuel price and food prices is crippling food systems for many of the world’s poorest people. On top of this are growing impact of climate change and the flow on market effects of countries locking up food and energy reserves for their own perc...

Agriwebb arguably has visibility over more head of livestock and acres of grazing and farmland than anyone else with over 20 million sheep and cattle and 125 million acres being managed through their systems.  Agriwebb is now working with their customers to reduce carbon emissions. A key aspect of Agriwebb’s success is that by becoming the trusted partner of farmers and ranchers, who are collecting large amounts of production data, they can create a digital paper trail that makes it easier to target value adding certifications such as carbon neutral beef or participate in carbon sequestration schemes. 

AgriWebb stro...

Dr Matthias Hess has been spearheading the assessment of compounds and feed additives for their impact on cattle methane emissions in the United States. Matthias is a microbiologist in the department of animal science at UC Davis where he has spent the last 8 years looking into the ruminant microbiome to better understanding how these different microbes breakdown complex plant materials into smaller molecules that can be utilized by the animal.

Matthias current work is leading research focused on understanding the biochemistry of how these microbes convert plant materials into small molecules that can be utilized by the...