Strengthening its commitment to Working Together for a Planet of Plenty™, Alltech Crop Science has acquired Ideagro, based in Murcia, Spain. This partnership joins two leading platforms to accelerate soil and crop research, and to enhance biological and other microorganism-based offerings to Alltech Crop Science customers throughout the world.

“We are excited to announce that Ideagro has joined the Alltech Crop Science global team, providing us with a partner who shares our vision and significantly scaling our research capabilities,” said Andy Thomas, CEO of Alltech Crop Science. "This is the strengthening of a longstanding partnership. We have worked closely with the Ideagro team since their founding 11 years ago.”

Ideagro is a leader in agri-food research and development with a team of more than 20 scientists. It is committed to improving the productivity and profitability of agricultural systems. Its expertise in developing beneficial organisms for soil aids the growth of crops, reduces the impact of chemical inputs and helps plants to resist biotic and abiotic stress. Ideagro’s analytical capabilities, with special emphasis on in-vitro research, phytopathology, soil dynamics and microorganisms, further enable growers to identify microorganisms and quantify enzymatic activity in the soil.

“We are facing a great growth opportunity for Ideagro because we are going to have better means and more technological capacity to develop our research, which will now have a global projection,” said Pedro Palazón, CEO of Ideagro. “We will no longer only study the soils of the Iberian Peninsula, but we will work with soils from all over the world to achieve more sustainable and environmentally friendly agriculture.”

Ideagro has state-of-the-art laboratories and experimental research stations and fields for carrying out trials in Spain. To date, the company has researched more than 90 different crops and performed more than 10,000 physicochemical and biological analyses. This has led to the development of new agricultural strategies based on microorganisms.

Ideagro’s three laboratories are fully equipped with the latest technologies to focus on nutraceuticals, phytopathology, research and development and molecular biology. Its services include:

• Precise diagnoses, identification and semi-quantification of more than 290 microorganisms at the species level in different crops. Through the development of multispecific detection kits, it can simultaneously detect up to 40 pathogenic microorganisms in a single sample, with results in 24-48 hours.
• Molecular identification of microorganisms as well as genetic characterization of specific strains and determination of pathotypes of a pathogen.
• Analysis of nematodes.
• Design of specific probes for specific microorganisms. As a result, Ideagro is able to detect specific microorganisms in soil, water, plant material and biostimulants.
• Mycotoxin analyses. With more than 15,000 analyses carried out to date, Ideagro can identify and quantify the risks of aflatoxin B1, fumonisins, zearalenone and deoxynivalenol trichothecenes and T2 toxin. It provides monthly data on mycotoxin contamination in animal feed and in the main crops of the Spanish and European markets.

Ideagro is accredited by MAPAMA (EOR 82/13) and has ISO 9001:2015 certification. In June 2021, it was named a Reference Regional Laboratory by GLOSOLAN, the Global Soil Laboratory division of the FAO.

“The combination of the Ideagro expertise with the reach and scale of Alltech will allow us to extend world-leading understanding of the interface between soil, crop, animal and human health to the global market,” said Andy Thomas, CEO of Alltech Crop Science. “The potential implications of these insights cannot be understated as we endeavor to improve the vitality of our global food system, from the ground up.”

For more information about Alltech Crop Science, visit alltech.com/crop-science.

Feed is expensive — especially the grains that serve as the major energy source in most finishing rations for beef cattle. With this expense on the rise, nutritionists work hard to make sure that their feedlot rations for beef cattle are high-quality feeds that support weight gain and feed conversion efficiency. 

Energy is a key element to consider when developing a feed to promote weight gain in beef cattle. Both grains and forages contain energy that is useful when finishing beef cattle. Grains are considered high-energy feeds because the energy in grains comes largely from starch. Starch is composed of glucose chains, which can easily be broken down by rumen microorganisms. The structural components of forage — such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin — surround the nutrients with complex linkages. Rumen microbes can’t always break these linkages, however, limiting the availability of energy in the forage. This is particularly true for feedlot cattle, as the ruminal pH of feedlot cattle is less than optimal for fibrolytic microorganisms, resulting in reduced fiber digestion.

When thinking of these structural components, imagine them as locks protecting the energy and nutrients in feedstuffs. Enzymes — which are either endogenous, from the microbial population, or the exogenous enzymes in feed additives — can break apart these protective structural components, unlocking both the potential of feeds and the potential of the cattle being fed.

Enzymes can make a difference in finishing cattle

The scientific literature shows inconsistent results for enzyme use in beef cattle diets. However, this is likely due to the wide variety of enzymes that have been tested, the vast array of feedstuffs that have been used in experimental diets, and the kind of data that has been recorded. For example, cattle grazing cool-season versus tropical grasses have different enzymatic needs, because those grasses have different chemical compositions. The same goes for cattle consuming corn silage versus barley-based finishing diets. This is especially true in diets that utilize byproducts, as the most easily accessible nutrients have generally already been extracted by the initial industry that processed the material.

• Starch-based diets: Corn, barley
• Forage-based diets: Corn silage, barley silage, hay and grasses
• Byproducts in diets: Corn gluten meal, distillers grains, cottonseed hulls, etc.

The rumen is a complex, enzyme-rich environment. The microbes of the rumen can break down most components of foods — but the extent and speed of this breakdown is often a limiting factor for nutrient release. A common question when discussing rumen efficiency is: Can a small enzyme addition really make a change in rumen function and feed digestion?

For an enzyme to be effective, several factors need to be met:

• It must fill a gap in feed digestion not met by the existing microbiota.
• The type of linkage it opens must be present in the feed.
• The enzyme needs to be stable in stored and mixed feed.
• The enzyme must be active at rumen temperature and pH.
• It must be able to survive in the feed.

Returning to the lock-and-key metaphor about enzymes, any enzyme added to a diet must fit the “locks” on the components of that diet.

How do you measure enzyme efficacy in finishing cattle?

Measuring the effects and value of enzymes can be tricky. Often, researchers expect an increase in the rate or extent of digestion for a particular diet component — and sometimes, they are right. Other times, however, the enzyme acts in an unanticipated way, such as changing the rate of passage to promote feed intake, shifting the metabolites available to microbes in the rumen, or even affecting downstream metabolic processes. If researchers are not measuring these actions, they may conclude that the enzyme had no effect, when in reality, they were simply looking in the wrong direction and missed the action of the enzyme. As such, in enzyme research, it is important to look beyond intake, weight gain and feed conversion and to measure a wide range of parameters to fully capture the effects and mechanisms of a given enzyme. 

Outside of the scientific realm, it’s important to recognize what you expect an enzyme to do when it is added to the diet. Here are a few common reasons for utilizing enzymes:

• By incorporating enzymes into your finishing rations for beef cattle, you may be able to utilize lower-cost ingredients in the diet while still experiencing equal performance.
• Enzymes can help improve feed efficiency in feedlot cattle without making any other changes to the diet.
• Getting more pounds on your animals can be possible with enzymes. Certain enzymes can support superior carcass weight. More pounds per day = more dollars.
• Some enzymes reduce digesta viscosity, which can contribute to better post-ruminal nutrient absorption and support digestive health. Get the most out of your rations.

Look at your cattle’s diet and your goals for your operation. Could enzymes help you reach those goals?

There are enzyme options available — just know your goals

Most research on cattle focuses on tweaking existing procedures, feeding plans, etc. Researching enzymes takes years of trial and error, on both the benchtop and in the animal, to find effective, cost-efficient, scalable options. This type of research is slow but generates the knowledge that can lead to new insights and technologies that allow us to maximize feed efficiency in feedlot cattle. New enzymes are popping up regularly. If you choose to utilize these additives in your feedlot rations, be sure that they are effective on the ration ingredients you use and will provide the results you want in your operation. Consult with your nutritionist or an Alltech representative below to learn more about how enzymes can work in your operation.

I want to learn more about nutrition for my beef cattle.

Modern aquaculture is changing and adapting rapidly. The sector is in its infancy compared to other areas of agriculture; however, this provides the opportunity to adjust quickly when necessary. Climate change is forcing the global food industry to find ways to be more sustainable, and the aquaculture industry has spent many years campaigning for change to ensure longevity and sustainability for future generations.  

It is necessary to look outside of our comfort zone to ensure that we are protecting our oceans and the aquatic species that live in them. At the same time, we must also provide food security for over 3 billion people who rely on seafood for their diet and employment and support its role in ending hunger and addressing malnutrition.

1. Protecting our oceans

In 2016, the National Academy of Science, USA, predicted 50% of stocks could be sustainable by 2050. The last decade has seen considerable developments in fishery management limits, species quotas and reduced bycatch through advances in fishing gear and technological equipment. NGOs such as the Marine Stewardship Council have worked tirelessly to improve this situation, and globally, there is amazing conservation work taking place to ensure that aquaculture and fisheries are becoming more sustainable.

Aquaculture is becoming more resource-efficient in terms of aquafeed, energy and water management. Indoor and land-based technologies are reducing water usage and gas emissions. By 2030, 62% of food fish will come from aquaculture (FAO). Sustainable aquaculture is part of the solution and will be the key to providing future generations access to healthy and sustainable protein options and employment opportunities.

This is the part where each of us, as individuals, plays a role in protecting our oceans. We have a responsibility, we all play a part in climate change and we need to work together if we are to influence current practices.

What can we do to support this?

• We can support companies, stores and restaurants that use sustainably sourced fish and seafood.
• We can research our choices to ensure we are choosing the most sustainable option to reduce environmental impact.

2. Fish in fish out (FIFO)

Modern aquaculture has seen a significant shift in the last decade in terms of nutrition. Marine ingredients in aquafeed still exist, but some aquafeeds are made free of any marine resources while still maintaining the health benefits associated with omega 3 fatty acids and oils. The evolution of nutrition has allowed for the FIFO ratio to decrease significantly. The global FIFO factor for our industry is 0.27, which means we need 270 grams of wild-caught fish to produce 1 kilogram of farmed fish. This is calculated by dividing the fish caught for aquaculture feed production use by the farmed fish fed with these feeds. Looking at Alltech Coppens, the 2020 FIFO ratio was 0.10%, and 100% of the fishmeal sourced was from trimmings and/or certified.

3. Food security

The 2021 FAO cites the importance of seafood for ending hunger and addressing malnutrition, and fish remains critical for food and nutritional security in so many geographies across the world. To cut out eating fish entirely would wipe out some rural communities who rely on fishing for their livelihood and primary protein source.

Sustainable fishing must be implemented and promoted; fish stocks can recover and replenish when carefully managed for the long term. One of the greatest challenges we face in agriculture is to produce enough food for the increasing population while ensuring a plentiful and sustainable environment for future generations. Our population is growing exponentially, and we cannot continue to produce proteins in an unsustainable manner. This is not a new learning; both the agriculture and aquaculture industries have recognized this, and significant innovations and developments have been made over the past decade. Years of research have been invested in ensuring minimal impact on surrounding environments. Sustainable aquaculture is part of the solution, not the problem, with 62% of food fish coming from aquaculture by 2030 (FAO). This will be the key to providing future generations access to healthy and sustainable protein options and employment opportunities.

As an industry, we have been campaigning and will continue to campaign for change for many years on some of the industry’s most important challenges. It is now up to each of us to educate ourselves and our communities to make the most sustainable food choices. We must take part for the change to have an impact.

I want to learn more about aquaculture nutrition.

Rob Saik, CEO of AGvisorPRO, believes that the next thirty years could be the most important in the history of agriculture, and he claims that in order to support the global population in 2050, agriculture will have to become infinitely sustainable. Listen in as he explains his vision of farming technology and how innovation is the key to sustainable agriculture.

The following is an edited transcript of the Ag Future podcast episode with Rob Saik hosted by Tom Martin. Click below to hear the full audio.

Tom:                      Rob Saik is a professional agrologist and a certified agricultural consultant. He is CEO of AGvisorPRO, an agricultural connectivity platform, and CEO of Saik Management Group, which provides advisory services to farmers in the agricultural sector.

