How do the top farms achieve and maintain exceptional performance? Valerie Duttlinger, chief analytics officer at Summit SmartFarms, explains how a positive workplace culture that focuses on the people and processes on the farm can lead to greater agricultural production.

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

Tom:                          I'm Tom Martin with Valerie Duttlinger, chief analytics officer at Summit SmartFarms, and she joins us to talk about her session at (the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience), “Achieving top performance: What does it really take to be the best?” In this session, Valerie covered how top pig farms achieve and maintain elevated performance through focusing on people and processes. Greetings, Valerie.

Valerie:                      Hi.

Tom:                          So, first, a bit of background. Tell us about Summit SmartFarms.

Valerie:                      Well, we’re a startup company based in Remington, Indiana, and we’re focused on equipping people to optimize performance through labor and technology.

Tom:                          The title of your presentation at this year's virtual ONE (Alltech) Ideas Conference, as I said, was “Achieving top performance: What does it really take to be the best?” And I'm wondering: What criteria have to be met to be considered the best?

Valerie:                      Well, you know, it's really a combination of a number of things, but it’s ultimately driven by a company's business model. The best for a producer selling weaned pigs is different than what a producer finishing their pigs would be looking for. It's a combination of animal performance, employee engagement and, ultimately, profitability.

Tom:                          And can you give us some examples of “bests” that everybody would be familiar with?

Valerie:                      Yeah. So, for a sow farm, you know, 30 pigs weaned per mated female per year is certainly one that is thrown out there a lot. But again, that's not right for everyone. Low mortality is certainly a driver of “best,” both on the sow unit and on the finishing side. But I think having low turnover and highly engaged team members are often not considered in that definition but really should be.

Tom:                          So, Valerie, if you were called in to diagnose the health of an organization, what would you be looking for?

Valerie:                      You know, there's really four buckets that I would be looking at. One would be: Do they put people first? And second, are they coaching, or are they just bosses? Third, does the team have the tools they need to win and be successful? And fourth, have they really created an irresistible culture?

Tom:                          Okay. Let's take those four points one by one. First, people. What needs to be recognized and understood about the people of an organization?

Valerie:                      You know, everybody is different, but ultimately, people are looking for the same things. And our teams really aren’t any different than those that are working in factories or in offices. They want to be known individually and appreciated for their contributions to the team.

Tom:                          And “be a coach, not a boss” — what does this mean?

Valerie:                      You know, for me, great coaches do three things really well: they advocate for their team; they congratulate and celebrate a job well done; and they provide timely guidance when they don't do their jobs correctly.

Tom:                          “Deploy tools to win” — does this have to do with the quality and the effectiveness of the tools employees are provided to work with?

Valerie:                      Yeah. It's not just enough to provide tools; they have to have the right tools, like quality and user-friendly SOPs. Other tools could include personality assessments and tools to help team members understand each other in a much better way.

Tom:                          What are the things that make a workplace culture irresistible?

Valerie:                      An irresistible culture has a waiting line instead of a revolving door of people, and it's a place where people want to come to work instead of having to come to work. It’s a place where they’re supported and are valued and are known for the difference that they're making in the organization.

Tom:                          And within that culture, what kinds of generational differences should employees be aware of?

Valerie:                      Yeah. There are a lot of generational differences, but there certainly has been a big shift in the way that millennials and Generation-Z’s view work. They’re looking for more than just a job that provides a paycheck. They really want their job to provide a purpose that allows them to use their strengths and not focus on weaknesses.

Tom:                          Do you find that the generations offer different perspectives when they're asked to rate their job satisfaction?

Valerie:                      Yeah. In 2019, we conducted a labor intelligence study with just over 100 team members in 12 different farms, and the millennials were the least satisfied while making up 50% of the respondents in that study. And that's been a trend that is seen across many different industries, across a number of different surveys and engagement.

Tom:                          Some of us, we work too hard. We just throw ourselves into our work. And if the job becomes your life, what becomes of your life outside of the work?

Valerie:                      Well, we do spend more waking hours at work than we do at home. So, a job should really be an extension of your life. It should be working for something that you're passionate about and with people you enjoy being around so that it does add to the value of your life.

Tom:                          This pandemic that we're in is causing us to kind of step back from overworking. Are you seeing that, and do you think that's going to make a difference going forward?

Valerie:                      Yeah. It's certainly impacted the way that people are working and living.

                                    You know, in the ag industry, especially in production agriculture, we don't get to just work from home. The animals, they'll have to be cared for and fed. So, it still means going to work, for many of these people. And so, it has certainly been new concerns and new stresses for people as they're trying to educate their children from home while working full-time, having problems with childcare. It's really had a really big impact. But at the same time, in production agriculture, we’re helping to feed the world. And so, we're playing a really important role for frontline workers, and that's important for our team members to remember: the role that they're playing through this pandemic.

Tom:                          Back to your presentation at the (Alltech) ONE (Virtual Experience). Something I found really interesting (is that) you advocate hiring for fit instead of skills. What is fit, and why is fit more important than skills?

Valerie:                      You know, fit is about culture. Does this person fit in with the core values and the culture of the company? And we can teach people the skills much easier than we can help them fit into our culture.

Tom:                          What are the signs of a toxic work culture?

Valerie:                      Well, I would put at the top of that, gossip, and from — that is generally a result of poor communication. It can be strained interactions, and certainly, high turnover would be a sign of a toxic culture.

Tom:                          What if, Valerie, right this second, we're talking to somebody who is just absolutely miserable in their job. First, what are some signs of this?

Valerie:                      You know, I think one of the signs is feeling like you're replaceable, like you're a cog in a wheel and that you're not really known for who you are personally. If you don't feel a connection to the mission of the company and you don't understand if you're winning in your role, it's really hard to be engaged in your job.

Tom:                          And so, how could this unhappiness be prevented?

Valerie:                      Well, I think it's partly the responsibility of the leadership team to share the messages that come back at, you know, communicating the history of the company, helping each team member understand how they're impacting the success of the company and the impact that they have on the world by being in agriculture and food production, helping to feed those around us.

Tom:                          And what could a manager — and I guess a good manager would notice if somebody is going through this. And so, what could that manager do help to a person feel more positive about their job?

Valerie:                      Well, it may not be just their job that's causing them to be negative. It can be those things that are impacting them outside of (their professional) life. And so, for a manager, to start with having a conversation with them about what really is bothering them is the first place to start. And then, if it dovetails into it being a part of the job and (is) really focused on things that they don't like in the job, it's about how can you adjust the job to allow people to do things that they like. We can't avoid all of the jobs that we like or dislike. But if one person in the farm maybe hates paperwork, and yet they’re responsible for a lot of it, having another person help with that or adjusting those responsibilities can go a long way to helping people be more positive in their outlook on their job.

Tom:                          And what if you have no way, or at least think you have no way, to actually measure progress or success in these areas?

Valerie:                      So, I think it's about getting creative. You know, if you have no way to measure progress or success, it’s tough for people to stay engaged. And we really want to know if we're getting better at what we're doing. And so, get creative — even if it's just the scale of 1 to 10, how well do you feel like you did this week, or having your boss rate you (on) how well did you do this week. It doesn't have to be something that is a hard and fast measurement. It can be an objective measurement.

Tom:                          Okay. And now, this is a “listen up” for management. The question is: What are the key traits of an organization that people want to be a part of?

Valerie:                      Yeah. They want a place that embraces teamwork. They need to have clear goals and objectives so that they really have a clear path to what they're working towards, and they really want to work in their strength areas. You know, a football player, a quarterback, is not out there practicing kicks, because that's not his strength area. So, putting people in the places where they're working in their strength area is really important today.

Tom:                          Earlier, we touched on why it's important to be a coach and not a boss. Let's drill down into that just a bit. What distinguishes a coach from a boss?

Valerie:                      A coach would say things like “we” instead of “I”. They're going to give the credit instead of taking credit, and yet, they're always going to accept the blame instead of placing the blame on others. And I think a really great coach pushes you to do more and be more than you thought you could do or be.

Tom:                          Sometimes, there has to be a difficult, uncomfortable conversation between employee and manager, and you say that these discussions should happen sooner than later. Why is that?

Valerie:                      Well, nothing good ever happens by putting it off. And certainly, if the conversation is about somebody doing a task wrong, and they're doing that task over and over again and then you finally address it, it makes them feel foolish. It also hurts their trust in you as a leader, because if you really cared about them and the company, you would have addressed it in a much quicker manner.

Tom:                          We talked earlier about providing good tools to employees, but what are some important tools that ought to be made available to managers?

Valerie:                      You know, most managers get promoted before they've actually had any leadership training, and that's not just true in agriculture; it’s true across all industry. And so, providing training is so important to help them develop the skills to lead people, because that role of a leader is so different than being an individual contributor. And there are a lot of different tools out there. You know, one of them that we’re utilizing is a personality platform called Cloverleaf that has nine different personality assessments on it. And you can put your team on it to help you see the differences in people's personalities — how they want to be communicated with, what motivates them — so that you can really tailor your role as a manager to best motivate and influence individual team members.

Tom:                          So, these are tools that can help managers better understand their people.

Valerie:                      Yeah. Absolutely. And the Cloverleaf platform has nine different personality assessments — things like DiSC and Myers-Briggs, that are very common for most people. And it puts your team all together so that you can see how individuals fall on those different assessments.

Tom:                          How about conflict? Are there tools available to help managers deal with conflict?

Valerie:                      There are. There's more generic tools out there that help people learn how to have productive conflicts. You know, not all conflict is bad. And then there are other tools on the Cloverleaf platform as well. There's a comparison tool where you can look at two different people and identify where conflict is existing between those (people) and helping them understand each other — that it's not an intentional push of a button to get somebody upset, but just the way that people view things differently.

Tom:                          How can an organization optimize onboarding and training?

Valerie:                      Well, I think it starts with having the right person do the onboarding and training, and that should not be the last person that was hired, which is often the case. Having a teacher's heart is so important, rather than someone who may be annoyed by the same question over and over. It’s going to be really important to optimize that onboarding and training process.