                               Rob is the author of two books, “The Agriculture Manifesto” and his latest, “Food 5.0: How We Feed the Future.” And Rob joins us from Olds, Alberta, north of Calgary.

                               Greetings, Rob.

Rob:                        Good to be on your show, Tom. Thanks for having me.

Tom:                      And Rob, so, as we all know — we’re here on the phone as proof of it — we’re in the midst of a pandemic at the moment, and its effects are rolling over (into) just about every aspect of life. But you argue that we may have lost historical perspective where outbreaks of infectious diseases are concerned. Can you elaborate on that?

Rob:                        Well, the opening line of my book, “Food 5.0,” is, “This morning, when you woke up, did you worry about a pandemic?” And that book was released in August of last year, so it’s highly prophetic. But when you put our world into context, Tom, and you just look back a hundred years, the Spanish flu took out over 50 million people off the planet Earth a hundred years ago.

                               Simultaneously, World War I had just ended, and somewhere north of 15 million people had lost their lives in the World War I. And also, at this time a hundred years ago, the Persian famine had taken out 2 million and climbing people, and this was just ahead of the Stalin-imposed famines in Ukraine that took out somewhere between 12 and 16 million people.

                               So, when you put what we’re dealing with today into context of where we were a hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago, even though we’re faced with a great deal of challenge today, we live in a much, much better place than we did even fifty or a hundred years ago. And I think that we should pause and reflect on how good we actually have it.

Tom:                      Okay. Let’s turn to farming. In your book, you proposed that the next thirty years could be the most important in the history of agriculture, which is quite a statement. Why do you believe this?

Rob:                        Well, I was born in 1960, and you know, we experienced, in my lifetime, a dramatic increase in the population of the planet, and we fed everybody. (The ideas of) people like Norman Borlaug and science and agriculture was adopted around the planet, and you know, we don’t have that much more land base in agriculture than we did twenty or thirty years ago, and yet, we’re feeding everybody.

                               But if you stare into the future, as the population grows from 7.6 to 9 or 9.5 billion on the planet by 2050, these are some of the facts: We have to grow 10,000 years worth of food in the next thirty years. We have to increase food production everywhere on the planet by 60–70%. That’s everywhere on the planet, and that puts extreme pressure on exporting nations like the United States and Canada and Australia and so on and so forth. And we have to do so in the face of a public that is extremely disconnected from agriculture, and a public that’s being fed misinformation on a daily basis, leading to panic, leading to policies by politicians that are stripping tools out of agriculture’s hands.

So, the reason that I am so concerned about the next thirty years — and the reason I believe it’s going to be so challenging — is because we’re not connected to agriculture as a society like we used to (be), and so, a lot of people are out advocating the stripping away of tools from agriculture. And if we did that, then I’m fearful for our ability to feed the planet.

On the other hand, with the glass half full, if we’re allowed to adopt the technologies that we’re seeing implemented all around us, then I’m quite optimistic that we can have a world of abundance to 2050 and beyond.

Tom:                      Okay. I want to get back to that disconnect that you mentioned between the public’s understanding of what goes into farming in just a few minutes. But you just made an eye-opening observation: that to support a population close to 10 billion by 2050, agriculture is going to have to become infinitely sustainable. What do you mean by that?

Rob:                        Well, in the book, I talk about, you know, food as a religion — and it has turned into a religion. Veganism, vegetarianism, whether it’s paleo or meat-atarians, or organic and non-GMO — and you can get into an argument with everybody about the truth, the light and the way. But if you put up your hands and say, “Can we all agree (that), so long as there are human beings on the planet, agriculture must be infinitely sustainable?” Well, that stops people from talking, and they start nodding their head, and then they agree.

                               Well, what would make agriculture infinitely sustainable? What are the factors? And then they really scratch their head, because they have to do something they haven’t done for quite a while: they have to think, and eventually, things like soil health come up, because the epidermis of the earth is soil that feeds us all.

                               Water. Yeah, water use efficiency is important. Eventually, (the) greenhouse gas balance comes out. So, being able to mitigate, remove, reduce greenhouse gasses from agriculture. And then they forget one, and the one they forget the most, it is the most important, and that’s farm viability. Because without viable farms, without farms that are making a profit, without farmers that are advancing themselves year after year business-wise, you have zero sustainability.

                               So, the first step in sustainability, infinite sustainability, is farm viability and then we look at soil, water and greenhouse gas balance.

Tom:                      History has shown us that these pandemics tend to come in waves of three, typically, with the second wave (being) the most serious (and) the third decreasingly so, as herd immunity finally begins to catch on. How do we feed a soaring world population with an unchecked virus on the loose?

Rob:                        Well, I think this is going to put tremendous pressure on our food — not necessarily food production, but food distribution channels. People react to seeing dairy farmers dump milk. Well, the reality is that there’s no food bank out there that can take a 6,000-gallon tanker full of raw milk; (a) it’s illegal, and (b) it’s unsafe. So we have to find a way to be able to manage, and we’ve done that. We’ve developed food supply systems that could take large amounts of agricultural produce, turning them into safe, abundant and inexpensive food for the populace.

So, I think one of the things that we’re really going to be challenged with as we consider what might happen with a second round of infection will be how we deal with the supply sector, the logistics, the processing sector. I think this will be a challenge for us. I think that it will open up opportunities for people to become more closely connected to agriculture; maybe people will plant gardens, maybe people will start to connect with local producers. I don’t believe that’s the answer to feeding New York City or Los Angeles, but at the same time, I do think that there’s an opportunity (with) COVID to have a greater conversation about the importance of agriculture and, perhaps, with a greater population, to connect (with it) more closely.

But I do scratch my head a little bit as to the challenge we’re going to face. If the second wave gets worse, how are we going to deal with, you know, meat packing plants and milk processing facilities, distribution and transportation, and grocery stores? All of those things are questions in my mind.

Tom:                      It’s a little bit difficult for us to wrap our minds around now, but eventually, COVID-19 will be in the rearview mirror. We all have faith in that, I think. So I’m wondering: What do you see out there? What do you foresee for agriculture in a post-COVID world?

Rob:                        Well, the first thing is that, you know, you alluded to it in your question, and that is that we anticipate there will be a cure for COVID. Now, that cure for COVID will likely come in the form of a vaccine. I don’t think anybody’s arguing that, that it’s likely to come in a vaccine. So, how will the vaccine have been built? How will it have been invented? Well, that vaccine will have been invented through genetic engineering. GMOs? Oh my God! We’re talking about genetic engineering, manipulation of genome — something that’s “not natural”. Well, if you realized that the likely cure for COVID will be a vaccine, then genetic engineering will be at the heart of that whole process. That genetic engineering science is exactly the same science being implemented in agriculture.

                               So, in a post-COVID world, I’m hoping that the population will begin to wake up and realize that the science involved in human genomics, in medicine, in vaccine invention, is the same science being employed by agriculture. And in the face of climate change, in the face of greater salinity, in the face of rapidly increased food production, in the face of trying to decrease the environmental footprint by farming to feed the planet, then genetic engineering is one of the technologies that we absolutely must embrace.

                               The other thing that I see is a way, a new way, for agriculture to communicate. And so, we’ve started a firm called AGvisorPRO, which is a platform, a connectivity platform. It can be downloaded in iOS and Android and desktop, and that platform, effectively, can put experts on the farm without having to be on the farm. So, we found a way to basically shrink time and space and provide seekers who need answers to questions (with) instantaneous connectivity to experts in the agricultural industry who can provide some solutions to their problems.

                               I think we’re going to see quite a few innovations — everything from increased sensor technology, call it the Internet of Things, on the farm, all the way through the connectivity devices that will be kind of a legacy through this COVID experience.

Tom:                      Would you agree that the farmer of the 21^st century must be a scientist, must be a technologist, to compete and to stay in business? And I wonder if — you mentioned the disconnect between what the general public understands about farming today and what the reality of farming really is. Why should we be concerned about such a disconnect?

Rob:                        Well, we should be concerned about the disconnect because we live in a democracy, and theoretically, everybody has a vote. And if you put the issues of GMO, yes or no, to a vote of the public right now, the public, through ignorance, would vote “down with GMOs.” If you put pesticides, yes or no, to a vote, the public, through ignorance, would vote “down with pesticides.” Same thing with fertilizers. So, the danger is that, when you have a public that’s so disconnected from the realities of agriculture today, you have policies that are generated out of panic and ignorance rather than out of knowledge and wisdom and an understanding of science.

                               Today’s farms — I just completed a yearlong stint as CEO with DOT autonomous robotic company. So, DOT Technology Corporation, out of Regina, Saskatchewan, is a 100% autonomous robotic platform to broad-acre agriculture. It’s utilizing all of this technology that you would find in a Tesla car. We’re using radar, LiDar, we’re using motion sensors, we’re using massive computing power to basically run machines across land without any operator, 100% guided by GIS or satellite guidance, doing things such as variable rate application of fertilizer as they move across the field 100% autonomously.

                               I mean, when you think about that, you think that that’s sci-fi world; it’s not. You can go online right now and see all sorts of developments with robotic technology. That will be another outcome of COVID, is where we can utilize robots to reduce human interaction regarding repetitive work. Robots are very well-suited for dull, dangerous and dirty work. A lot of agriculture (is) dull, dangerous and dirty work, so we’re going to see that rise.

                               And so, when you think about genetic engineering and you think about internet sensor technology, massive computing power, data systems, robotics, satellite integration — most people that are in the city think of farmers as bib overall-wearing, straw hat-wearing, you know, little red barns and round-fendered pickup trucks. Well, those two images don’t match. There’s a disconnect there between what’s going on in the farm today and what people have in their head as their great-grandfather’s or grandfather’s farm. It is not the same thing. That’s, like, History channel-made.

Tom:                      That’s a lot to wrap one’s head around, and it’s fascinating. And I just wonder: What are the cultural implications of that sort of technology, and especially the autonomous aspect of it? How does that change a farmer’s life in terms of what it frees them up to do?

Rob:                        Well, we have a problem in agriculture — and your listeners are, probably, if they’re from the rural landscape, they would understand this; city listeners won’t understand this — but we have an acute labor shortage in agriculture today. It’s estimated that, in the next few years, in Canada, we’ll have 125,000 job vacancies at the farm level that simply can’t be filled. And the problem is finding qualified operators. Every piece of equipment today on the farm is north of $500,000, and many of them are over $1 million. And so, you have to have trained operators.

                               And because farmers live in remote areas, there are a number of sociological things going on. Number one is (that) the average age of farmers is like 60 years old. Sooner or later, Mother Nature takes care of things, and these people have to sell their farming operations to attrition, so whosever is left is getting bigger. So farms, because of economy scale, will continue to get larger. That’s a fact. The equipment costs go up. That’s a fact.

                               Trying to get young people attracted back into agriculture, back onto the farm — the thought of spending sixteen hours a day in a glass cage in a self-guided tractor is cool for the first couple of days, but after about three weeks of that, you’re going insane. So, why can’t we utilize robots and sophisticated sensory technology to allow us to scale our knowledge and wisdom? Why can’t we use aerial imagery or satellite imagery to do field scouting for us? Do we have to really be walking corn and soybean fields, every acre, to find out what’s going on? Or a company like IntelinAir, for example, is doing a wonderful job of using algorithms and analytics to provide alerts to farmers about what’s going on in fields in Illinois right now.

So, this is — this is where we’re headed, and it creates tremendous opportunity for young people to enter agriculture as systems integrators. We need these various systems integrated together so that we can take advantage of the technology and move farmers forward. But, again, everything that I’m talking about is quite a disconnect from what the average person thinks is actually going on in today’s agriculture

Tom:                      We’ve touched on convergence throughout this conversation, and the one that really captures my attention is biodigital technology. How does this example of convergence become an important tool in farming?

Rob:                        Well, as I wrote the book “Food 5.0,” I said (that) I think there’s five iterations of agriculture. There’s the age of muscle, the age of machine, the age of chemistry, the age of biotechnology or genetic engineering, and the age of convergence.

                               And as I think about that, there’s two kinds of things that, really, we’ve been living through in the past two, three, four decades. And one of them is Moore’s Law, which most people are familiar with, which is the doubling of computing power and the decrease of computing cost by half every, you know, six to eighteen months. Moore’s Law.

                               That has been predicated upon something called binary code — 1s and 0s. Again, most people would have an understanding of binary code. What about genetic code? And what happens when we combine binary code with genetic code? What happens when the new language of programming really moves from binary code over to As, Ts, Cs and Gs, which are the four proteins that make up genetic complex? So, what happens when the new programming really becomes one of As, Ts, Cs and Gs? How do we intersect bio with digital? So, bio-digital technology is going to result in the generation of brand-new crops, brand new food types.

For example, a company out of Minnesota right now, called Calyxt, is using a TALEN technology that’s creating soybeans that have high oleic oil content in the soybeans, over 80% high oleic oil. Now, you may be wondering what that means. Well, everybody buys olive oil because they think it’s Mediterranean, it’s healthy, while olive oil is 69% high oleic oil, but soybeans through Calyxt are 80%. So, all of a sudden,  we have a brand-new food coming from a conventional crop that’s been derived through bio-digital technology. 

I can go on with all sorts of examples of new crops. But one of the things that I think your listeners will be fascinated by is the burgeoning or the emerging science of nutrigenomics. And nutrigenomics is where you take your human genome — and I’ve had my genome sequenced — and through the course of time, you start to identify food attributes that are important in my genome. So, you, Tom, would have your genome sequenced, and there’d be foods that would be more and others that would be less beneficial to your specific genome.

                               So, when the cost of genomic mapping starts dropping, where every human being has their genome sequenced, we can start to map out and match food to the human being, and that’s going to open up, I think, some really interesting opportunities for agriculture based on attribute-based tracking.

                               In other words, if we could grow a wheat crop high in selenium, and (if) you were predisposed to prostate cancer, then maybe the bread that you eat should be a high-selenium-derived bread. So, these are things that are going on inside of my head, and I think it paints a pretty exciting future of how we’re going to create this bio-digital technology convergence.

Tom:                      Yes, nutrigenomics is quite a focus of Alltech, as a matter of fact. It was a favorite focus of the late Dr. Pearse Lyons and is being carried on today.

                               Let’s get back to AGvisorPRO for just a second. I want to ask you about that app. And let’s say I’ve got it on my phone. What’s it going to do for me?

Rob:                        I built a company called Agri-Trend and Agri-Data that was acquired by Trimble. That was a twenty-year journey for me, and Agri-Trend was acquired by Trimble, and I began to think about, “If I was going to build the consulting firm all over again, how would I do it?” And the answer is: I wouldn’t. What I would do is build a connectivity platform.

                               And so, AGvisorPRO, (if you) think about it, is as a mash-up of eHarmony together with Uber and FaceTime and Twitter. If you mash all of those things together, I think you have the idea. AGvisorPRO         is the Uberization of knowledge and wisdom. We are creating a connectivity matrix between seekers, people who want answers and experts, people who can provide answers now. And so, this interconnectivity matrix involves farmers and independent advisors and industry and government and the public.

                               And so, you would download AGvisorPRO on iOS or Android or desktop, and you would fill out a profile of your agricultural expertise or your farming operation — and it’s free. So you download (it), and we have several ways that you can connect. The first is we have an industry offer called TechDirect. So, industry partners would list their company, their proprietary products or services and their graphs, and a farmer can type in a company like Taurus Ag and instantaneously be connected to the technical representatives of Taurus. So, no 1-800 number, and it’s all free for the user.

                               Additionally, a farmer might want to talk to a sprayer expert. We have a renowned sprayer expert in Canada. His name is Tom Wolf. He’s an independent advisor. He doesn’t need his brain picked; he needs his brain paid for. So, you would say, “I’ve got a question about spraying,” and you would find Tom, the algorithm would match you up to Tom. And you would say, “Okay, so it’s going to be $60 for the session.” You say yes, just like you do with Uber, and you’re instantaneously connected with Tom. You have your conversation; he answers your questions. The session is archived for your future reference. You’re allowed to rate the session, just like you do with Uber, and then you can connect that session to social media, if you like.

So, we built all of that. All of that has been built. And Tom, this was built starting in 2019. So, we’ve been working on this for over a year. And, lo and behold, COVID hits in March, and we knew the winds of change were blowing, so we had set our sails to capture that changing wind and how we’re going to communicate in agriculture.

But AGvisorPRO is set for this COVID and this post-COVID world. We’re effectively stretching brains and not bodies, and we’re helping people monetize knowledge and wisdom. And so, that’s, in a nutshell, what we’ve been able to do with AGvisorPRO.

Tom:                      Well, that is absolutely fascinating.

Rob:                        It’s cool, yeah.

Tom:                      Rob Saik, author of “Food 5.0: How We Feed the Future.” Rob, maybe we’ll get to meet next year in Lexington at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference.

Rob:                        Well, you know, I was thrilled to be involved in the ONE Virtual Experience by Alltech. Alltech has got a great reputation as a leader in the agriculture sector, and the virtual experience was a blast. And I’m still dealing with questions from the session that was online. However, I think I’m looking forward to getting to Kentucky and being part of the live event, where you rub shoulders with — literally rub shoulders with — some of the greater thinkers in agriculture.

                               So, thank you for having me on your podcast, Tom.

Tom:                      Well, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

                               I’m Tom Martin, and this has been AgFuture, presented by Alltech. And thank you for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to AgFuture wherever you listen to podcasts.

As people around the world adjust their lifestyles to social distancing restrictions, it’s more important than ever to keep our lives in balance and our health in check. As a registered dietician and director of human health initiatives at Alltech, Nikki Putnam-Badding is an expert on supporting immunity and well-being through nutrition. Join us as she shares her tips for eating healthy, shopping efficiently and maintaining a sense of normalcy during the pandemic.

Hosted by Michelle Michael

As lead video producer at Alltech, Michelle travels the globe for the company’s award-winning Planet of Plenty™ documentary series. Michelle spent a decade as a video producer/reporter in Germany, reporting from military hotspots at the height of the war on terrorism. The National Press Photographer's Association (NPPA) has twice recognized Michelle as their solo video journalist of the year.

Co-produced by Brandon Whitworth

As the senior media production specialist at Alltech, Brandon co-produces the company’s award-winning Planet of Plenty™ documentary series. Brandon is a two-time Emmy Award winning television news photojournalist and three-time nominee. He has received several regional awards from the National Press Photographers Association for excellence in visual storytelling.

The following is an edited transcript of Michelle Michael’s interview with Nikki Putnam-Badding. Click below to hear the full audio.

Michelle:       Hello! I'm Michelle Michael. In this special series of AgFuture, we're talking with those working along the food supply chain about the impact of COVID-19. My guest today is Nikki Putnam Badding, a registered dietician and, also, a colleague of mine. Nikki is the director of human initiatives at Alltech. Nikki, thank you so much for being with us today.

Nikki:              Thanks for having me, Michelle.

Michelle:       Let's talk about self-care. This pandemic, it can feel overwhelming. People are dealing with information overload, long work hours, caring for family during those work hours and a whole host of other things. It's important, though, I think, to pause for a moment, collect ourselves and just admit that this is, at times, a taxing situation and it can impact our well-being. Is that right?

Nikki:              Absolutely.

Michelle:       As a dietitian, what concerns you most about people during this experience?

Nikki:              Well, as you mentioned, Michelle, this is a really challenging time for everyone. I think it's really easy to let that self-care slip on occasion. We're trying to focus on our new roles, on working from home, maybe taking care of children and other family members at the same time. Really, what we want to focus on from a nutrition and health perspective is choosing a healthy lifestyle for the short and long term for your overall health and wellness — so following general good health guidelines is really one of the single best steps you can take for yourself and to keep your naturally functioning immune system strong and healthy.

                        Every part of our body, including our immune systems, functions better when bolstered by healthy living strategies — for example, trying to quit smoking, if you're a smoker; eating a diet high in whole foods, like lean meats, seafood, dairy, whole grains, fruits, vegetables and healthy fats; continuing to exercise regularly, which can be really tough during a time like this; maintaining a healthy weight; drinking alcohol in moderation, and that'd be one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men; trying to get adequate sleep as much as we can; and also, trying to minimize our stress levels.

                        During this time, proper nutrition and hydration are absolutely vital. People who stay active, eat a well-balanced diet and take supplements as necessary tend to be healthier and have stronger immune systems, which is very important at a time like this, and (also have) a lower risk of chronic illnesses and infectious disease.

Michelle:       When you talk about strengthening our immune systems to fight off illness, can you talk a little bit more specifically about which nutrients or which foods we should be taking in to boost our immune system and stay well during this pandemic?

Nikki:              Sure thing. As I mentioned, good nutrition is essential to a strong immune system, and it may offer protection from seasonal illness and other health problems. Although no one food or supplement can prevent illness, you can actually help support your immune system by including some key nutrients in your overall eating plan on a regular basis. While, unfortunately, just eating one orange here or there won't do the trick, a truly healthy immune system depends on a balanced diet, normal sleep patterns and regular exercise.

                        A few nutrients that are known to help support a strong immune system are protein, interestingly enough, which plays a role in the body's immune system, especially for healing and recovery, and vitamin A, because it helps regulate the immune system and protect against infections by keeping our skin and the tissues in our mouth, stomach, intestines and respiratory system healthy. Vitamin C, the one we all know, supports the immune system by stimulating the formation of antibodies. Vitamin E works as an antioxidant and may support immune function as well. Vitamin D is in there; it promotes an immune response that helps defend your body against pathogens, and there's zinc, which helps the immune system work properly and can also help wounds heal. Finally, selenium, which has an absolutely crucial role in a wide variety of physiological processes, affecting immune response — and the immune system in general actually relies on adequate dietary selenium intake.

                        Though I usually tell people it's best to get most of your nutrition through food, a specific vitamin or mineral supplement may benefit your health and overall wellness in the instance that you're not reaching the recommended daily intake of a nutrient, or perhaps you're utilizing them as a part of a preventative health regimen.

Michelle:       And not just upping your nutrient intake, Nikki, but many of us are limiting the number of times that we would go to the supermarket to pick up fresh foods. What are some tips for healthy eating when we're minimizing our trips to the store or maybe even the selection is limited, in some cases, temporarily?

Nikki:              Yeah, that's a great point. I think purchasing, storing and cooking fresh food can be really challenging when we're advised to limit trips outside of the home, particularly to the supermarket, so my first recommendation would be to try to keep up as much as possible with that fruit and vegetable intake. Whenever it's possible to get ahold of fresh produce, do so, of course, but depending on where you live, what time of year it is and, now, as you've mentioned, the availability, due to interruptions in the supply chain or perhaps other people who are food hoarding, you can't always get your hands on high-quality, fresh produce, so the next best thing is frozen. Manufacturers most often freeze fruits and veggies at peak ripeness, which means they pack a similar nutritional value as their fresh counterparts. Just make sure you're choosing options without added sugar or sodium. You can also swap in healthy dried or canned alternatives when fresh or frozen are not available. Although canned vegetables and dried fruits do tend to be a bit lower in quantity of vitamins than fresh, they are a great fallback option when fresh produce or frozen are hard to come by.

                        I also like to mention that other canned items that are great to have on hand are canned beans, because they do provide an abundance of nutrients, and they can be stored for months, sometimes even years, and they can be included in meals in many ways. Same goes for canned fish, such as sardines, mackerel, salmon — they all provide great protein sources, omega-3 fatty acids and a range of vitamins and minerals — and then having some dried goods on hand is a good backup, like dried beans and grains. One last note on this front: I know it's really tempting to stock up on processed foods like ready-to-eat meals, packaged snacks and treats. They're often very high in saturated fats, sugars and salt and, at the same time, provide us with less nutrition. So, in that vein, also try to avoid sugary drinks as much as possible and, instead, drink lots of water and other low-calorie beverages.