Tom:                          And are there some training tools that you can recommend?

Valerie:                      Yeah. There's a number of production-related training platforms out there today that provide a really good foundation. There are also programs that are done internally within some of these organizations that have been hugely successful, but tools that really focus on improving communication and leadership are important not just for leaders but for everybody in the organization.

Tom:                          Earlier, we touched on culture. Do a company's core values translate into the nature of its culture?

Valerie:                      Not always. So, core values are words on the wall, while culture is the behavior and the actions of the people. And so, they don't necessarily equal each other, unfortunately.

Tom:                          Earlier, we talked about the signs of a toxic workplace culture. How can this be changed?

Valerie:                      It really starts with rebuilding trust, because to get to a toxic workplace, there has been trust that had been broken. And so, communicating transparently that you're making an effort to change the workplace culture, admitting the mistakes that have been made and acknowledging that you want a different outcome in the future (are important steps). It's important to recognize the changes in behaviors as you go through this transition. And one of the big things that happens in toxic workplaces, often, is treating each person — making sure that everybody follows the same rules and that nobody gets preferential treatment. Changing culture is not a fast process, but it may be the most important key to long-term success for operations.

Tom:                          So, these are some ways that an organization's leadership can go about fixing these issues that lead to toxicity in the culture.

Valerie:                      Yeah. I think you've got to start with making a commitment to change and then find somebody to help you through the process who doesn't have other responsibilities pulling them away from the mission. You know, it's great to pick a platform to get to know your people better, and that can be that single assessment, like DiSC or Myers-Briggs, or it could be the Cloverleaf platform that I talked about. And then, finally, it’s integrating those changes and inspecting them regularly to make sure that the changes are taking place and you're seeing the outcome that you desire.

Tom:                          Valerie Duttlinger, chief analytics officer at Summit Farms. We thank you for joining us, Valerie.

Valerie:                      Thank you.

Tom:                          I'm Tom Martin. Thank you for listening.

The International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) and Alltech have announced the call for nominations for the IFAJ-Alltech International Award for Leadership in Agricultural Journalism. The award will be presented during the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience in 2021. Now in its third year, this global award recognizes excellence and leadership demonstrated by young journalists within their IFAJ guilds.

The recognition honors Alltech’s late founder, Dr. Pearse Lyons, who was a passionate storyteller with a great respect for agricultural journalists. The award upholds this legacy while keeping an eye toward the future as it supports the next generation of leaders who connect agriculture to a global audience. It’s an endeavor that aligns with Alltech’s vision for a Planet of Plenty^TM, in which a world of abundance is made possible through the adoption of new technologies, better farm management practices and human ingenuity within agriculture.

“Producers throughout the food supply chain are implementing smarter, more sustainable solutions to positively impact plants, animals, people and the environment,” said Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech. “However, progress does not end at implementation. We must also amplify the message that we are in the midst of a new era in agriculture led by science, data-driven decision making and a passionate dedication to farming with the future in mind.”

Journalists aged 40 years or younger by Dec. 31, 2020, can be nominated through their IFAJ guilds via the online application form. A global winner will be selected by an international committee based on their journalistic achievements and the leadership they demonstrate within their guild. The global winner receives complimentary registration to attend the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience and will be honored during a presentation.

“IFAJ shares our commitment to supporting journalists who give a voice to the farmers and producers, the innovators and change-makers, the scientists and scholars all working toward a Planet of Plenty,” continued Dr. Lyons. “We are excited to once again partner with IFAJ as we honor excellence in journalism and ensure that the stories of agriculture continue to be well-told.”

The two organizations have enjoyed a longstanding relationship, having also co-founded a young leader program in 2005 that continues today.

"Alltech's respect for agricultural journalists and commitment to cultivating leadership skills among young reporters has strengthened the profession around the world," said Lena Johansson, president of the IFAJ. "The company's emphasis on the importance of accurate reporting on science and agriculture is more important than ever, and Alltech's dedication has helped many talented journalists build their careers. It is a pleasure to work with them." 

The deadline for nominations is Dec. 18, 2020. For more information about the IFAJ-Alltech International Award for Leadership in Agricultural Journalism, contact press@alltech.com.

Protix is a Dutch nutrition company working to improve future food-production systems by using insect-based foods. Founder and CEO Kees Aarts joins us to discuss what inspired him to pursue creating alternative feed for animals and his vision for a future with less food waste thanks to insect-based ingredients.

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

Tom:                          I’m Tom Martin, and with us is Kees Aarts, founder and CEO of Protix, an insect-based and nutrition company headquartered in the Netherlands. Kees joined us to talk about his product and about sustainable agriculture.

                                    Thanks for joining us, Kees.

Kees:                          Thanks for having me.

Tom:                          Let’s begin by having you tell us about your company, Protix, and its goals.

Kees:                          I’ll be honored to. So, Protix is a company, a market leader, in insect-based nutrition. Why that is relevant for a sustainable future is because (of) the role insects play in nature, and it’s actually so fascinating and, actually, quite curious, why we never use it in our food system. Because basically every animal, when it’s young, when it has to grow fast, and when it needs to build its defense system, it eats insects, right? Whether it’s a bird, reptile, mammal, fish — it doesn’t matter. They all eat insects when they’re young, they need to grow fast and need to build their defense system.

                                    So, insects are vastly nutritious, and even more beautiful, they can be grown and harvested from feeding them with food wastes. And that is a very exciting new arena, because we’re depleting our natural resources; whether they come from land or from the seas, they are being depleted. And we have this huge amount of food waste, which is nothing more than a whole bunch of nutrients, like protein, lipids and other nutrients, and we could feed that to insects and basically extract the nutrition from that food waste and make it ready again for anything in pet foods, fish feed, livestock feed, chicken feed and even human foods, in the new development bind that we’re having.

                                    So, that’s a bit about Protix. It started ten years ago, and (I’m) very proud about all the 130 colleagues that are basically working relentlessly every day, making this work at scale.

Tom:                          I wonder, do you think it could be psychological? I mean, this is a generalization, but it seems like a safe one that humans — for humans, there’s kind of an “eek!” factor to consuming insects, when you’re not really talking about eating a bug, you’re talking about what’s in the bug, correct?

Kees:                          Absolutely. Yes, there’s definitely an “eek!” factor, and it’s a pretty cool factor, actually. It’s a bit like — like the first fear people had when they — when they were driving a car instead of (riding) a horse. The car was much faster. That was a genuine fear. It’s a bit like this as well.

So, we have these natural barriers against something that is new or something that is small or something that is unknown. So, it is natural that there is this “eek!” factor, because we haven’t used insects in our food system.

So, it’s new, but when you think about it, what do insects really deliver? Other than, of course, beautiful products like honey, (it) is a whole bunch of nutrition. So — and of course, some insects don’t look really nice, but if you — if you process them into a protein meal or an oil or a derivative and you include that into food formulations or feed formulations, then all of a sudden, it becomes this very interesting source of nutrition. And that is something I think will overcome the “eek!” factor big-time in the coming years.

Tom:                          Well, I’m really curious about this, Kees. How did you initially arrive at this idea: building an entire business around insect-based nutrition?

Kees:                          The idea emerged from a beer on the beach after a diving trip, which is very simple, because I came from the sea again, (and) I was genuinely frustrated again by the damage we do through dynamite fishing, overfishing, etc. There was literally nothing to see. So, you could say that’s bit of an egocentric approach, to say, “Okay, I don’t have fish to see when I’m diving, which is a luxury sport. What can I do to battle overfishing? Because I would like to dive and see more tropical fish.”

So, that’s where the idea emerged, because there was some residual knowledge from the past where my family — I’ve got a lot of farmers in the family. My grandpa was feed miller. (Because of) that, I knew that a lot of fish is actually caught, ground into a protein meal, and then, as a protein meal, is fed to chicken and other fish. And that is a resource that is actually not necessary, because insect-based nutrition is far more nutritious.

So, one of my missions is to stop fisheries (from using) protein meals, because I believe that natural biodiversity in oceans is disappearing too fast, and we need to restore that. So, that’s how the idea emerged.

                                    Now, the second part of your question — whether I was actually sane enough to think about the consequences of starting the business, because it’s quite a hell of  a ride since then. We needed to develop new legislative frameworks, new technologies, new operating principles. So, there was all these — all these barriers in between the idea and the execution.

                                    So, luckily, I was young and I didn’t have children, so — but, yeah, that’s how the idea emerged and how the venture started.

Tom:                          Interesting. Let’s turn to the product line, and before we get into the specific types of products that you’re producing, tell us: What are the benefits of insect-based nutrition?

Kees:                          So, one of the key benefits is the antioxidant activity. So, what we truly see is that the immune response of the animals eating the insects is very positive. It’s far more positive than the pro-oxidant activity from, for instance, fish meal or chicken meal.

                                    So, if you have fish or chicken and you want to feed them, then you have choices. The choices, of course, (are) the cost or origins, but now, there’s this new category that originated from insects, that you have additional benefits, like antioxidants, which is genuinely important when the creature needs to grow fast.

                                    So, these are, these are only — and we’re just scratching the surface of this, because we are now a market leader in this field, but the field is very young. And so, this is only one of them. We see other benefits, like a better liver quality of the fish. We are seeing the plasma between the knee wrist and the shoulder wrist of the chicken was more smooth, and so, there was less knee sores.

                                    So, there’s all these benefits that we’re seeing in the last couple of years that makes the feed and (has) the aquaculture and the food industry looking at this with very big interest.

Tom:                          I mentioned your product line. What are the food system markets that you target?

Kees:                          Principally, our main objective is to create sustainable white meat and fish as fast as possible. So, if you look at chickens, eggs, shrimp, salmon and trout, these are five major categories of very concentrated protein growth. So, these are very efficient animals; they grow fast, and they grow very efficiently, sometimes even at a 1.1 conversion rate. This means you only need 1.1 kg of feed to grow 1 kg of target animal flesh.

                                    Now, within these sectors, the demand for sustainable nutrition is the highest. And those are the ones we target, because that’s where the consumer can directly choose what is a great product — eggs, chicken, trout, salmon and shrimp — but all of a sudden, we did (it with) a vastly lower footprint. So, a much lower environmental effect (was) measured in CO₂ (on) land and water.