Michelle:       I hear from you, certainly, that fresh is best, and I've talked to many growers or farmers who feel that perhaps people at this time are shying away from fresh produce because of a fear that COVID-19 can be spread through food. From you, from a dietitian — can you answer that question for us? Can this spread through food?

Nikki:              I'm really happy you asked that question, Michelle. First and foremost, I should note that, of course, I'm not an infectious disease expert, but following the basic guidelines of hygiene and food safety, it's very unlikely that the virus could be spread through food — but not entirely impossible, meaning that it's possible the virus can get onto or into food if someone who is infected coughs or sneezes on the food or has the virus on their hands and touches the food. But unlike bacteria that causes foodborne illnesses, coronavirus doesn't multiply on food. There's currently no evidence to suggest it can be transmitted through food or water systems, but a lot of experts are saying that sharing food and beverages during this time should be limited, and always continue proper home food safety.

Michelle:       Well, would it be safer, then, during this time, to — if you're buying fresh produce — would it be safer to cook it and consume it that way?

Nikki:              Potentially. I don't think consumers need to be fearful of eating fresh produce, raw fruits and vegetables, though it's possible that someone who is infected sneezed directly on a banana and you picked up that banana and touched your face. You could get infected, but you're much more likely to get infected by standing next to that person while shopping for that banana. That's why social distancing, putting at least that six feet of space between you and other people, is so important. Interestingly, about cooking, the World Health Organization has said that the virus is probably susceptible to normal cooking temperatures, so you don't need to cook food any differently than what you typically do for food safety. These experts are saying that cooking your food to the same temperatures required to kill pathogens that cause foodborne illness is also likely to kill COVID-19. That would be, as a reminder, 145°F for fresh pork, beef roast and fish; 160°F for egg dishes and other cuts of beef; and 165°F for poultry, ground beef, or reheating pre-cooked ham or leftovers or casseroles that might contain some of those pieces of fresh produce you mentioned.

Michelle:       If we are going to eat that raw produce, fruits and vegetables, are there certain precautions we need to take at this time — differently washing the fruits and vegetables than we would have before this pandemic?

Nikki:              At this time, many of the expert organizations are saying no, we don't need to take any different measures than we did before. Just make sure to thoroughly wash those fruits and vegetables when you get home.

I know there's a lot of questions out there, too, about (whether or not you can) pick up COVID-19 from food packaging. This is a question that the CDC actually addressed recently, and they're saying COVID-19 is primarily transmitted person to person through respiratory droplets, so currently, there is no evidence to support transmission of the virus through food. In general, because of the poor survivability of these viruses on surfaces, there is likely a very low risk of spread from food products or packaging, but that being said, if you touch something that has the virus on it — like a food package or produce or a package of meat — and then touch your nose, mouth or eyes, you could become infected. So, before preparing or eating food, it's important to always wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Also, just making sure you're wiping down those surfaces when you get home after you've picked up your groceries. Make sure, when you unpack your food, you just wipe everything down. Make sure you're tossing away those disposable bags, if they came in that, or washing your reusable bags immediately when you get home.

Michelle:       Good advice. Nikki, when it comes to plants, processing plants, farmers — a lot of times, those vegetables, they're picked by hand. A lot of that is done by hand. I know that they're practicing social distancing, but should we be concerned about food coming from areas where there is a high risk of COVID-19?

Nikki:              Actually, according to the Department of Agriculture's recent updates on COVID-19, they're saying there's no evidence to support transmission of the virus with any of those foods that had been either imported or transported throughout the country. It's important to remember that, unlike bacteria that causes foodborne illness, the virus, as I mentioned before, doesn't multiply on or in foods, and the current research shows that it can only survive for a very limited time on most surfaces. Most often, even if a product or packaging were carrying the virus or it was handpicked by someone who was infected and maybe had the virus on their hands, it would most likely die during transport. I think that can put a lot of consumers' minds at ease — although, as I previously mentioned, it's always just a good idea to keep following that (guideline to) wash your fresh fruits and veggies when you get them home from the store and wipe down that food packaging, just for that final line of defense.

Michelle:       We keep hearing about the importance of supporting local businesses, especially restaurants, during this time, as the bulk of their business is gone. They're only doing takeout right now or curbside pickup or delivery, but is that safe? Is it actually safe to get takeout and delivery from restaurants during a pandemic like this?

Nikki:              Yes, it is. I'm happy to hear that you mentioned supporting local businesses, particularly restaurants right now, when we can't dine in. The takeout and delivery from restaurants can actually be a very good alternative to obtaining food because, unlike grocery shopping, it really does greatly reduce the need to interact with other people. Most restaurants have instituted contactless delivery or pickup practices that allow people to either pre-pay for food or receive it without coming close to another person, which we know is the biggest risk factor for the disease, interacting closely with other people. If you are worried about bringing those foods into your home, to further reduce your risk, just transfer that food, that takeout, to a plate when you get home, dispose of the containers and then, again, always wash your hands before you eat — but it is a very good and, typically, very safe way to obtain food.

Michelle:       We keep hearing about the 65-and-up population (being) at an increased risk of COVID-19 at this time. I wonder, from a dietary point of view, somebody in that age bracket — does the immune system change with age, and does that age group have to eat differently?

Nikki:              Yes. As we age, our immune response capability becomes reduced, which, in turn, may contribute to more infections. While some people age healthily, the conclusion of many studies is that, compared with younger people, elderly folks are more likely to contract infectious diseases and viruses and are more likely to die from them. Interestingly, there appears to be an even stronger connection between nutrition and immunity in the elderly. A form of malnutrition that's actually surprisingly common, even in affluent countries, is known as micronutrient malnutrition. Micronutrient malnutrition occurs when a person is deficient in some of the essential vitamins and trace minerals that are obtained through diet. Older people often tend to eat less, and they have less variety in their diets. One important question is, perhaps, whether dietary supplements may help older people maintain a healthier immune system — something to be discussed with their doctor or dietitian.

Michelle:       I wonder, Nikki, if you can talk about why, during this time, (when) everybody's schedules are just changed suddenly, everybody's lives are just uprooted and nothing is normal, why is it so easy to get off-track, and what can we do to try to maintain some sort of normalcy from a dietary perspective?

Nikki:              Yeah. As you've mentioned, Michelle, it's so easy to get off-track during this time because our schedules are changed, and many of us have been forced into this change without any prior warning — working from home, taking care of children and family members from home — and everything's just been thrown out of whack. Some really important things, and fairly easy things, that you can do is just try to keep yourself on a regular schedule. Go back to thinking about what was your schedule for eating, grocery shopping, working out, trying to stay active, sleep — what were your tactics for minimizing stress before this? Try to pull in as much of those tactics as you can, because many of those you know already worked for you, and then try to change that around and make it fit your new schedule.

                        Those people who have kiddos at home: I think a really nice way to entertain kids and keep them busy is to involve them in mealtimes. Have more discussions about food. This is a fantastic time to talk about where food comes from, how it nourishes their body, and get them really involved in planning and preparation of food, and then try to do more things either as a family or, if you don't have kiddos, just get outside when possible and where it's safe to spend some time moving around. There are also a lot of really great online resources where you can find at-home workouts. I recommend that to a lot of people, even if you do it for ten minutes a day. It's just a nice way to keep moving.

Try to stay to a normal work and sleep schedule. It can be very difficult while we're working from home to step away from our computers and close everything down like a normal eight-to-five or nine-to-five business, because our office is right there, so try to make sure you're stepping away for breakfast, lunch, dinner, maybe even snacks, if you can, just to get a break from the computer and a break from work, and try to go back to some normalcy.

Michelle:       If you've never had time to prepare your own meals, to fall in love with cooking, it seems like this might be a good opportunity, even.

Nikki:              Certainly. I've seen that there are a lot of YouTube channels that are jumping in popularity. There's one I really enjoy: it's Italian grandmothers making old Italian recipes and pasta. I've seen their viewership just skyrocket recently because people are taking a new interest in preparing things from scratch, or some of those YouTube channels that are showing people how to just start cooking from the very beginning. As you've mentioned, there's no better time than now to start learning.

Michelle:       Nikki, do you have any other recommendations for keeping our food and keeping our kitchens safe?

Nikki:              Yeah. First and foremost, when you're going out for food, just a reminder, wear a mask and gloves when you're going out for food, to get groceries or picking up takeaway meals, and if you do use reusable grocery bags, masks or gloves, make sure you wash them immediately upon returning home. That's really important — or use single-use bags or disposable protective equipment during this time. We can't stop hearing this, but wash your hands regularly, as recommended by countless international organizations, plus before preparing and eating food. Even if you picked up your phone while you're eating lunch, make sure you wash your hands again, because a lot of those viruses and contaminants can stay on phones and surfaces and the like for much longer than they would on food.

                        Try to keep your kitchen a safe zone by removing non-cooking items from countertops. I know many of us, myself included, often end up tossing daily items here without thinking twice, putting mail on the countertop. Don't put grocery bags or takeaway bags on your countertops. Also, try to clean them every time before you prepare a meal, and sanitize kitchen surfaces, including your refrigerator, stove handles, cupboard pulls and the like, on a regular basis.

Michelle:       It adds so much to grocery shopping and preparing food, but some very important advice. Nikki Putnam Badding, a registered dietitian with some really fabulous advice on taking care of ourselves during this time. Nikki, take care of yourself, and thank you so much for joining us today.

Nikki:              Thanks, Michelle.

Michelle:       For additional resources on COVID-19, visit alltech.com.

Click here for additional COVID-19 resources.

The rise of insulin prices over the last decade, plus the cost of pumps and syringes, has made treatment for diabetes more expensive than ever. Will a cost-effective insulin replacement ever exist? Dr. Ronan Power discusses Alltech Life Science's breakthrough in insulin pills for diabetes.

The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin’s interview with Dr. Ronan Power. Click below to hear the full audio.

Tom:            Insulin prices have more than tripled in the last decade, and because insulin cannot be taken orally, pumps and syringes can add significantly to the cost. The result? This treatment is quickly becoming unaffordable for many diabetics, but insulin therapy is critical for most of them, and there's a search for options. One might have been found.

                     Dr. Ronan Power, vice president of Alltech's Life Sciences division, joins us to talk about something of a revolution in the treatment of diabetes. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Power.

Ronan:          Thank you, Tom.

Tom:            Tell us why, first of all, there is this need. I kind of described it in the introduction, but diabetes is a huge problem in this country, I assume.

Ronan:          Absolutely. It's a huge problem not only in the Western world, but it's becoming more and more of a problem in countries that have, if you like, found affluence in the last two to three decades and are adopting more and more of a Western-style diet and lifestyle. It's becoming a really, really big problem. I think one of the figures I saw most recently was an estimated 360 million sufferers worldwide, but that's only diagnosed cases.

                     Of the subtypes of diabetes, the two main ones, of course, people will be familiar with are Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 typically hits younger people, and that is a type of diabetes where the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin are destroyed, and that can be an autoimmune-type disease or a reaction to a virus, in some cases. The most prevalent form is Type 2, which used to be called “adult-onset diabetes,” but now, it's creeping downwards in the age group and it's hitting people as young as four years of age — even younger — and that's part of the associated obesity epidemic or pandemic that we see in the world today.

Tom:            We're seeing studies that are projecting that if these rates, these obesity rates, continue at current trends, more than half the population of almost 40 states in the United States will be obese in 2030. What are the implications of failing to stop and reverse that trend?

Ronan:          I think they're absolutely massive — and I would say 50% is a conservative estimate. If you look at the implications of obesity as they relate to diseases like diabetes, there is a condition known as metabolic syndrome that precedes the development of diabetes. This is a condition which is characterized by not just obesity, but high blood pressure, high cholesterol or dyslipidemia. That's abnormal blood profiles, high triglycerides and so on and so forth. That can predispose people to many, many diseases, particularly coronary vascular disease or cardiovascular disease and pulmonary disease. That's even before you hit any diabetes threshold. Once people develop diabetes, there's a whole range of attendant problems that come with that, as people are aware of, but one of the larger problems, in my opinion, is the state of insulin resistance that begins to develop in people who tend to be overweight or have a higher-than-normal body mass.