                                    So, those are the targets to create a sustainable meat and fish as fast as possible.       

Tom:                          Okay. Let’s look at one of those, aquaculture. What are the benefits? How is it applied in aquaculture?

Kees:                          Aquaculture, this is very interesting market, right? So, this is one of the fastest-growing markets and one of the most efficient animals.

                                    Now, for those fish, let’s take, for instance, trout and salmon. Feeds are formulated, and the feeds are formulated basically as a composition of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and some other additives.

                                    Now, within that, we can replace protein meals, some of the lipids, and we can increase the functionalities, especially on the antioxidant side. And these are benefits that salmon producers start to see, on top of the sustainability element, that you can actually grow this fish with a lower dependency on marine-based ingredients. Because that’s the tricky part, right? So that, on the one hand, you’re growing the fish, but on the other hand, you need these marine resources, like fish meal or fish oil and other ones. And that’s something that consumers, more and more, would like to challenge, and that’s where we come in.

On top of the sustainability of this replacement argument, we have some additional health benefits.

Tom:                          You have a product for poultry, and on your website, you say that this results in a better-tasting egg. Tell us more about that.

Kees:                          Yeah. That was really fun. And so, basically, if you look at a chicken, right? It has two eyes on the side of its head, but the brain is a lizard brain. A chicken basically reacts to something that moves, and what doesn’t move, it doesn’t see. These chickens are in this barn and basically waiting to be fed, but all these feeds are silent, right? They don’t move.

                                    What we did — we brought, through a very smart system, live larvae into the pen again. And all of a sudden, this lizard brain starts to work again, so this chicken becomes more active, and it is less inclined to start pecking each other, so that it’s more active, more healthy chicken, each side. (Thanks to) reformulated feed, these live insects and the combination of that, basically, in public panels, as a result of that, the people love the smell and the taste more (because it’s) more natural.

Tom:                          You know, the temptation is to go down the rabbit hole with each one of these products. I mean, I have to wonder: What is the story behind the discovery of that? It’s almost like the discovery of lobsters, you know — who thought of that first?

Kees:                          I agree. But this is the beauty. I mean, you have to go back a century to think about — so, when was the last time this new category of ingredient was created, right?

                                    So, it’s just truly a new platform. Once the boats got bigger to catch fish and to catch them deeper, all of a sudden, fish was more than just a direct meal; it was this new category of ingredients.

                                    Fish meal and fish oil, other than (the fact that) they’re destroying natural diversity, it’s a good platform of nutrition. If you go back and ask the question, “When was the last time this new platform of nutrition was created?” You have to go back a century. And that’s why I like your remark. It’s true; you can literally go down the rabbit hole for each one of these new applications, and we only scratch the surface of it.

                                    I bet a lot of things (are) moving in the insect industry. We will see so many exciting applications and health-promoting benefits in chicken feeds, but we will also start seeing — we’ll start seeing flavors being extracted from insects.

Tom:                          Ah!

Kees:                          We’ll start to see human applications.

So, I love this question: “How can it be that larvae, they live and grow in this very challenged environment with a lot of microbial pressure, and they remain healthy?” It’s because they have all these waxes and these skins and these compounds around them. So what if you extract those, what if you isolate those and use them in, maybe, plant protection or skin protection?

                                    And I’m not just asking them — we’re actually looking at some of these avenues, and we saw some very exciting things when we sprayed some of those compounds on leaves. So, I fully confirm that it’s so exciting to think about all these rabbit holes for each of these applications. It’s pretty cool.

Tom:                          Is there a particular insect that is your, your workhorse, key to your product line?

Kees:                          Yes. So, we work mainly with the black soldier fly. That’s our workhorse, indeed. We have knowledge of some of the others, and we have bred, for instance, also a mealworm and a cricket.

                                    But why we’ve chosen to pursue building the platform of black soldier fly is because it doesn’t eat as a fly. So, why is that interesting? It actually doesn’t have a mouth. The larvae need to store all the nutrition to transform itself to cocoon, to pupae, to hatch, to mate and to lay the eggs, because anywhere between the eggs and the transition to pupae, it doesn’t extract any new nutrition. So, the larva is especially nutritious, to do all of that after that. So, that’s why it’s a workhorse, and there are some other benefits, but it’s a bit too detailed for now. But so, our platform is the black soldier fly as a nutritional base.

Tom:                          Pet food applications also are included in your line — is that correct?

Kees:                          Yes, absolutely.

Tom:                          Are you also engaged in developing it for human consumption?

Kees:                          Yes, absolutely. So, in our office, there are two people who are constantly cooking this exciting new stuff. And then, sometimes, they’re wildly tasty and wildly interesting.

Tom:                          Well, let me just — let me stop you right there. Give us an example. What does it taste like?

Kees:                          One of the things I really loved was a butter, which was — which has to do with melting pathways. So, the melting temperature of insect oil is very long. So why is that interesting? So, when you put that on a sandwich and everything you top, (what) you put on top of it has a very strong carryover, because butters and fats are usually the taste intermittent. So, the butter was really tasty.

                                    We had a consommé, so basically a soup extract. We did a baking oil for breads and cookies. The protein fillers, so the protein itself —  so what we tested is a hybrid where we took a meat — so, ground meat, I think, is the word, and then we replaced half of it with our insect protein meal. And then, we gave it in blind testing to people, where there (was a) 100% score, that all of them chose the mix with the insect, because it delivered this additional nutty and even an umami, salty-type flavor.

                                    So, other than it is a higher concentrate of protein meal, it delivers a natural flavor. And that is why I think it has the potential, because if you look at the meat replacements development, it’s hard to do that without a whole range of additives to match the taste. So, this insect protein meal comes with its own taste, taste platform, or how do you call that? Palatability. And that is a very exciting development in food, of course.

Tom:                          The people who tried these products and approved and liked them, were they later told what they had had?

Kees:                          Yeah.

Tom:                          Were they amazed?

Kees:                          Yeah. A lot of them were amazed, especially if you — I think what you alluded to as well in the beginning, right? If it’s a hidden ingredient, the “eek!” factors come really quickly, right? And the curiosity kicks in much easier. If it’s a visible compound, then it’s harder to skip to that curiosity, but the hidden compound, it was fantastic.

Tom:                          We’re not talking about chocolate-covered grasshoppers here, are we? [Laughs]

Kees:                          Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I agree that it’s been of an adventurous, maybe a party-style thing, that you put a cricket on a stick with a chocolate dip. No, we’re, indeed — we’re really talking on (an) ingredient level and enriching a product or a food with the ingredients we supply.

Tom:                          I don’t mean to trivialize; I just think that the human mind generally kind of goes in that direction when we’re talking about insects, and perhaps we need to get past our arachnophobia here — because we’re talking about sustainability, aren’t we?

Kees:                          Yes. What I discussed as well, earlier, I even coined a term for that. I wrote a book. It’s called “The Footprintarian,” whereby, basically, you combine all the basic principles. All my products, foods, services, goods and experiences, I wish to source at the lowest possible footprint, because when you have the choice to buy different products, services, goods, foods and experiences, you are already at the top 10% in the world, right? So, and once you’re there, your footprint is simply too big.

So, every individual has a contribution to make, to make the future inspiring and motivating again. So, there’s one objective we all have, whether you’re a government and creating new legislation or at a company creating a new product or as a consumer buying something: You need to somehow source and fulfill your desires at the lowest possible footprint.

                                    And in that, I kind of appeal a little bit to everyone (that we have) a responsibility to overcome anything, right? If you’re — let’s take a sidestep. I know it’s very cool to have your hand on the steering wheel and own a car, but you have to overcome, somehow, that feeling, right? It’s about mobility. You have to ask your government and companies to fulfill your mobility at the lowest possible footprint. That’s cool.

                                    Same as with foods. It doesn’t matter — it literally doesn’t matter how it looks like or how it’s made, as long as you like it, it’s tasty, and it’s produced at the lowest possible footprint. And in trying to achieve that, you have to overcome everything, anything. You just have to ask the question to companies, the government, to help you fulfill that need.

And our contribution in that is that we have an ingredient that has the lowest footprint in terms of protein, unit of protein, in terms of energy, water and land. And we’ve proven that with the Deutsches Institut für Lebensmitteltechnik with ETH Zurich. We can produce over — and this is phenomenal — our production capacity is 6,000 tons of protein per hectare per year.

                                    And that number — I’ll put it in perspective. It’s three (tons per hectare) for soy, intensified soy. It’s 100 for the best algae farm. It’s about 400 to 500 for extremely well-developed fermentation-type approach or bacterial. And we have 6,000, and that is because our technology, the biology, the operations, everything is under control, and we manage it in a very high-tech environment. But that system — and it should then normalize that to the use (of) energy, water and land. And that protein meal just should find its way in every product imaginable, whether it’s a pet food, whether it’s a feed, whether it’s direct food — it doesn’t matter, because we need to reduce the footprint of our food system.

Tom:                          Well, this would seem to have significant implications for efforts to mitigate climate change.

Kees:                          It has. Huge.

Tom:                          Another thing that you talk about on your website (is) mycotoxins’ threat to lifestyle producers, especially in the Midwest here in the United States. What has your research revealed about how insects can play a role in reducing these molds?

Kees:                          Yeah. That’s an interesting one. What we found out is that they can break it down. I’m not sure yet, but I expect that the indications will even be stronger. But we could extract a compound from our insects and use it on the crop side. Our “flytilizer” on the soil improves the soil quality and, therefore, reduces the risk of the mycotoxins, but that is in development still.

What we have already seen is that if you take mycotoxins, then there are huge amounts of corn and other cereals that cannot be used in the food system (and are) discarded. And then (these) can actually be fed to our insects; they break down the mycotoxins, and then those products that come out of it, the protein meals and the lipids, can then be used again in the food system.

                                    So, that is quite impactful. So, it doesn’t have to go to landfilling or digestion or any other utilization outside the food system, because that is a true waste. So, mycotoxins, we already saw the ability of insects to break it down, fingers crossed. I’m not making the scientific proof yet, but there are indications we can even avoid it.

Tom:                          Kees, tell us about your contribution to discussions about supply chain collaborations from production all the way to the consumer level.

Kees:                          This is, of course, the nicest opportunity, but also, of course, one that takes the most effort. So, we have this new ingredient, and we’re about four or five stages away from the consumer. And every single supply chain has its own dynamic, right? Whether it’s purchase, risk, or whether it’s minimum size needed, or whether it’s ability to afford the increased price. So, there are always, always challenges.

                                    Now, how we try to solve it is to go all the way to the consumer with a brand we own, something like the Oer Egg or the Friendly Fish. And then, we try to bring this narrative of, “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Consumer, we can help you make a choice to buy a product where all the way to the fundamental resources, a sustainability trigger we made. Now, how does it look like?”

                                    And then, we tell that on the packaging, we tell that through in-store and communications. And then, we see (that) consumers like having this “aha moment,” right? So, “Aha! Of course sustainability is more than an LED light in a farm or a non-plastic packaging. It is where does the primary ingredient come from, how is it made in the meantime, and if this end product actually healthy.”

                                    And these three questions, we try to answer, based on proposition, of course. And in order to — and once we have the brand in place, we go back to the players in the middle, and we start helping them also, creating their contribution and increase the demand for our ingredient.

Tom:                          Well, speaking of your contribution, I’d like to ask you if you can condense this. I know it’s difficult to put this in brief form, but if you could, describe for us, Kees, the future food system that you imagine.

Kees:                          So, for me, it’s one in balance. So, if I simply look at myself, it’s becoming more and more guilt-laden, right? Everything you buy, there’s always this downside related to it. And those downsides have become more and more visible.

                                    Now, I don’t think we have it in our nature to be always in some form of restriction. So, “You can no longer do this, you can no longer do that, you can no longer do this, because it’s not good.” That’s not our nature. Our nature is motivation, inspiration, long-term, endlessness. So, that is our nature.

                                    And I think the food system is one that’s so primal, it’s so close to our skin — if we can make that in balance with nature again, then your purchase and your consumption is guilt-free. And all of a sudden, it’s no longer guilt-laden, but it is pleasure-laden. And that is the basic picture I would like to draw up for the food system — that I can’t do everything, (but) I’ll do my part — but that is the picture I would like to see for the food system.

Tom:                          Okay. I have to ask you this question. What was it like for you and for your people when the king came visiting (your company)?

Kees:                          That’s, of course, such a fantastic recognition. I mean, it’s truly fantastic. We had about ten or twelve colleagues at all different parts of the factory explaining to his majesty what — the king — what was engineered, how it would work.

                                    And the cool thing about our king is he is extremely committed to stimulating innovation, and especially at the crossroads of business, education, science. And I’m pretty proud about the amount of innovation that goes on in the Netherlands, even though we’re that small. And having him as a true advocate of that and then coming up (to) visit us at the grand opening was quite, yeah, was pretty cool.

Tom:                          Kees Aarts, founder and CEO of Protix, an insect-based nutrition company headquartered in the Netherlands. Thank you so much for joining us, Kees.

Kees:                          Thank you.

Tom:                          This has been Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Thank you for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to Ag Future wherever you listen to podcasts.

Alltech believes that inclusion cultivates creativity and drives innovation. Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but it is also essential to advancing society and the global agri-food industry. To gather real-world insights into the professional landscape for women in agriculture, Alltech has announced its support of the second annual Women in Food & Ag survey. Launching on Oct. 27, the survey aims to collect feedback that empowers the agri-food industry to create a more equitable environment.

The 2019 Women in Food & Ag survey results revealed specific barriers for women in agriculture and a gap between female and male perceptions but reflected an optimistic outlook overall. As 2020 ushered in unprecedented challenges for agriculture, new questions have been added to the survey to gauge potential inequalities exacerbated by COVID-19. To further globalize this effort and increase accessibility, the survey is available in six languages.

This initiative reflects Alltech’s commitment to the U.N. Global Compact and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) related to gender equality. The SDG recognizes gender equality as a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.

“In order to achieve a Planet of PlentyTM, it is more important than ever for the agri-food industry to perform at its full potential,” said Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech. “Human ingenuity is our Earth’s most valuable resource, and a diverse workforce is essential to building a more sustainable future.”

Women and men in all sectors of the food supply chain are encouraged to contribute to this important global conversation about gender equality in agriculture by taking the survey here.

The survey results will be published on Jan. 26 on the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience website.

While many people working in the agriculture industry were raised around animals and farms, there are others who do not have this background and, instead, learned from the ground up to start their careers. Dr. Keith Latson, a board-certified equine veterinarian and co-founder of FullBucket Health, joins us to share his experience of breaking into the agriculture industry at a young age with no prior experience. Dr. Latson discusses how those who might not have a past in agriculture can break through to build a successful career in the industry, as well as the importance of mentorship and being willing to say yes to opportunities that arise.

The following is an edited transcript of the Ag Future podcast episode with Dr. Keith Latson hosted by Brian Lawless. Click below to hear the full audio.

Brian:             Welcome to Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities facing the global food supply chain and speak with experts working to support a Planet of Plenty.

                        Today, the World Bank reports that the agriculture sector represents 28% of all employment globally. In the U.S., agriculture represents only 1% of all workers. Across most of Europe, agriculture hovers around less than 5% of all jobs. Many people working in the ag industry today were raised in agriculture, whether they showed animals, had a parent in the industry or grew up working on a family farm — yet there are others who didn't, who didn't have a background in ag, had to learn it from the ground up, and who also became very successful. So, the question for today is: How can young people who are not raised in agriculture break through to begin a successful career in the agriculture industry?

                        Welcome to an exciting episode of the Ag Future podcast. I'm Brian Lawless, North American brand manager at Alltech, and today, I'm joined by Dr. Keith Latson, a board-certified equine veterinarian and co-founder of FullBucket Health. Dr. Latson serves as NBC's on-call veterinarian for the Kentucky Derby and has even worked with Triple Crown winners across his impressive career. But unlike some in his career, Dr. Latson did not grow up in the world of agriculture, equine or animal health; he grew up as a military kid living all across the U.S. So, how did Dr. Latson even get into the world of agriculture? What is he doing now? And most importantly for our listeners, what lessons can Dr. Latson's story teach to those of you who are not in the agriculture industry today but want to work in ag in the future? I'm really looking forward to this. Dr. Keith Latson, welcome to the Ag Future podcast.

Keith:              Thanks, Brian. It's such a pleasure to be here with you.

Brian:             Someone wise in my life once said, "Begin with the end in mind," so I'd like for our listeners to know a bit of where your story not necessarily ends but is today. I think I stole a bit of your thunder in the intro, but what do you do for work these days?

Keith:              Well, that's always an interesting question to answer. After having quite a career at the racetrack as a veterinarian and a surgeon for Thoroughbred racehorses in Southern California, I left the racetrack for a life of entrepreneurship. That's been an interesting lesson to learn, entrepreneurship itself, as well as keeping that end in mind every time we start something new. There are so many lessons that had to be learned in building our companies and our brands that distracted us from that end in mind. So that, in and of itself, is a really big lesson to really focus on versus just learning. We've all heard it before, but oftentimes, it takes someone to reach out and say, "Hey, keep in mind why you started this."

Brian:             Absolutely. Yeah, the "begin with the end in mind" concept runs true through all of our career, not just in the beginning, and that's where I want to start right now. You were not raised in the ag or animal health industry. Can you tell us a little bit about how you were first exposed to agriculture?

Keith:              Sure. I grew up, as you said, as the son of a military officer, and so we moved every two to three years. There wasn't really anything in my life other than youth soccer and suburbia as a kid. Occasionally, we would go on field trips or something to expose us, in our schools, to agriculture or farms, those sorts of things. The real first trigger for me was, as a Cub Scout, we took a trip to Monmouth Park while we were living at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. Fort Monmouth is now closed for the military, but we took this trip to the barn area. As soon as I got there and saw the horses being saddled up and coming back from the tracks steaming with sweat, the first time I laid my eyes on a real, live, Thoroughbred racehorse, I thought it was the most impressive, spectacular athlete or animal I'd ever seen. That was the first time for me that I really got a taste of what else was out there besides what I was being exposed to every day as a suburban kid on a military base.

                        That really stuck with me as we watched the Kentucky Derby. That was really the only horseracing you could find on TV back then, when we had 26 channels in a wired cable box. So, the first Saturday in May every year, my family and I would watch the Kentucky Derby. There are so many of those races that I remember watching and seeing Bob Baffert cover his mouth with one finger when Real Quiet was running. There are so many of those experiences that I was watching on TV, and I wished that I could connect with that more. Ultimately, I did. I just didn't know how it would happen.

Brian:             Well, I can definitely relate to you on the fact that I grew up in suburbia and grew up playing soccer, and that the first Saturday in May was huge. I'm a Kentucky native, so I can definitely relate to those things. For you, what was the turning point where you said you took ag seriously or really jumped in in a meaningful way with the equine industry?

Keith:              Well, I think it was a stroke of luck, honestly. My dad was a Texas resident, and he told me I could go anywhere I wanted for college as long as it was in Texas. My sister had already gone to Texas A&M University for her freshman year of college while I finished high school, and I knew that I was headed west. We were in Georgia at the time. I knew that I was headed west for college, but I didn't know if that would be University of Texas or if that would be one of the smaller schools or whether it would be Texas A&M. Well, my first stop was Texas A&M in College Station. As soon as I got there, it was like being home. There were so many different, interesting people there. There were people in cowboy hats and Wranglers. There were people in flip-flops and cut-off jeans. You name it, those people were there.