                     Insulin resistance in itself can cause huge problems. Let me just mention an example. One of them is called PCOS, or polycystic ovary or ovarian syndrome. That's becoming a huge problem in the female population in terms of reduced fertility, inability to conceive and inability to sustain a pregnancy. That's a direct implication of insulin resistance. So, we're not just talking diabetes here; we're talking much broader, more debilitating conditions of life, if you will.

Tom:            We're here to talk about something that you're working on, which is an alternative to insulin that you have in development now. Can you tell us about this?

Ronan:          Sure. This is, I guess, the culmination of about 12 years of work in our labs here at Alltech. This started off as a plant-based or a botanical-based compound we found which was able to increase energy production in cells, or seemingly increase energy production in cells. Actually, it turned out to be that it improved energy consumption. So we've been studying this for quite some time, and we actually have made a lot of variance of this particular compound. We isolated it. We synthesized it. We made variations on a theme, as it were. Today, we have a compound, which we call Compound 43 — obviously a very imaginative name, the number 43, the variation of the compound which we developed. So, Compound 43 has got a very unique ability in being able to bind to insulin receptors and activate that receptor in the absence of insulin.

                     In effect, if you want to view the action of insulin on a cell as a lock and key mechanism, imagine that insulin is the key. It fits into a lock, which we shall call the insulin receptor. When both lock and key are working correctly and the mechanism is turned appropriately, that opens a glucose channel and allows glucose to enter the cell and be used properly.

Tom:            Let me make sure I understand up to this point. The compound that you're working on replaces that key.

Ronan:          It replaces the key. It can activate the lock even when the lock is broken, because in Type 1 diabetes, you're missing the key. In Type 2, there's something wrong with the lock mechanism; it doesn't work properly, or not at all, in some cases. But what this compound does is it binds to the insulin receptor (i.e., the lock) and can open it.

Tom:            So, it's doing the work of the insulin.

Ronan:          It's doing the work of the insulin. What we have, in effect, is an insulin replacement. It doesn't bind to the insulin receptor in the same place as insulin. It binds at different locations. Its purpose, simply, or what it does, is it brings the two arms of the insulin receptor together, and once they join together, it activates the insulin cascade inside the cell, which then allows that glucose door to open and allow glucose in.

Now, it's not a runaway reaction, by any means. It does stop, so there is a finite half-life of this compound, which we've determined to be about eight to ten hours. It doesn't crash the blood glucose. It takes it down, but it doesn't bottom it out at a dangerous level.

Tom:            Now, as I understand it, this would be administered orally as opposed to a shot.

Ronan:          Absolutely. This is our big breakthrough in the last year. When we initially tested this compound, we were using it in the traditional insulin-type way, of a subcutaneous injection, or even an IP, an intraperitoneal injection, but we've now developed a formulation which can be taken orally in tablet form, pill form, which works very well indeed. We have actually tested that in mouse models of diabetes, several different mouse models of diabetes, and it works perfectly well. The compound itself, we've also tested in human cell lines — liver, skeletal muscle, all of the major organs that are impacted by diabetes — and find that it works beautifully.

                     It can even be used in concert with insulin, in some cases, because when I describe the Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, especially for Type 2, there are various levels of it. For some people, insulin works, but not as well as it does in the normal case. That's what we term “insulin resistance.” Insulin resistance can be a graded or a gradated type of resistance. That's why some diabetics, Type 2 diabetics, still take insulin, but this can actually help insulin action, so it works in concert with insulin, in some cases. Because it doesn't share the same binding site, it can be an additive or synergistic effect.

Tom:            I'm sure that anybody who is suffering from diabetes and hears this is going to be quite excited and quite hopeful.

Ronan:          Yes.

Tom:            How should they temper that hope? How far off are you, do you believe, from going to market with this?

Ronan:          First of all, I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't believe this was a breakthrough. I believe that we can get this out through what we call a phase-one clinical trial in humans within about three years. If it shows promise there, we hope to go right ahead and follow with phase two or three. Best-case scenario, Tom: we're probably looking at six years to market, but I think that's a fast track. That will be a fast track, but I'm hopeful that when we approach FDA with this, they may, in fact, look upon it and say, “Okay.” This type of compound is not unknown, so it has a pretty good historical safety profile.

I believe that there is an urgent need to come up with alternatives to insulin. For whatever reason, Tom, there is some egregious price gouging going on in that market, and people are dying as a result, and I'm not being overdramatic in saying that. You can look at the press, the news, a whole variety of states, and see that people are actually rationing their insulin, using less-effective forms. People have to decide between groceries and insulin, and in some cases, it costs people more than their monthly mortgage, so it's a desperate situation for something that was sold — the patent for this — a lot of people aren't aware that the patent for insulin was sold in 1923 to the University of Toronto for the princely sum of CAN$3.

Tom:            And I understand, now, that a vial of insulin can be manufactured for about $7.

Ronan:          Yes, it is, depending on the grade and the type. It can vary from a very low price like that up to — I'm not sure of the final cost, but certainly, I would guess, no more than $20 or $30, but it's selling for people without insurance — I hear horror stories of people paying $400 to $500 a vial for the material, and that's something that, when you open it, you have to refrigerate it, and it's active for 28 days. What we're looking at is a tablet or a pill, and it's stable for two to three years.

Tom:            I believe I heard you say that a dose, let's put it that way, would last eight hours or so.

Ronan:          Yes.

Tom:                          So, theoretically, a person could take two of these pills a day.

Ronan:                       Theoretically, yes. Yes. It will vary per individual. And obviously, that would have to be determined medically by a person's physician, but I would think that, under normal circumstances, two pills per day, based on our studies, our modeling so far.

Tom:                          When you think beyond FDA approval and marketing and use, Ronan, what do you see out there as the implications for how this impacts the quality of life of diabetes patients?

Ronan:                       Well, if you look upon it this way, you'll see people in public and in restaurants looking at their little glucose pumps. You know, people still, every morning, come along and take that pinprick on their finger and look at the glucose strip and so forth. So, there’s a whole lifestyle associated with living with diabetes. Probably the biggest drawback I see for people is, you know, having to use all of the paraphernalia — the syringes, the needles, the phobia about the needle itself, even though, nowadays, it's tiny. Very thin needle indeed. But there’s so much that goes along with using insulin. I mean, having to refrigerate it, which is no problem in the West, but think about countries where refrigeration is not an option. Think about Africa.

Tom:                          Oh, it can limit your mobility too.

Ronan:                       Of course. Of course it can. And you know, we've done our stability testing on this. I mean, some of the models we use are mice. And can you imagine — we can put this compound into a mouse diet, right? Into a laboratory mouse diet, and retrieve it, fully active, 1 year later. We can pull it back out. So, it's an extremely stable compound.

                                    Now, insulin is basically a protein, so it will degrade. And that's why you have to refrigerate it, and it loses potency after a very limited period indeed. I think 28 days is the expiration on it. So, there are huge benefits for something like this, and indeed, companies have been struggling to develop an oral insulin preparation for decades, but I don't think anybody has ever looked at an alternative to actually physically activating the receptor.

Tom:                          Since this compound is being designed to treat a disease, I assume it would have to be approved and marketed as a pharmaceutical.

Ronan:                       Oh, absolutely, yes.

Tom:                          And that has implications for the company.

Ronan:                       Uh-huh. Yes.

Tom:                          Tell us about the discussions around that topic, because I know it's a very complicated one.

Ronan:                       Oh, it is. It's certainly a departure for Alltech. We have always been — well, apart from our beverage division and crop science — we've been very much associated with animal feed supplements and health supplements for animals. So, our dealings with regulatory bodies have been with the European Food Safety Authority in Europe (and) the Center for Veterinary Medicine branch of the FDA here, which deals with all of the ag products, if you will. We've had little or no dealings with the FDA itself, even though we did have initial discussions with them concerning a supplement we have called AT-001 some years back. But I think that while it will be a departure, it's an exciting new horizon for the company to actually get into something. We launched Alltech Life Sciences for that very purpose probably 8 or 9 years ago, to try to transfer some of our technology and products from the animal health arena to the human health area.

Tom:                          And it does seem to complement an announcement made at (ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference) about the establishment of an Alltech foundation in partnership with UK Healthcare, which, of course, is human-oriented.

Ronan:                       Yes. Yes. I think that's an exciting prospect also. There are many, many excellent researchers and research laboratories at (the University of Kentucky), as you know. And many of those are active in the diabetes area, and I look forward very much to perhaps collaborating with them in the future. This may just be the first of many such preparations that we develop.

                                    We have other products in the pipeline, some of them related to diabetes. And as you know, we're also interested in neurodegenerative diseases. And we're also interested very much in intestinal health for humans. And by that, I mean, you know, trying to prevent this condition that is becoming quite pervasive in the U.S. and, indeed, in the West, which is sparked by what's called — I guess, rather unsavorily —  leaky gut syndrome. So, that leads, in turn, to a nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and that's a condition that afflicts perhaps 20% of the adult population in the U.S., to varying degrees. So, that’s the third area: digestive health. So, neurodegenerative health, digestive health and, also, the diabetic care or, if you like, metabolic health. That will be our three areas of focus.

Tom:                          Well, I know that you’re a consummate professional, but I also have to believe that, on a personal level, that this accomplishment feels like a pretty good achievement for you.

Ronan:                       It has been a long road. I have been very, very fortunate, Tom, in having some excellent colleagues working with me, many of whom have what I call “green fingers” in the laboratory — excellent scientists. Dr. ZJ Lan is one. I have two very good ladies working in the lab, Katie Eastridge and Hayley Kincaid. I’ve got Dr. Rijin Xiao, who works on the bioinformatics side of things, all the data collation. And Ryan Goettl is a young man who’s also working on bioinformatics. We’re all held in check and held together by Ms. Jeannie Francis, who herds us wherever we need to go, but I’ve been very fortunate, and our outside collaborations have also been excellent. It’s 12 years. It seems like a long road, but it has gone in a flash. So, it has —

Tom:                          As these things have a way of doing.

Ronan:                       Indeed.

Tom:                          Well, Ronan, good luck with this. Congratulations as well. And we will be anxious to follow your progress.

Ronan:                       I look forward to updating you as we go along, Tom. Thank you very much.

Tom:                          Dr. Ronan Power, vice president of Alltech’s Life Sciences division, we thank you very much.

Dr. Ronan Power spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE). Click here to learn about ONE and how you can access innovation on demand.

While farmers spend billions of dollars each year in crop inputs, many are missing biomarkers that can cost them up to 30% in total value. The ag-tech startup Biome Makers is using new technologies like DNA sequencing and artificial intelligence in agriculture to improve soil health and crop production on-farm. How healthy is the microbial activity of your soil?

The following is an edited transcript of Kara Keeton’s interview with Adrián Ferrero. Click below to hear the full audio.

Kara:              I'm here today with Adrián Ferrero, co-founder and CEO of Biome Makers, one of the Pearse Lyons Accelerators presenting at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference in 2019. Thank you for coming today, Adrián.

Adrián:           My pleasure to be here.

Kara:              Adrián, I wanted to know a little bit more about Biome Makers and how your company was founded.

Adrián:           Biome Makers is a company that started in San Francisco in May 2015, founded by two Spanish guys: Alberto Acedo and myself. We traveled from Spain with a partner, Illumina. We were the first non-American company selected by the Illumina Accelerator Program. In that moment, we started developing our technology. That gave us, also, the chance to test it in the real field with clients all around California.

Kara:              The technology you speak of is an artificial intelligence system to measure soil health using the microbiome as a biomarker. Explain this to me.

Adrián:           Well, we grew up in vineyards in Spain, so agriculture is very important. It was very important in our vineyards. We were fully aware that the farmers were missing biomarkers to really understand what is happening. Nobody was telling them, so the information, the data, accessible for them was very limited and did not provide a full picture.