                        As you wandered over from main campus to west campus, there was this whole area of animal science, veterinary school, and all of those things were there. I just looked around and it felt comfortable, and it felt like it fit. I didn't really realize that, after my first couple of years in engineering — slogging through an engineering program and not really knowing why I was doing it, other than that I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. I thought that that's a nice angle to take, bioengineering, as a launching pad into orthopedic surgery for humans. Along the way, I met a person named Amy Reed, whose dad happened to be one of the premier racehorse veterinarians in Louisiana. I needed a summer job and he needed someone who was willing to work hard six days a week, so Amy connected me with Dr. Reed. I got a phone call over Christmas one year and he said, "Hey, I hear you're interested in horses. I hear you love racehorses. I'd love to offer you a place to live and a job for the summer at the racetrack with me." I just said "yes". I had no idea what I was getting into. I knew I was willing to work hard and I knew it was going to be hot, but I knew nothing else. So, when I went for that first day at work, I knew that was it. I did not want to be in a human hospital. I wanted to be with the horses.

Brian:             If I'm hearing what you're saying, it seems like you said "yes" to a lot of different unique opportunities. You went to Texas A&M, the school in Texas you could go to. You said "yes" to not pursuing something that you thought you would in orthopedics, and then you said "yes" to this opportunity with Mr. Reed. At least to me, that jumps out as a really important point for those of us who are looking to get into agriculture: When you get the opportunity, even if you're working six days a week, you jump in. Maybe early on, when you're getting into agriculture, are there any other keys to success that maybe you would want to point out?

Keith:              Well, I think saying "yes" is the first step for a lot of people. It's really easy for all of us to sink back into our comfort zones and not really push ourselves into unique experiences or the unknown. For me, that certainly was the unknown, other than (the fact that) there was a person on the other end of that phone who made me feel very comfortable saying "yes".

I think the other thing, too, is just being willing to be a beginner. In these days, with so much information out there, it's really easy to get analysis paralysis, and we start looking for that perfect thing. I think if we keep looking for that perfect thing, we'll never uncover the other opportunities that are out there that may come to us from that unperfect thing that we've said "yes" to.

Certainly, for me, working six days a week, 13 hours a day in the Louisiana sun was not necessarily perfect by a lot of people's standards. There were certain things that I didn't like about the job, but it opened up this world to me (that) combined my passion for orthopedics and for building things. I grew up rebuilding motorcycles and riding dirt bikes, so it uncovered that opportunity to be able to put fractures back together in high-level racehorses. It uncovered the world of science behind the racehorse and the mechanics behind the racehorse to me. All of those things were topics that I was exposed to as an engineering student or rebuilding those motorcycles that I had no idea existed and I wouldn't have (known had) I not said “yes” to Dr. Reed. Certainly, I wouldn't have met the person who became such a great professional mentor for me through the years, not just through school and vet school but as a young professional veterinarian as well.

Brian:             Absolutely. You've touched on saying "yes" to these opportunities, but someone like a mentor has to provide those opportunities, and it seems like Dr. Reed was that for you. It seemed like there were a couple of different paths you were considering. I think a lot of our listeners would be at a point in their life where they'll be choosing, like you did with Dr. Reed. What made his mentorship or his impact on your life so attractive?

Keith:              There are a few things. One is he allowed himself to be a little bit vulnerable with me in that he was happy to talk about the things that worked for him and the failures that he'd had as he encountered his success, as he built his business, as he was trying to balance his family life with his work life, as he worked with difficult clients, as he celebrated successes with some of those clients. (It was about) really watching and learning and being open to me peppering him with questions about all of those things and about the horses just as I was learning about what are the common injuries of racehorses, what are our options for treating those injuries. And then, discovering what's beyond what we have today and what's possible, what's coming down the pipeline in terms of science, medicine and treatment that we may be able to use five, 10 or 20 years from now.

                        Now, I'm standing in a position where many of those things that were just conceptual 20 years ago, we're actually using every day. I think that's one of the really exciting opportunities that a lot of us as seasoned professionals within the agricultural industry, that's one of the opportunities that we have, is to help young people who are trying to break into this really niche world of agriculture and all of the different channels within agriculture. It's really an opportunity for us to reach out to them and help them imagine what the opportunities can be for themselves.

Brian:             Yeah. I like that point of being okay with being vulnerable. You've touched on this: Within two seconds in a Google search, you can be an expert on a given topic. I think having someone who's okay with saying, "I don't know how to solve this problem. I looked at all the answers, but maybe I still don't have them. They don't exist on Google" — and I think particularly for younger folks who are trying to get into an industry like agriculture. If you look in the U.S., we have 99% of the folks who would not be in agriculture and only 1% who would be in it. We make, I think, a lot of 99% and 1% comparisons, but I do think it takes someone getting involved in someone else's life to make that happen. Maybe now, as you're looking at the next generation, how do you think the industry should approach getting the next generation involved in agriculture? But maybe (also) talk about getting the next generation involved in the equine industry.

Keith:  Oh, there are so many opportunities for all of us who are involved at all levels of our industry, whether it's as a veterinary technician who is encouraging young people to come and shadow and say, "Hey, look at what I do for these animals that are sick. We're helping them get better. This is what I do every day.” It could be the scientist who is studying some of the new technologies in microbiome science. There are so many things out there. Even for me to just try and think about these things as you and I are talking, there are so many channels that it can be overwhelming to pick the few that we talk about, which makes me realize that young people who are exposed to all of these things, plus more, it can be so difficult for them, too.

I think the opportunities for us are to be open. Listen. If somebody reaches out to me on LinkedIn and says, "Hey, I'm really interested in knowing more about something. Can you help point me in the right direction?" This is somebody who has had the courage to reach out, has shown some real interest, and I'm going to respond to that because that's how I broke in.

I think it can be on an individual basis like that. I also think that some of the larger corporations and industry organizations — like the American Association of Equine Practitioners, with which I've been associated for many years — have created real opportunities to help people connect within their industries. I think it takes a young person being resourceful in looking for those opportunities or for those people who might be willing to connect on social platforms like LinkedIn. Many of us are not on Snapchat, Instagram and those places. I think that there's a little bit of a divide between how young people commonly communicate and connect and some of the more seasoned people in agriculture. So I think there has to be that open communication both ways and the willingness to take on a little bit of a mentorship role and take a chance on people, because when we say "yes" and they say "yes," the opportunities are endless.

Brian:             Yeah. I think you touched on something, (and) I just want to drive it a little bit deeper in, because I think you've touched a lot on what it takes to be a good mentor, but you just began to start on what you would look for in a potential mentee, someone who would be bold enough to reach out directly on LinkedIn. When you're looking at the next generation, what are you looking (for) in a potential mentee, someone that you would mentor?

Keith:              When I was young and trying to break into the Thoroughbred industry, I used to put my hands in my pockets. It was a habit that I had, and I didn't realize I had it. I didn't realize that I was communicating that. Maybe I wasn't sure of myself. Maybe I wasn't interested. Whatever that message was, it wasn't the message of, "Hey, I'm enthusiastic. I'm ready to do whatever it takes."

                        I think moving beyond constantly looking at that phone — move beyond that. Show that enthusiasm, that courage to reach out. Show that you don't have your hands in your pockets or that you're constantly on your social media. Look, let's work. Let's discover. Let's talk. Let's interact, because those human relationships are the things that I think we all really revel in. That's what drives us forward in our profession. That's what I'm looking for in a young mentee. I'm not looking for somebody who has already had a few experiences, has already taken a few chances. Maybe I'm the first chance that they've taken to reach out to, but certainly, if they're showing that enthusiasm and that they had researched multiple things around what I do, I'm willing to answer questions. I'm willing to point them in the right directions that they think they want to go.

                        Man, that's an exciting person, when they come to me. There are three or four who come to mind throughout my career that it's been really fun to watch develop from young college students who were doing something in a horse-racing club or Darley Flying Starts, some of these development programs. Young people who have reached out from those programs and said, "Hey, I've seen what you do. I'm really interested in it. Could I spend a day with you in your truck at the racetrack?" "Absolutely. Come on. Let me introduce you to some other people." And that really becomes their first working interview with me. Those are the types of things that I'm looking for.

                        As a mentee, I want to give them everything I can that is actionable and thought-provoking. If we both have done that for each other as mentor and mentee, I think we've really accomplished something together.

Brian:             Yeah. Seeing someone succeed who was a mentee of yours, I can only imagine it's just got to be so encouraging and must give you a ton of energy to keep reaching out to others, because it's not just being a mentor yourself. It's being a mentor to someone else.

It's interesting. You've touched on “no hands in the pockets.” Our (Alltech) owner and founder, the late Dr. Pearse Lyons, had a big thing of “no hands in the pockets.” That was just a bad expression of body language that didn't show enthusiasm, just like you touched on. So, I think there are some cool correlations there.

                        Moving us into maybe the last segment, the question, always, is: What's next? To you, what are some of the positive opportunities you see in equine moving forward?

Keith:              I've touched on it a little bit earlier. I think one of the most exciting things that we're seeing coming out in equine health — and this expands beyond just equine health and into total animal health — is the concept and the science behind the microbiome and the metabolome, the microbiome being the living organisms in the DNA that's within the GI tract and then the metabolome being everything else that's in there. Are there inflammatory mediators? Are there other things that can tell us what's going on with the overall health of an animal? And what the risk or health profile is of an animal.

                        I think there's so much on the frontier to be discovered there and to really discern how it relates, how each of those findings relates with not just equine health, but how those findings drive certain discoveries in human health, in pharmaceuticals, in supplements, in feeding, in wellness, in food as medicine, not just as a function of nutrition. I think that is such an exciting frontier where what we do in animal health and what we do in agriculture contributes so much to the overall health of the populace of our world. There's opportunity, on an individual scale, to greatly contribute to society and to our world in that way from agriculture.

Brian:             As a global animal health and nutrition company at Alltech, I could not endorse that statement any more. We have our researchers working on things from the microbiome, but we have people all throughout the process bringing that to fruition. We even take it into the human health side. I think that connection between the science that we do, connecting between animals and people, really just starting with the microbiome, is so exciting. I think the future is really bright for that.

                        What I'd love to do is just leave us with a specific takeaway for our listeners. Say someone has heard this (podcast). What's the first step someone who's interested in agriculture should take if they're not currently involved but want to get involved?