                        So, by looking at the community of microbes that impacts everything that is happening in the field — not just in the soil, because the soil has living organisms that take an active role in agriculture, and that's something that we haven't been able to take a look at in the past years, but now, because we have DNA sequencing to profile the whole spectrum of microbes, and then, artificial intelligence to process this amount of information, this amount of data and benefits from other kinds of data sources — we can provide that functional interpretation of the microbes. That means that we can look at the microbes and know what is happening in the field in order to make better decisions related to, mainly, inputs. That means crop protection and fertilization.

Kara:              So, this technology allows you to work with farmers to look at their soil productivity and implement new procedures to help improve production on the farm, correct?

Adrián:           Yeah. Every year, U.S. farmers spend around $40 billion, which is a huge amount of money, in crop inputs. And still, around 30% of the crop value is wasted because of different problems. That means that the products they are using are not working pretty well. If they can optimize their inputs that they put in the soil, and those inputs support the productivity of the agriculture or the farm and also sustain and boost the life of the soil, that is going to be very good because, in the end, soil is the most valuable asset they have for their economic activity. That's what we're helping them with. First, they know or they unveil what the soil needs, and then, what they want to know is which is the right product for them. This is something we are doing with companies: delivering solutions into the market.

Kara:              So, you currently have field studies going on and research trials with the system, correct?

Adrián:           Right. We have over 250 growers already working with us, monitoring their soil status, knowing what their soil needs, how alive the soil is. On the other hand, we are working, and we started last year with our input producers — so that means Alltech or Bayer Crop Science or small bio-fertilizing companies. Those are the kinds of trials we're doing, because that was another dimension; nobody knew the real effect of the products that they are using in the soil. It's like we're taking pills and drugs and we don't know what's going to happen in our body. Our technology can help bring transparency to this, and that's what we're doing.

Kara:              Are these trials taking place just in the United States, or are they around the world?

Adrián:           Yeah. We are running trials right now mainly in California, but also here in Kentucky, also in Spain, in France, and in Mexico. Those are the six (places) where we're developing pilots, but what is more interesting is which kind of crops we're working with, because we started working in vineyards in the wine industry. It's amazing. It's huge, the lack of data to really deliver better products and different wines in the market. By knowing what is happening in the vineyard, this is very useful for them. So, in vineyards, we started, and we started to expand to other crops. Right now, we are working with almonds, strawberries, potatoes, corn, soy and apples.

Kara:              That is amazing. Working with a variety of crops allows you to look at different types of production. What benefit can this system bring to the different types of crops and to the different areas of the world when you're looking at the biomarkers?

Adrián:           Let me just give you an example of what we're experiencing now with sugarcane in Mexico. There are different regions with different productivity. The deal between two regions were extremely different — so, around 30% difference. After looking at the microbiome in the soil, we identified the pattern that linked to their productivity. Now, what we are doing with this client is working with different solutions to see if we can get up to 5% increase, which is going to have a huge impact on the productivity and the revenues that this grower is going to get at the end of the season.

We can impact, first, in the cost, in the expenses that the growers are having in their different inputs. So, depending on the crops, they might be spending over $2,000 per acre in different inputs. That's a lot of money, and you want that money to be meaningful. Then, on the crop protection side, you want to use target solutions for the risk on diseases that you have. You don't want to spray fungicide in a vineyard, for instance, killing all the fungal species, including the yeast doing something unique during the wine-making process that is going to leave some flavor or taste in that way.

Kara:              Biome Makers was the first startup chosen to join a new agricultural innovation space in California. What impact did this move have on your research, and how did working with Bayer Crop Sciences in this initiative impact your company?

Adrián:           For us, there was a demonstration. There was a growing interest by the solution providers in knowing what are the impacts of their products in the soil. As I mentioned before, there is a new wave of biological products landing into the market, so the growers don't have enough information; they're not going to know which product is the right one for them. By working with companies such as Bayer or Alltech or others, we are able to really know what are the specific effects of the products so we can match specific soil needs related to crop needs, and also location needs, for a specific crop in a specific location. This is the right product.

                        That's what we're working with a lot, and this has a huge impact. If companies like Bayer Crop Science are relying on our technology to really know what is happening with the solutions that they are delivering to the market, for us as a startup, this is very important.

Kara:              Your company was selected for the Pearse Lyons Accelerator Program. What has this experience been like for you and your company, and how did you come across this opportunity?

Adrián:           Well, right now, the information just flows very easily, so it was very easy to know where the opportunity was. Having the chance to partner or to connect with Alltech team through the Pearse Lyons Accelerator, that was very interesting for us because, right now, we are working with 14 different solution providers, and we wanted the most innovative companies to also start working with us. With the Pearse Lyons Accelerator, we have started running, in the last hundred days, different trials, different pilots, testing their products differently in different crops, and this is very successful.

                        On top of that, the work done by Dogpatch Labs in Ireland to improve and to fine-tune the pitch and the market strategy, and some advice from their leaders, the Alltech leaders, on the commercialization, distribution of how to manage the team and grow the company, it has been very useful for me as a founder who has the responsibility to really bring Biome Makers to the next level.

Kara:              Well, now I understand that your interest in microbiology is not limited to just agricultural production. You are also co-founder of AC-Gen Reading Life, a biotech company with a biomedical focus. Can you tell me a little bit about this company?

Adrián:           Yeah. Biome Makers is our second successful startup. The first experience that Alberto Acedo and myself had was in Spain, also using the same technology of DNA sequencing, but in this case, instead of using it to profile the microbes in the soil, we are looking at the different mutations that humans have in order to help doctors to really know what was the real, better solution. This is the personalized medicine. We built, in 2012, the first genetic diagnostic center specializing in DNA sequencing in Spain, and with that company, we won a lot of awards and recognition from the Spanish government, the European Commission. Even the MIT Technology Review also awarded us as best entrepreneurs/innovators.

Kara:              So, helping plants and animals with your research, where do you see the future of Biome Makers in the next five to ten years?

Adrián:           Well, right now, we need to receive the samples in our labs. We have dual locations, one in Europe, another one in California, in West Sacramento. What we see in the future is that digitalization of biology probably is not going to happen in our lab; it's going to happen on-site. So, the different machines, the robots, all the devices that are available for farmers, they're going to definitely digitalize the biology, but there will be some apps and systems to process the data and deliver the meaningful information on to take action. That's where we're working very hard on understanding all the connections between the different microbes in this network of living beings, all the patterns, and also the predictive power of this system. That's what we are focusing on.

Kara:              Well, thank you for joining us today, Adrián.

Adrián:           That's my pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting us.

Kara:              This was Adrián Ferrero, co-founder and CEO of Biome Makers.

How can better soil health and more efficient beef production reduce our carbon footprint? Dr. Taro Takahashi, research scientist at Rothamsted Research, discusses organic vs. inorganic fertilizers, proposed meat taxes and agriculture's overall quest toward sustainability. 

The following is an edited transcript of David Butler’s interview with Dr. Taro Takahashi. Click below to hear the full audio.

David:            I'm here with Dr. Taro Takahashi, a research scientist at Rothamsted Research in the U.K. Dr. Takahashi, thanks for joining us.

Taro:               Thank you.

David:            You gave two presentations at our conference (ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference) here this year, one on soil health and one on beef production, and they have some kind of intertwined issues, so let's talk about both of them, but let's start with your thoughts on soil health — especially around the nitrogen cycling.

Taro:               Yeah, sure. When I gave this talk at the Crop Science session, whereby I discussed the findings on long-term experiments with production systems — this is the oldest-running scientific or such experiment in the world, listed in the Guinness World (Record) Books. It started in 1843. What we try to identify here is basically the sustainability of the productions systems, and how can we manipulate the systems. The conversation we had with the audience there was on how the soil health could be different when you have got continuously different treatments to the soil — for example, when you apply different amounts of fertilizers, or when you apply different types of fertilizers, for example, inorganic and organic.

David:            Go into some detail about the different things that you see with inorganic versus organic fertilizer. You said this soil trial started in 1843, right? That's a long time ago.

Taro:               That's a long time, and this year is our 176th year. Some people just wonder why we keep doing the same thing year in and year out, but the thing about soil health is that the many soil health parameters, as we nowadays know it, are not very easy to change. For example, the total amount of carbon in the soil, it doesn't change overnight. If you have, for example, the ancillary project to work on the implication on soil health and different treatments or different farm management, then you don't actually see a lot of difference there and, therefore, you cannot derive any conclusion. By using the long-term data we have got, we can infer some of the long-term implications of what we are doing and, therefore, we can truly elucidate what sustainability really means and how we're going to achieve that.

David:            I thought it was very interesting that you're talking about the different fate for nitrogen when you add nitrogen to the soil. There are two things that can happen to that nitrogen, right? Talk a little bit about where the nitrogen goes and how that system works.

Taro:               Yeah, sure. When you just look at the farming systems within that single season or single year, then you tend to think that, when you apply nitrogen, it either gets used by the crops or it doesn't get used by crops. This concept, usually called the nitrogen-use efficiency, is not a very accurate summary of the long-term sustainability of farming systems because we actually have the third option of having the soil maintain them and carry over for the next year's production. If you think about the change in the nitrogen stop in the soil — or for any nutrient, for that matter — the picture is quite different. For example, when you just compare the amount of fertilizer you are putting in this year versus the amount of the grains you are harvesting this year, it does not give you the full picture.

David:            Okay, so if nitrogen doesn't stay in the soil — if you have excess nitrogen and it's not around next year — where did it go?

Taro:               Sometimes, there are cases where you lose them to the atmosphere in the form of, for example, nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas, or it could go underground in dissolving water in the form of nitrate or ammonium. There are many ways that you could lose these nutrients, even when you apply. Our data shows that, in some cases — not all the time, but in some cases — we are losing more than half of what we're putting in, long-term, to this wastage, if you like. That's a lot of wastage in the big scheme of things.

David:            It is a lot. You said more than half of it can be lost, and that's when you're applying inorganic fertilizer. Is that right?

Taro:               The loss itself can happen even when you apply them in the organic form as well, but what we found interesting from this research was that, when you apply nitrogen in organic form, then we find that, unless you are putting a lot of nitrogen — probably more than 250 kg per hectare — we are actually extracting some of the nitrogen from the soil long-term. That means that even after 150 years, which we originally thought was long enough for the system to reach equilibrium, we are still losing, slightly, soil-organic carbon and soil-organic nitrogen every year. That means that there is the possibility that, if we keep doing this year in and year out, at some stage, we will not be able to achieve the same level of yield any longer.

David:            So, you're saying that that loss, year after year, happens with either inorganic fertilizer or organic fertilizer.

Taro:               No. Obviously, it depends on how much nitrogen you contain, so you have to come up with some comparable amount of nitrogen. We came up with a system whereby one treatment of inorganic fertilization is comparable to an organic fertilization in terms of the amount of nitrogen included in that packet of the fertilizer. When you compare them apple-to-apple, then what we found was the extraction from the soil stock is happening much less when we apply the nitrogen in the form of organic fertilizer. In our case, we use manure from livestock for it, although there are many forms of organic amendments, and then we found that these end results are most likely attributable to the carbon bonded to the nitrogen in the organic form, and then, loosely speaking, they maintain the soil health.

David:            Right. You mentioned that manure is not the only form of organic fertilizer. What are some of the other forms that you might use?

Taro:               Some farmers in the U.K., for example, use the straws from the previous year's harvest as a part of the fertilization system, but the challenge is that, sometimes, the composition of these residuals is quite low. That means that, unless you have got a very unfavorable condition — for example, sunshine and temperature and moisture — those nitrogen may not be able to be used in the following year immediately. Manure, on the other hand, tends to get decomposed much more quickly and, therefore, for a long-term production system, it might be an easier way to amend the soil organically.

                        That said, the amount of manure we need to have a comparable amount of fertilization to what is quite standard in the U.K., for inorganic fertilization, we need about 35 tons of manure per hectare, and that's a lot, so how to secure it commercially is a huge challenge. We don't know whether it's possible in the big, big —

David:            On a large scale —

Taro:               As a method of social change.