Keith:              Pick up the phone and connect with people. That is number one, even beyond a connection on LinkedIn, even beyond a colleague calling me and saying, "Hey, I have a niece or a nephew who is really interested in what you do." When I receive a phone call from a person or an email asking for a phone call from a person who is interested in what I do, who has researched what I do, I'm going to take that call. I think there are so many people within our industry, within agriculture, who would be so excited to have somebody connect on that human level to say, "I'm interested. I'm excited about what you're doing. I would love to know more about how you did it, how you got there and what's next for you, where do you go (next) from where you are." That is somebody that has a bright future, and they're showing it to me with their first action.

                        That's a difficult thing to do. I know a lot of people have trouble picking up the phone and making that cold call. It's not my favorite thing to do either, but it has created massive results in my life. I know other people whose lives have been changed by a single phone call. Pick up the phone and make a call.

Brian:             Keith, I think there could not be any better message and more clear message. If you're interested in getting into agriculture, pick up the phone. Call someone. Make a contact and go meet with them.

There's so much to unpack here. I think this has been extremely helpful for our listeners. Just maybe to sum up a couple of things that I heard (that) you said that were really interesting, point one just being to say "yes" to things. If you have an opportunity to meet and be mentored by someone, take them up on it. The second point being not only have a mentor in your life but be a mentor to someone else and be willing to receive that phone call that you just talked about. Beyond that, be willing to be a beginner. I really liked that comment because I think, in this Google age, we can all be “experts” within five minutes, but not really. So, with the point that Dr. Reed made of being okay with being vulnerable, I think that's a really important step for long-term success. Bringing it all together, show enthusiasm. Don't put your hands in your pockets. Be willing to take chances. Last but not least, pick up the phone and call someone. You'll be well on your way to a successful career in agriculture.

This is Dr. Keith Latson of FullBucket Health. Thank you for joining us on the Ag Future podcast.

Keith:              I sure have enjoyed it. Thank you.

Brian: This has been Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Thank you for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to Ag Future wherever you listen to podcasts and leave a review if you enjoyed this episode.

Dr. Ranveer Chandra, chief scientist at Microsoft Azure Global, joins us to explain the company's FarmBeats project and how it is taking the guesswork out of agriculture. According to Chandra, data-driven agriculture makes operations more profitable and sustainable — but some farmers rely simply on their instincts and personal experience to make decisions about their crops or animals. Chandra and the FarmBeats project seek to provide these farmers with data and insights about their operations that will help them make informed decisions for their production.

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

Tom:                          Dr. Ranveer Chandra is the chief scientist at Microsoft Azure Global, and among the projects he is currently leading is FarmBeats, where he is principal researcher.

                                    The goal is to enable data-driven farming with the aim of improving yield and reducing cost while ensuring sustainability.

                                    Dr. Chandra joins us from Seattle. Thanks for being here, Dr. Chandra.

Dr. Chandra:             Thank you for having me.

Tom:                          And let’s begin, if we could, by laying out some fundamentals. There is this imperative to increase the world’s food production by 70% by 2050. What is driving this effort?

Dr. Chandra:             As you know, the world’s population is increasing, there is more urbanization, more and more people are moving to cities, and there is a need to feed this growing population of the world. That is, the amount of land is not increasing — the amount of good land — the water level is, like, going down, the soil is not getting any richer.

                                    So then, the question is: How can we feed this growing population of the world to — and not just feed them food, just give them food, but give them good food and grow this food in a sustainable way?

Tom:                          I mentioned data-driven farming. How does that differ from traditional agriculture?

Dr. Chandra:             Yeah. A lot of decisions a grower makes are based on guesswork. So, when I started this project, I went and talked to several growers. What I realized is that growers, these producers, they know a lot about their farm; they’ve been farming there for decades and, in some cases, even centuries. Like, there was one farmer who could feel the soil and say what’s going on. There was another farmer who could taste the soil and say what’s going on. But even though they knew a lot about their farm, a lot of decisions they made were based on guesswork — like, for example, how much water to apply, where to apply, what seeds to put, when to put out, when to harvest, when to plant. A lot of these decisions are based on guesswork.

                                    If this guesswork was replaced with data and data-driven insights like a vision is, if you could take a farmer’s knowledge and augment it with data and data-driven insights, you could enable a future of agriculture that is more productive. You could grow more that is more profitable because you would reduce cost; you would use less inputs, less water, less pesticides. It’s also better for the environment for the same reasons: that you’re not wasting water, you’re not wasting pesticide.

                                    So, that is what I mean by data-driven agriculture: the ability to use data to augment the farmer’s knowledge, so that farmers are more profitable and they’re using sustainable practices for their farming.

Tom:                          I’m imagining a field of crops, and perhaps one corner of it, or one section of it, is usually drier than other sections of it, and that can be difficult to detect. Is what we’re talking about here being able to detect areas that need more moisture or less moisture, for example, that kind of thing?

Dr. Chandra:             Yes. So, you’re then able to, like — for example, meaning which, I believe, if you would farm properly, you will have sensors everywhere. You would be able to see what’s going on throughout the farm. Wherever there is stress, you’d be able to respond to it in a timely way. And that’s very difficult to do. Like right now, mostly, you don’t know what your entire farm looks like. With data-driven agriculture, we can give you that view of what your farm looks like at any instant in time. Not just in terms of imagery; maybe even in terms of sensors. For example, what might be happening below the surface.

                                    So, one, you’ll be able to detect what’s going on, and second, you might be able to diagnose why are you seeing what you’re seeing, so that you can then take corrective action and fix that — and exactly to your point that there could parts of the farm that are very different than the others in different ways. For example, it could be in terms of crop stress, it could be in terms of nutrients, it could be in terms of moisture, water stress. And to be able to flag that in a timely way so that you can take corrective action is where data can help.

Tom:                          Okay. Tell us about the FarmBeats project. How does this work?

Dr. Chandra:             The FarmBeats project started in research, and the goal was exactly what we discussed: How do you take guesswork out of agriculture? How do you enable growers to take more decisions based on data and data-driven insights?

                                    And toward that, we have been developing various methods, both in terms of the Internet of Things, being able to get data from the farm, from different sources about the farm. For example, you can have sensors and drones and tractors in the farm, you could have satellite data, weather data. All of these data being able to bring all of that together in one place in the cloud, and bring the benefits of the cloud in artificial intelligence on top of that data, so that you can then start driving insights to the growers.

                                    And that is what we have been doing in the FarmBeats project: coming up with new ways to bring data from remote parts. For example, using new connectivity technologies, being able to leverage a news TV channel to send and receive data, so that even if you have no internet right now, you could then use this new method to start sending data using technology such as edge compute.

                                    That is, if you have a camera somewhere in the farm, sending all that data to the cloud will take a long time and will need a lot of bandwidth. You could, instead, be doing a lot of processing on the farm itself using edge compute. And then, when you bring all of these data to the cloud, you’re bringing new artificial intelligence tools to be able to merge different data streams.

                                    For example, you could be having very few sensors on the farm. We then use artificial intelligence to start predicting what the sensor values would be in other places where you don’t have sensors so that, at low cost, you can then start building these detailed maps of the farm.

                                    So, with the FarmBeats project, that’s what we’re building. We are building this platform for data-driven agriculture, the ability to bring data from different data variety of streams in a way so that you can then start running AI, artificial intelligence techniques on top of that data to drive new insights, to be able to predict things that you otherwise wouldn’t know.

Tom:                          I wonder, how can you gather data from farms that have no access to power in the field — or connection to the internet, for that matter?

Dr. Chandra:             Yeah, and that’s what makes agriculture so fascinating. As you know, my background is in computer science. I’m a computer scientist, and I work in different areas, not just agriculture.

                                    When I started working in agriculture, I realized that the agriculture poses very interesting problems to technology. For example, these farms, many of them do not have any internet; many of them don’t have power. That is, you don’t have power outlets so you could plug in your devices. Well, people say you could use solar panels, but then you have to spend the winter in Seattle to realize that it doesn’t work. We get very cloudy winters.

                                    So then, to address that problem, we’ve been developing new methods. For example, one way to get internet from the middle of the farm is using the technology I mentioned called TV white spaces. What the TV white spaces enable is — imagine a Wi-Fi that can go several miles, and one of the ways you could get that is if you take a white signal and put them in noisy TV channels. These are TV channels you watch using antennas, over-the-air antennas.

                                    You know, when you browse through TV, on certain channels, you get a transmission, and on other channels, all you see is white noise. The interesting thing about that is that most of these TV towers are in the cities. So, if you turn on a TV in the middle of a farm, most of the channels are just white noise. While that’s not great news for a grower who wants to watch TV, it’s great for someone who wants to use that unused TV channel for sending and receiving data. So, even if you have 20 TV channels that are available, we are talking of over a few hundred megabits per second of available capacity in the farm.

So, this is one way in which we are bringing connectivity to the farm. The other thing we are doing is bringing edge compute. That is, this is a scenario where, if you have barns where there are multiple cows and you have cameras, rather than sending all the camera data to the cloud, you could have edge compute. Imagine a small computer sitting in the barn or in the farmer’s house that takes all of this data, the camera data, and runs the processing over there itself, so that you could be sitting in your house and monitoring how your cows are doing. You could be getting alerts if a cow is sick, if the cow is not moving very well.

                                    And these are, again, things that could be enabled because of these new technologies: TV white spaces, edge compute, the Internet of Things. And we’re bringing all of that to agriculture.

Tom:                          This is fascinating. Have these technologies been deployed?

Dr. Chandra:             So, these technologies, some of them are Microsoft products. Like, for example, we have Azure IoT, Azure Edge, the Azure Stack Edge. And in the context of agriculture, we are working on some of these technologies. We have farms where we’ve deployed TV white spaces, we’ve deployed edge compute, we are doing all of this intelligence on top. And there are various farms in the U.S. and abroad where we’ve deployed this and shown the feasibility of this technology.

Tom:                          How are you using drones and sensors to map such key data as soil moisture and pH levels?

Dr. Chandra:             One of the things we want to know that the growers want to know is: How do certain soil properties (that) are in the farm produce certain weather properties (that) are in the farm? And you could get that information using sensors. So, these are sensors, for example, you could get from our partners, such as Davis Instruments special instruments.