David:            Yeah. Okay. It is very important, obviously, to make sure that any excess nitrogen stays in the soil, because all of the methods or all of the ways that you mentioned to lose the nitrogen have an environmental consequence. Nitrous oxide is a very potent greenhouse gas, and if you have nitrates or ammonia in your groundwater or leeching into your streams, that's a very bad thing as well. Do you see regulations starting to come up about that that affect fertilization rates, or do you anticipate them in the future?

Taro:               One thing we have to be careful about in this inorganic or organic debate is that our research, as well as the other team's work, recently have shown that, usually, when you have got the more intensive system — for example, an inorganic system — then the carbon footprint or climate impact per ton or kilogram of the output of grain is actually lower.

                        That means that an organic system is not necessarily environmentally-friendlier in terms of the climate impact, and you have to really strike the right balance between the soil health and long-term sustainability in terms of productivity against the climate impact and, then, how we will deal with it.

David:            It's a complicated system, and we need to keep learning more. As climate change becomes a bigger issue, we're going to make sure we're doing things that are effective and not shooting ourselves in the foot.

Taro:               Yeah, exactly. That debate was the very extreme, polarizing opinions — a probably very dangerous thing to do, because we have to achieve sustainability on many, many fronts. Health is one. Climate impact is one. Ammonia is one, and there are many, many others. To just say that the organic system is a paradise is probably misleading, but what we found was that the organic system has got an ability, probably a better capability, to keep the soil healthy for a longer period of time.

David:            Okay. Let's talk a little bit about cattle and the efficiency of cattle in producing food, compared to other forms of livestock. I know that's kind of a common topic, and people have assumed for years and years that beef cattle particularly have a lower efficiency than chickens or swine, right?

Taro:               That's right. In terms of climate impacts, it has been established for quite some time that the cattle systems have got much higher environmental burdens compared to monogastric systems — for example, poultry systems and swine systems — and that is indeed the case if you compare, for example, 100 grams of meat cut versus 100 grams of meat cut, but what we showed and what we discussed in the talk at the cattle session this time around was that, when you convert the unit of evaluation to nutritional value of the meat, then the carbon footprint of beef meat is actually very comparable to poultry and, then, swine meat — and sometimes better than them.

David:            So, you're saying that it's a more dense source of nutrients as a food than pork or chicken?

Taro:               Exactly. The reason why this phenomenon is observed is because — and beef is much more nutritionally dense compared to chicken meat and pork meat. For example, it has got much higher level of minerals and vitamins and, therefore, a small portion of steak has got basically a better package of human nutrition than the white meat. In terms of the nutritional value, the carbon footprint can be lower than white meat, and that is very encouraging news for beef farmers around the world.

                        Having said that, the nutrient density does not mean a lot if you overeat, because if you eat a lot of nutritionally dense meat, then (a) you don't actually need to eat that much and (b) you are probably contributing more to carbon footprint anyway by eating more. Our finding doesn't negate the fact that cattle do produce methane from enteric fermentation far, far more than pigs and chickens, for example, but then, it does mean that when you look at the nutritional value, and if you eat red meat in moderation, then you have got the chance that then it is part, or it can be part, of the very sustainable food systems.

David:            It's a good point that cattle do produce methane to a greater degree than poultry or swine, but it's also worth mentioning that they can eat cellulose and fiber and convert that to meat to a much greater degree than poultry or swine, right?

Taro:               Absolutely. In the U.K., as well as in the USA, there are many parts of the country whereby, traditionally, we have not been growing any cereals at all. The reason is that, well, grasslands are there for a reason, and we have traditionally thought that cereals do not grow there very well.

David:            Let's talk about the idea that's come out recently of a meat tax. I know that there have been some stories in the press proposing that we should have a tax on meat to try to cut down on the greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture. You talked about some unanticipated consequences of that, and, of course, every time there's a public policy debate, there are a lot of anticipated consequences that need to be carefully examined.

Taro:               Yeah, absolutely, and we found them — this is a very interesting thing about the potential consequences of meat tax, and especially the tax against these production systems. We created the macroeconomic model to see what did really happen to the economy — not only the farming economy but the national economy — when you tax against beef production. What we found was that, just as the advocates of the meat tax argue, we also found out that the greenhouse gas emissions at the national scale will be lower, because many big producers will be deterred from producing more of the red meat.

                        However, we also found that the macroeconomy in the U.K. would shrink as a result of this taxation, and the reason is that, as I mentioned earlier, there are many lands that are not really suitable for the arable systems. So, if farmers are forced to change their farming systems on the traditionally grassland area, then that means that we will not achieve as much production and, therefore, we would be using the land endowment inefficiently. Land is one of the few resources that we have absolutely no control over in terms of the total amount available to us, and therefore, if you cannot make the most of it — if we use them forcefully in an inefficient manner — then of course we will struggle, macroeconomically speaking.

David:            Yeah, and I assume, if we are not producing meat on grassland and there's a push to produce more crops, then that means, potentially, more deforestation, which is a huge problem for greenhouse gas emissions.

Taro:               I'm not sure if deforestation will happen or not, but then, what we're interested in and what we decided to measure from now on is the loss of carbon when we convert grassland into arable land. These experiments have been taking place in many parts of the world, but then, they are mostly in the area whereby we've already believed that we can produce a lot of cereals for human consumption.

                        What we have decided to do to test this question, really, and to challenge our thinking process, if you like, is to convert one of the four farms we have got on our resuscitation in Devon that is traditionally a grassland area, a farm specialized in the production of the human edible food. So, by doing that, we have to plow up the permanent grassland that we have got here for a long, long period of time, and in so doing, we can measure how much carbon we would have to release from the soils. If that happens, then, obviously, the fertility of the soil will be lower as well. That means that, potentially, the arable production might not be as high as we think because, long-term, we will again lose carbon, and that is shown by our experience from the long-term experiment.

David:            Thank you very much, Dr. Takahashi. We've covered a lot of interesting topics here, and I appreciate you spending some time with us.

Taro:               Thank you for having me.

Dr. Taro Takahashi spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE). Click here to learn about ONE and how you can access innovation on demand.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Salmonella is the cause of an estimated 1 million food-borne illnesses in the United States every year, including 19,000 hospitalizations and more than 300 deaths. The most common symptoms of a Salmonella infection are diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps. Serious Salmonella infections are more likely to manifest in those who are under 5 years old or are over 65 years old, or in those with weakened immune systems (e.g., diabetics or cancer patients). Although illness from Salmonella is often the result of improper food preparation or several other factors, poultry producers and backyard flock owners can help reduce consumer risk through good management practices.

Potential sources of bacterial contamination include: 

• Wild birds/pests (e.g., beetles, flies or rodents) 
• Water 
• Visitors 
• Hygiene 

In poultry production, there are eight key areas that must be given attention in order to reduce bad bacterial contamination on-farm and aid in the prevention of Salmonella.

1. Clean facilities and dedication to biosecurity:  Residual contamination from previous flocks is a common cause of Salmonella in birds. Cleaning areas that birds often touch (e.g., drinking and feed containers) or frequent (e.g., the coop) before the birds arrive and after they leave can help reduce the prevalence of Salmonella. Effective biosecurity and pest control are also key to avoiding contamination in the coop. 

2. Feed:  Contaminated grains and feed ingredients can increase the risk of Salmonella in the final feed. Use heat-pelleted feed, and source feed from mills that maintain stringent quality standards. 

3. Water management:  Water management is a crucial part of any Salmonella control program for poultry, since water can serve as a medium for the organism to spread from bird to bird. Chlorination, as well as the use of organic acids in drinking water, can help to reduce Salmonella levels in the flock. 

4. Dust:  Like water, dust can also foster the spread of Salmonella. Try to keep dust levels in and around the coop below 3 milligrams per cubic meter. 

5. Litter and manure management:  Poultry litter and manure with high moisture and pH levels allow Salmonella to thrive. Managing the moisture and pH of the litter and manure can be effective ways to prevent it from spreading. 

6. Managing gut flora: Establishing and maintaining proper gut flora soon after hatching is critical for mitigating Salmonella contamination. Programs that include the use of probiotics, organic acids, enzymes and yeast technologies have proven effective at maintaining optimal gut health. Several Alltech products that can support gut health — including Sel-Plex^®, Bioplex^®, Allzyme^® ;SSF, Bio-Mos^®, Yea-Sacc^® and Integral^® A+ — are incorporated into all Hubbard Premium Quality poultry feeds.

7. Coccidiosis: Intestinal challenges caused by poor gastrointestinal integrity can have a major impact on Salmonella levels in broilers. As such, strong coccidiosis management should be part of every Salmonella control program. 

8. Vaccination: Especially at the breeder level, the use of vaccines has the potential to reduce the prevalence of Salmonella among day-old chicks. You should only purchase chicks from a reputable source. While vaccines can be applied to backyard poultry, a poultry veterinarian should be consulted to design a suitable program for your birds. 

Cleaning and personal hygiene for your safety 

People can get sick from eating Salmonella-infected meat or eggs or by touching infected poultry or housing. Birds can carry Salmonella but show no symptoms or signs of illness. Fortunately, however, there are several factors that can boost protection: 

• Always wash your hands with soap and water (or use hand sanitizer) immediately after touching birds, their housing, eggs or meat. Require visitors to do the same. 
• Do not allow backyard poultry inside your home, especially where food or drink is prepared, served or stored. 
• Wear a specific pair of shoes when taking care of or visiting birds that you do not wear elsewhere. Leave this footwear outside and request that visitors to do the same. Rubber boots are a popular option. 
• Do not eat or drink where poultry live or roam. 
• Do not kiss or snuggle backyard poultry and then touch your face or mouth. 
• When cleaning the equipment or materials you use to raise or care for your birds, do so outdoors, not inside.
• Any individuals with potentially weakened immune systems should not touch the birds.
• Source young birds from government-inspected hatcheries or reputable sources that have a bird health plan.
• Maintain a clean coop and collect eggs often. 
• Clean dirty eggs with fine sandpaper, a brush or cloth — but DO NOT wash eggs with cold water, as this can pull Salmonella into the egg.
• Refrigerate eggs after collecting them and cook them thoroughly before serving.

To expand on the CDC statements regarding Salmonella in backyard flocks, many of these precautions should also be applied when going to a feed or retail store that offers baby chickens, turkeys and/or ducks for purchase. Many stores are now enclosing the birds in an effort to discourage handling, but it is still a good idea to wash and/or sanitize your hands prior to leaving the store.

Additionally, take extra precautions when cooking or handling raw chicken. Try to limit the exposure of raw chicken to temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit (e.g., leaving raw chicken out on the kitchen counter). Always cook poultry thoroughly — use a meat thermometer to ensure that the proper temperature is met — and disinfect surfaces where meat was stored or prepared. The safe internal temperature for cooked chicken is 165° Fahrenheit (75° Celsius).
 

For more information, please refer to the following articles from the CDC:  

https://www.cdc.gov/features/salmonellapoultry/index.html 

https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/backyardpoultry-05-19/index.html  

I want to learn more about poultry nutrition for my flock.

Consumers are growing more and more environmentally conscious, and many have started to experiment with meat-free options. From plant-based burgers to burgers made entirely of tissue-cultured meat, are these really the "alternative meats of the future?" What does this mean for the beef industry, and which option is actually better for the environment?

The following is an edited transcript of David Butler's interview with Amanda Radke, beef blogger. Click below to hear the full audio. 

David:            I'm here with Amanda Radke, who's a South Dakota cattle rancher and a blogger with Beef Magazine. How are you doing, Amanda?

Amanda:        I'm doing great. How about yourself?

David:            Good! Thanks so much for being on the show.

Amanda:        Yeah, you bet.

David:            Let's talk a little bit about alternative proteins. You've been looking into that some lately and done some research on it, right?