                                    But the question, then, is where do you put these sensors? And so, one of the algorithms we have, an artificial intelligence algorithm we have, is it will tell you — once you give it the farm boundary, we then get the satellite image for that farm. And then, for that farm historically, we look at the satellite imagery for that plot of land and then estimate the best places that you need to put sensors.

                                    You could — say you have, say, three sensors. You can then use artificial intelligence to decide the best places you put those sensors. Once you put those sensors in the farm, the data then starts going all the way to the cloud. What that means is you could be anywhere in the world and you could turn on your phone and you’ll be able to see what your farm looks like, what those sensor values look like.

                                    But the question, then, is if you have, say, a thousand acres of land and you put just three sensors, it will just tell you three points in the farm. You want to know more; you just don’t want to know those three points where you intelligently place the sensors.

                                    This is where we use, again, artificial intelligence, where we combine the sensors with aerial imagery, say, from drones or satellite. The way we use it is, our key insight — and you would be able to relate to it — is that if two parts of the farm look similar, they are likely to have similar values. When I say look similar, it’s not just in red, green and blue, but in multispectral or high-spectral imagery, they are likely to have similar values.

                                    And we incorporate this intuition, this insight, in an artificial intelligence model again, where we combine the small, the sensor values with aerial imagery, say, from satellites or drones to build a heat map of what your farm looks like. So, with very few sensors, by bringing the latest in technology, you’re able to visualize what the problems are in different parts of the farm.

                                    And then, partners, the companies that we work with, could then start building solutions on top. Once you have this map, you can see how you could build several agricultural advisory solutions — for example, for irrigation or fertilizer management or others — on top of this framework to start providing insights to the growers.

Tom:                          We’ve been talking about farming that revolves around crops, around plants. How is the technology being used in animal husbandry — poultry, for example?

Dr. Chandra:             Yeah, that’s a very interesting question. And I recently gave that talk at the Alltech poultry conference. You could — the same ideas that I talked about could be used for poultry as well.

                                    For example, I talked about how, in a barn where you have cows, you could be using cameras to determine how the cows are moving around. Imagine, like, a baby monitor, but for cows. You could then get notification when a cow is sick so that you can then provide timely intervention to manage the cows.

                                    The same things could be used for poultry as well. That is, a lot of times, when you’re in chicken coops, you might not, like — especially when the chickens are young — you want to know how they’re doing, you want to know that the conditions are right. You might want to put sensors in the farm; you might want to put temperature sensors (or), in some cases, humidity sensors. So, (something) similar to kind of an IoT system could be beneficial for poultry, too. 

In fact, we are taking a step further. One of the projects we did, this was with the University of Washington, is where we’re looking at acoustic information that — instead of cameras, where cameras can’t see through obstructions, we were looking at putting microphones in chicken coops. And the system that the students spearheaded was called [clucky?] eye, where they had these microphones, and then, by looking, by observing the sound patterns of chicken, you could tell when a chicken is in stress. And that would be information that you could flag to a farmer (and) say, “Hey, go, there’s something wrong. Maybe there is predation going on; the chickens are not happy, for whatever reason.” And this is, this could help poultry farmers be more profitable (and) avoid damage which, otherwise, which will be just hard to monitor.

And there are many more new cases, too, and this is where I really enjoy talking to farmers. So, if there’s any farmer who’s listening to this podcast and would like to discuss ideas of how technology could be used for poultry farming or other farming practices, I would love to get them a comment (or) chat.      

Tom:                          How they can reach you?

Dr. Chandra:             Yes. The best would be to either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email on ranveer@microsoft.com, and I try to get back on email. So, I would love to talk to more growers, more people in the agriculture community, to discuss ways in which we can bring the technologies I talked about and many new things to help farmers be more profitable and practice the most sustainable practices.

Tom:                          Talking about profitability, what about the cost of purchasing and deploying these technologies. How do you make it affordable to small farms, in particular, that might be interested but may be discouraged by the cost?

Dr. Chandra:             This is where we want — well, that’s one of the other problems with agriculture, is you want to be providing a lot of these insights, and you want to get data from a lot of places that do not have great connectivity, but you also want to bring the cost of these devices down to a point where they’re affordable. And that’s been one thread of what we have been trying to pursue as part of the research, is (what) we (can) use to bring down the cost of these data-driven agriculture technologies.

                                    For example, I talked about leveraging TV white spaces for connectivity, leveraging artificial intelligence, so that you need much fewer sensors than what you would otherwise need to build out these maps for farms. And that’s been a concentration of the research teams that they are pursuing at Microsoft, in my team. And we are continuing to push the bar even lower (and) come up with new technologies to make it more and more affordable for the growers.

                                    If growers want to use any of these technologies, I think there are solutions, and we are working with partners on building solutions that can be affordable for the growers, that can be at the price point the growers can afford. Because, even for us, the eventual question that technology providers and our partners are trying to address is: What is the price of technology such that the return on investment for the grower is much more than the amount that they are investing in these technologies? For example, through sensors or whatever, we want to provide insights that can help the farmer be much more profitable than the amount that they’re investing in deploying these technologies in the farm.

Tom:                          If any of our listeners would like to actually see this technology in action, is a demonstration available?

Dr. Chandra:             Yes, Tom. There are few places where the people can see this in action. Of course, we are working — we have announced partnerships with other companies, which are starting to use this technology.

For example, we announced this partnership with the USDA, where — there’s a farm in Beltsville, Maryland, where we have deployed this. We also have a demo farm on the Microsoft campus; we do several demos here. And there’s actually another farm in eastern Washington. This is 9,000-acre farm spread over 45 miles. And there is a farmer I work with very closely, Andrew Nelson, he’s a fifth-generation wheat farmer, and he’s been using technology in his farm. He’s been using FarmBeats, he uses TV white spaces, (and) that is because his farm spreads over 45 miles, he doesn’t have to go everywhere every day. Using the connectivity, he can monitor where what’s going on.

He uses drones. He uses the drone’s information and combines that with leveraging FarmBeats. And then, he’s able to do the right application, the right intervention at the correct time in his farm. And there’s a video on the FarmBeats website where he talks about his experiences and how technology has benefitted what he’s doing in the farm.

And, in fact, his story just tells a very good story even otherwise that, as you probably know, one of the big problems in agriculture is the aging population of the farmers. The next generation of growers don’t want to get into farming. And, Andrew’s story — Andrew is, as I said, is a fifth-generation farmer. Like many others (in the) next generation of farmers, he came to Seattle, he did his undergrad in the University of Washington in computer science, and then he worked in the city for a while. And then, because of technology, he decided to go back to agriculture. And he’s going, he’s gone back, he’s farming again, (and) he’s using technology, he’s using all of the latest cutting-edge tech in his farm.

And this is a story which, as you can see, it appeals to many farmers of the next generation, the younger farmers, where you can then start using the latest in technology for your farm to see the benefits of how technology can help you farm better, help you produce more. And in the process, you actually use the latest and best in technology that’s out there.

Tom:                          You know, that brings me to a question I wanted to run by you anyway, and that’s how you’re using these technologies to have a societal impact.

Dr. Chandra:             So, these technologies can help with sustainability. That’s one direction where we are actively working on leveraging these technologies, to estimate the amount of carbon that’s sequestered in soil. That is, using these technologies, a farmer can reduce their emissions because, you know — like, for example, they’re not using more chemicals than needed; they could be using good sustainable agriculture practices, like regenerative agriculture, like the distill. But not just that. Growers can use this technology to help increase the amount of carbon that’s sequestered in soil.

                                    At the (same) time, when people have realized the importance of doing something for climate change, for reducing the amount of carbon emissions, agriculture can actually help provide the solution. Farmers can help put some of this carbon back into the soil. So, if you’re thinking of companies who want to, companies or organizations who are looking to reduce their carbon footprint, agriculture could provide the solution.

                                    And using technology, farmers can use these regenerative agriculture methods while still staying profitable — not reducing their profitability — and yet, enabling a new income stream by putting carbon into soil. So, that’s one of the things that technology could enable.

                                    In addition to that, we are also, at Microsoft, through Microsoft philanthropy, we are looking to bring technology to the rural population, enable the skilling of the rural population. For example, there is a skill gap, where there are quite a few jobs, but there’s not enough skilled population to fill those jobs.

                                    And with FarmBeats, one of the things we’ve done is we’ve created FarmBeats student kits, we’ve created partnerships with the FFA with 4-H, where we are working with these organizations. And (we’re) working with, for example, the FFA chapters to bring technology into the curriculum of high school students even when they are in school, helping introduce them to the latest in technology, so that when they graduate, they are fully skilled in all of these technology methods, and they also know how would you apply these technologies in agriculture.

                                    So, on the social good side, we are working on sustainability, on rural skilling, on air band, which is about providing connectivity to rural areas. We’re working on multiple directions to bring technology to the rural population in the U.S. and all over the world.

Tom:                          I wonder if the work with the FFA, the Future Farmers of America, is helping to overcome that reluctance of this emerging generation to go into the field of agriculture?

Dr. Chandra:             I think so. And I think, as you show what’s possible with technology, more and more of the younger farmers will get excited to stay back in agriculture. In fact, when I talk to them, I tell them how, with agriculture, you’re seeing the latest in technology being applied to agriculture — with artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, with cloud computing, edge computing, all of that, the latest is coming to agriculture. And some of the FFA students that I have met, they’ve been so excited to be flying drones, to be using the latest in robotics in the farm. I think this exposure would help the next generation of farmers see the opportunities of what is possible by staying back in the farm.

                                    Like, for example, the agriculture industry is not going away. We all still need food. And in fact, the importance of growing good food — the importance of growing food in a sustainable way — has never been more visible. Now, there is a bigger need for that, and technology can help address that.

                                    And this is an opportunity: the more of the next-generation farmers, the more they see technology as a way to bridge that gap, the more entrepreneurial opportunities that exist. We see that more and more of the next-generation farmers would stay back, would want to, in fact, contribute — either leverage this technology or invent new technologies — to help agriculture be more sustainable, to help feed the world.