Amanda:        Yeah. I think one of the biggest things that I wanted to emphasize in my message today was that I'm not anti-technology, and anything that we can come up with as far as food-science goes to feed the hungry planet is wonderful. So, I didn't want to pit traditional beef production against anything else, and I'm not against consumer choice. However, some of these Petri dish protein companies are really touting themselves as environmentally and ethically superior to traditionally raised beef, and so I wanted to highlight why the beef cow is incredible in providing a safe and nourishing beef product for us to consume — and, also, life-enriching byproducts, and that simply can't be replicated in a Petri dish.

David:            So, let's compare beef to some of the different alternative protein options out there — and I know there are a bunch of them, so maybe the first thing would be to say, what are all the different alternatives?

Amanda:        Sure. Well, we're seeing plant-based protein patties, like Beyond and Impossible, hitting the marketplace and receiving a lot of traction and attention from retailers carrying those options — and not just marketing them to your vegetarian and vegan crowd but marketing them to meat lovers as a direct replacement to a traditional cheeseburger. We also may see Petri-dish proteins enter the marketplace as soon as the end of the year, and so a lot of what we know about these products is conjecture right now, because these companies aren't really forthcoming with any information on their manufacturing processes. However, what I do know is that the modern beef producer of today has a lot of great advantages as far as efficiently producing beef and doing it in a way that is not just sustainable to our natural resources, but it's regenerative, too, and so that's really what I wanted to celebrate today in my message.

David:            Go into some more specifics on how beef production is regenerative. What do you mean when you say that?

Amanda:        When I say regenerative, I want to look specifically at rangelands and grasslands. A lot of times, consumers will say, “Well, we could just plow up that land and use it to grow crops or cereal grains or whatever to feed people,” but the fact of the matter is that most of this land is unsuitable for modernizing or farming and can only be used by ruminant animals — and if it were not, it would become a desert or a barren wasteland. So, cattle, with each bite of grass they take, with each step of their hooves, they aerate the soil. They reduce fuel for wildfires. They provide habitat for everything from bees to rabbits and mice to deer and foxes, so they're a critical component to our ecosystem, and they're just part of the balance. Not only that, but they can upcycle this poor, marginal, inedible, cellulosic material that is grass and they can convert it into a nutrient-packed superfood like beef.

David:            And it's not just grass, right? What other kinds of cellulose materials do they —

Amanda:        Sure. Well, it depends on the part of the country. They can eat everything from potato byproducts in Idaho to distillers grains in the corn belt, and so they can take byproducts of other crop production and other foods and can convert that into beef as well. I think, a lot of times, our consumers misplace the information or misplace the blame on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions because they've been told, if they skip eating meat one day out of the week, they'll save the planet — but, ultimately, I guess I really want to stress that Mother Nature wasn't wrong and the beef cow is incredible, and so we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and that she can play a critical part in taking care of our natural resources and feeding a hungry planet.

David:            That's good to know. You've got some kinds of problems that you've outlined, where alternative proteins don't stack up to beef. Do you want to talk through some of those with us?

Amanda:        Sure. The first problem — and maybe it's just the advantage of the beef cow — but these companies haven't really proven their environmental impact. So, when they talk about the natural resources used in beef production, they also fail to acknowledge the energy use, the crops that are needed, the fact that there are still fetal cells that will be used in this production practice, the waste produced, as far as what's being grown in the laboratory.

                        This all has an environmental footprint as well, and so I think there's some burden of proof there for them to show us what their environmental footprint actually is, and can it compete if it goes to scale.

                        The next problem, as we discussed, is that this lab meat can't regenerate and build topsoil quite like cattle can, and so, anytime we plow up rangeland and pastures to be used for monoculture and crop production, we're losing that carbon capture of having that soil covered by grass. So just by having the grasslands maintained and not going into barren wasteland or trying to grow cereal grains or an alternative on this marginal land is something these Petri dish proteins can't do.

                        The next, and it's one I love talking about, is byproducts. When we think of beef cattle, we think of steaks and cheeseburgers, but it's so much more than that. It's things like insulin for diabetics, crayons, deodorants, leather goods like boots and belts and furniture, and everything in between. There are hundreds of byproducts that enrich our everyday lives that come from beef cattle — even organic fertilizer for vegetable production; that comes from cows, too. So, byproducts are a huge thing, and if we're going to try to replace the all-in-one machine that is the beef cow with synthetic or alternative options for all these byproducts, that's going to have an environmental footprint as well.

                        Then, another problem, a lot of these companies are promising that they're antibiotic-free and pathogen-free. I think it's unfair for any food company to claim that there aren't vulnerabilities as far as food safety goes, and we need more transparency as far as their antibiotic usage —  where are they vulnerable, where are points of contamination — and I'm thankful that the FDA and USDA are going to jointly regulate and oversee these production practices, but yet, I think there's a lot more they need to prove before they enter the marketplace.

                        Finally, someone told me, "Don't you feel bad eating cattle? Your diet leads to death," and I think it's important to note that, once again, every diet, no matter if it's total vegan or total carnivore, there's animal deaths involved. Every time a field is plowed, you're misplacing the wildlife that lived there. It's just a give and take. As a rancher, I understand the circle of life and I value that beef cattle for what she offers to people, to nourish and enrich people's lives. However, I think it's just a convenient thing that the plant-based folks kind of ignore that their diets also cause death and suffering as well, so it's just a matter of where you place your importance, I guess. For me, I can feel pretty confident that I'm utilizing a beef animal and respecting what she has to offer humanity while also respectfully caring for that animal, too, while she is in our care.

David:            Yeah, good point. I'm sure most people haven't even thought of the fact that crops do displace natural habitat. Pasture does, to an extent, too. That certainly is a problem, when deforestation occurs for pasture, but if you're on natural grasslands, that's not quite as big of an issue. You mentioned antibiotics, and I would think that most people would assume the cell-based or Petri dish-based meat wouldn't need any antibiotics, because these are not living animals that are walking around and potentially getting sick, so where would the antibiotics come into that process?

Amanda:        Sure. Well, without actually having seen the manufacturing process take place, I think there are a lot of unknowns there, and I can't speak with authority on how the antibiotics would be used. However, just like any living thing — especially when it's interacting with humans in a lab — there are those points of vulnerability where antibiotics might be applied and used in that setting. So, I appreciate the National Cattlemen's Beef Association coming out and saying strongly that we need more information and clarity on antibiotic usage in these Petri dish proteins' production practices, and that needs to be regulated and overseen by the USDA.

David:            So, you're talking about some sort of instance where there's contamination in the lab or in the production process.

Amanda:        Perhaps. It could come out the collection phase, too. We're dealing with live animals at that stage as well, as far as the fetal cells, and so, yeah, I think maybe it's — like I said, we're in its infancy right now, where we don't totally know and understand the processes.

I really hate fear-mongering about any products that I don't know or understand, and I'm always very mindful of, no matter what the beef is, whether it's natural, grass-fed, organic or Petri-dish, it's an option for the consumers and we're getting protein on people's plate, and these products could be viable in the marketplace and a solution to giving people around the world that product. However, where I have problems is in this rush to market and in this rush to get a return on investment with these major investors that are actively participating in these production practices. I worry that food safety, transparency, nutritional information might not be as clear as they should be for our consumers.

David:            So, we need to be cautious there, yeah. Talk a little bit about the natural resources, the inputs, that go into cell-based proteins.

Amanda:        Sure. Again, this is conjecture, really, from what I've read and can understand, but you're going to need, obviously, a fetal calf and cells from that calf. They'll grow in a suitable medium, and, from what I understand, it could be soybeans or corn, mushrooms, and could even be cattle-based, just depending on the company. That growth medium will grow the muscle fibers and also the fat fibers; they're grown separately and have to come together. By my understanding, they're kept at 98 degrees Fahrenheit, and these cells, as they duplicate and grow, they produce waste, and so, then, waste has to be taken out of that Petri dish as well.

                        It's a huge process. There might be some opportunities for crop producers, corn and soybean growers, to provide this medium for these cells to grow. I don't want to be shortsighted and think that these products don't have a place in agriculture; however, it's difficult for me, as a beef producer, to see them disparage our industry while also trying to hijack our nomenclature, like beef, and the great reputation that beef has with our beef-loving consumers, and use it to market their product.

David:            Yeah. If you're going to have to grow the cells in a medium that's made out of something — because it's not magic, they have to provide nutrients to the cells — if those are supplied with soybeans or corn or any kind of plant, then it's not necessarily going to have a smaller footprint than a cow.

Amanda:        Exactly, yes.

David:            It might or might not, but it's not going to be drastically — it's not going to be free of inputs, right?

Amanda:        Correct.

David:            And they also will have to maintain this environment at this temperature and keep it in a sterile setting, and that's going to take a lot of energy.

Amanda:        Absolutely, and, yeah, I think they're downplaying that side of their story while really focusing on any negatives they might perceive about traditionally raised beef. And so, I want to compare apples to apples — or apples to oranges, however you might look at it — and as they go to scale in the marketplace, they'll have to prove that burden in the environmental footprint, and then we'll see, but I really think the beef cow can compete and has a great story to tell and is an important part of our environmental stewardship and our sustainability story, as far as a planet and a human race.

David:            You've mentioned that there's a little bit of controversy over the use of the words “meat” and “beef”. Some of these products, when they come to market, they may want to call them burgers or meat or beef, or meatless, whatever — so where does that stand? Is it a regulatory issue? Is it controversial?

Amanda:        There are several states across the country that are fighting to protect the nomenclature of meat and beef, and I've got to give props to Kentucky; the governor just signed a proclamation declaring it Beef Month for May but also signing a labeling law that would prohibit fake meats from calling themselves “meat” or “beef”. I think that's a great first step in setting those precedents on a state level before it can be federally enforced.

                        We're also seeing countries around the world, like Australia, France, the European Union — they're all addressing these meat-labeling rules and what is best and most informative for consumers. To me, it's really misleading to have these alternative products be called “meat” and “beef”.

                        Most importantly, beef producers have invested, through the Beef Checkoff Program, a dollar per animal sold to promote beef. So you have everything from the iconic "Beef: It’s what's for dinner" slogan, to research to create new steaks that would add value to the carcass, to educating our consumers about how best to prepare beef, and that investment has earned us a great reputation with our consumers. Beef is beloved, and it's king of the grill, and now, these companies want to take that nomenclature and use it for themselves, so that's really frustrating, and I think that's why the beef industry in general is really active in this fight: because beef is beef, period, and its name shouldn't be slapped on any other product.

David:            Let's compare sales of alternative or plant-based proteins to beef. Where does that stand right now?

Amanda:        U.S. sales of plant-based meats jumped 42% between March 2016 and March 2019, to a total of $888 million. Meanwhile, traditional meat sales rose just 1% to $85 billion in that same time frame, and that's according to ABC News. Beyond Meat is valued at $5.1 billion, as of today. I just read a story by a guy, and he predicts that that rising star is going to fizz a lot pretty fast, but I think it's a clear indication that retailers and consumers are incredibly excited about, at least, the plant-based protein patties and are willing to try it. I just read a study that one-third of consumers are also willing to try lab proteins, and so it'll be interesting to see what consumer acceptance looks like once they get to try it, if they like it and, again, if beef can hang on to the center of the dinner plate.

David:            So, it's early days, still.

Amanda:        Yes.

David:            We'll see what happens, right?

Amanda:        Yeah. I think the plant-based proteins, if you look at their ingredient list, it's a mile long, and it's essentially just a processed food; it's not a whole, nourishing food like beef is, a complete protein like beef would be. So, for me, it's a little interesting to see what types of consumers are loving this product. Are they the types that are really interested about health and nutrition? Are they buying it out of guilt or fear about the environment or about animal welfare? And, if so, how do we address some of the concerns that they might have about traditional beef and get them back to eating beef as a protein choice in between those hamburger buns.

David:            All right. Well, thank you, Amanda. It was a great conversation and I appreciate your time.

Amanda:        Thanks for having me. I was thrilled to be able to share that Alltech stage with such talented speakers (at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference), and it's just a great event to be a part of.

Amanda Radke spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE). Click here to learn about ONE and how you can access innovation on demand.