Tom:                          I don’t want to diminish or downplay the hard, hard work that is farming and the seriousness of farming and the things we’ve been talking about, but I have to say, what you’re talking about here sounds kind of fun.

Dr. Chandra:             Yeah. And, of course, all of this is possible, as it builds on top of all the hard work that farmers do to ensure that all of us are getting good food.

Tom:                          What are the focuses of your current research?

Dr. Chandra:             Right now, we are continuing to push the boundaries of technology for digital agriculture to make it even more affordable for the growers.

And one of the things — like, for example, we talked about how we’re looking to bring down the cost using artificial intelligence, using new connectivity technologies, but even then, the cost of a probe, a sensor probing the farm, is still a few hundred dollars. Like, for example, if you go look at sensors out there on the internet, it will be a few hundred (or) even, in some cases, a thousand dollars, which, while for some farmers here, it’s affordable, but a lot of farmers in the developing world, that still puts it out of their budget. They won’t spend like someone who’s farming an acre or a couple of acres; they won’t spend a few hundred dollars to put sensors in the farm.

                                    And this is what we are doing with — one of the things we are continuing to investigate is: how do you bring down the cost of these sensors even more? How do you make sure that farmers can get data from the farm at an even lower cost?

                                    One of the ideas we’ve come up with is to leverage Wi-Fi to send soil. Many farmers, they won’t spend a few hundred dollars to purchase a new sensor, but then they have a smart phone, even though it is an inexpensive smart phone. If they have a smart phone, it has Wi-Fi. And one of the new technologies we have built is where you can use the time of light of a Wi-Fi signal to estimate the soil moisture and soil electrical conductivity.

So, we’re envisioning a future where anyone can go to a farm, any farmer who has a phone can just bring their phone close to soil and can get the information about what’s happening in the soil, (or) can actually drive around, maybe, in a bicycle, and then you have a map of what the farm looks like.

So, these are things, this is just one example, but we are continuing to invent new technologies to significantly bring down the cost of data-driven agriculture. We want farmers everywhere in the world to be able to get information about what’s happening in their farm, things that they can see and things that they cannot see, at the price point which they can afford, so that once they get the data, you can then start bringing the benefits of artificial intelligence to every farmer in the world.

The vision here is to democratize technology, democratize data-driven agriculture, so that every farmer everywhere in the world can benefit from data and data-driven insight.

Tom:                          This has been so fascinating. Dr. Ranveer Chandra, the chief scientist at Microsoft Azure Global. Thank you so much for taking time for us.

Dr. Chandra:             Thank you, Tom. Nice talking to you.

Nori is a Seattle-based startup that aims to reverse climate change through their marketplace for carbon removal. Aldyen Donnelly, director of carbon economics with Nori, discusses how the company is helping farmers get paid to fight climate change, how these carbon removal practices can benefit farmers' productivity and what she believes are the keys for encouraging the corporate world to commit to reducing their production emissions.

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

Tom:                          Welcome to Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities facing the global food supply chain and speak with experts working to support a Planet of Plenty™.

Tom:                          I'm Tom Martin, and I'm joined by Aldyen Donnelly, a small-business developer and consultant who, in the 1990s, began working on market-driven strategies to reduce the atmospheric carbon concentrations now known to contribute to climate change. She coauthored Nova Scotia’s 2009 greenhouse gas emissions regulations, a first in North America. Nori, the Seattle-based startup Aldyen cofounded, aims to reverse climate change by incentivizing the removal of excess carbon from our atmosphere. It's a significant undertaking in an economic system that makes it easier and more profitable to emit carbon than to avoid doing so. Appropriately, Alden is the company's director of carbon economics, and she's joining us from Vancouver. Greetings, Aldyen.

Aldyen:                      Nice to meet you.

Tom:                          So, tell us first, briefly, about Nori. How did a company form around the goal of reversing climate change?

Aldyen:                      Nori’s original three founders are a couple of individuals who were doing well and in the high-tech space, Silicon Valley kind of world, and one who was part of the Climate Change Advisory Institute at Berkeley. And they met and realized that, personally, they wanted to focus their time and energy on something that would deliver a great social good. So, they came up with this idea, as well as the name, started saving their money and coming up with ideas about what they'd like to do in this regard. And I met them later, when a friend of one of the three original founders’ dad suggested they meet me, and it’s been fine ever since. We are actually a total of seven founding partners, and there are 10 of us in the company in total at the moment.

Tom:                          And what motivates this focus on the connection between carbon emissions and climate change?

Aldyen:                      For me, to be perfectly honest, it's not carbon emissions and climate change, per se. I have spent a lot of my life on sailboats, likely using sailboats, and I'm an old lady now, but about 30 years ago, I started seeing very dramatic changes in the ocean life and the way sea life movement patterns were changing while I was on the water so much of the time, and I started asking what was this all about, if it's good or bad. And that's when I first — and this is in the mid-’80s — started reading about the science that related the increasing concentrations of heat-trapping gases, mostly CO₂, in the atmosphere and the impact it could have on ocean and sea life.

                                    So, what drove me was what was happening in the ocean. It’s more than climate change. I must admit, that’s still my primary driver. I think the disruption to ocean life has such large potential that that's enough reason to take this very, very seriously. So, yes, there's a broader story about climate change and extreme weather events, which even makes the situation more dramatic, but I think the original events that drew me in were dramatic enough. Thank you very much.

Tom:                          And just briefly, Aldyen, just curious, what's the story behind the name of the company, Nori?

Aldyen:                      The original founders picked Nori before I became involved, which is quite a coincidence. Nori is Japanese for seaweed. And in the Japanese history, people have been growing and eating seaweeds since the 700s. Many algae-based seaweed species are potentially an ideal example of a sustainable food source. But also, in the history of seaweed, which is obviously now a long history, there was a point in time where seaweed production almost died out and was rebuilt. And also, it's now an industry that has to be paying attention to the difference between the sustainable and extractive industrial practices. So, that whole history of nori, the seaweed and the future potential role of seaweed as a long-term, sustainable nutrient source is really important. So, it was a great four-letter word through the history, which was exactly what we are thinking about and working on every day.

Tom:                          Our focus is going to be on regenerative agriculture. Can you give us just a brief definition of that term?

Aldyen:                      Regenerative agriculture is the new term that was probably mostly thought of as conservation cropping practices when the idea first started to get legs, 30 and 40 years ago. It's also been called “sustainable” agriculture in the past, but that fell out of fashion, and so, that new word is “regenerative” agriculture. And I hope, as many hope, that we will come up with a better, easier-to-say term option sooner rather than later.

                                    But historically, when all nations, not just North America, shifted to highly productive food and fiber production practices, we introduced a bunch of ways of doing things that have the positive effect of producing way more food per acre but (also have) a number of negative effects. To keep the soil in production, we started adding synthetic chemicals, because we were depleting the capacity of the soil to naturally support the food production. In that process, we've done many things. One of the most important things that we have done (is) it’s estimated that, over the last 300 years, we've permanently removed 50% of the carbon that our soils used to support and retain and sustain (themselves) year to year. And we use synthetic chemicals and other processes to make up for that loss.

                                    Over the last 30 or 40 years, a lot of great research has proved that there are ways of changing how we manage the soil and how we manage cropping practices, too, (while working) at the same time, to maintain very high levels of crop production per acre. We turn the soil to its healthiest state and rebuild that present stock, and that's a very, very large opportunity to do two things at the same time. First, (get) extra CO₂ out of the atmosphere and store the recovered carbon in soils, which has that huge capacity to retain more carbon than they are right now — and also, in so doing, building a much healthier topsoil. The top 30 centimeters of the soil is what most people are talking about, which is exactly what we need to ensure that our growing territories are resilient in the event of global warming. So, it's one of the only investments you can make that, coincidentally, reduces the risk of climate change while preparing the soil to be more resilient and stay productive in the event of climate change. Best investment anybody could ever make.

Tom:                          What does it mean that 1.5 to 2 degrees of global warming by 2100 is almost inevitable? It that's a given, what are the likely consequences?

Aldyen:                      First of all, they say “inevitable” because when we release a ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, its life in the atmosphere is at least 100 years. So, the warming impact of adding that heat-trapping gas to the atmosphere lasts for 100 years after we release it. So, even though it's only 2020, we already know how much CO₂ is up there and how much we're likely to release over the next 10 years or so. And that adds up, if you look at the modeling, to that very high risk. By the end of this century, we will have that amount of warming.

                                    Two degrees doesn't sound like much, but it has a lot of potential to make land we think of as productive now (become) unproductive. You know, verification goes with that scenario — massively shifting where food can be produced and how much it can be produced. The model suggests it’s likely due to change weather patterns and result in many more extreme weather events: hurricanes, tornados, rainstorms, thunderstorms, floods and droughts. It's not just drought; it’s floods and droughts. One of the pictures of global warming that is always in my head is just gray, total gray, in that future. Where (there) is snow during the winter now, that’s more likely to be rain and freezing rain (in the future). Freezing after rain is much more destructive than a normal snow event. And it's not a nice picture.

Tom:                          You know, 2100 may seem distant, it may seem like a long way off, but a person born today likely is going to live to experience this.

Aldyen:                      They’re going to live to experience it, and everything they do in their lifetime will determine whether or not it happens.

Tom:                          Your projects have included using emission reduction credits to finance carbon sequestration in agricultural soils. What are emission reduction credits, and how can they be used to finance carbon sequestration in farmland?

Aldyen:                      Now, I'm going to go all Nori promotional on you because I use the term “emission reduction credits” in my general language, and you're right about that. In Nori, we’re calling them Nori carbon removal times (NRTs). And so, I’m gonna pitch NRTs for the rest of the —

Tom:                          That’s quite all right.

Aldyen:                      What we are saying is, (in the) U.S. or anywhere in the world, a farmer can elect to reduce their pillage activity, the amount of plowing of their fields and (subsequently) releasing soil carbon to the atmosphere and exposing it to the atmosphere. That is common practice: to change their crop rotations, to change how they do irrigation, to add cover crops and do other things that essentially accelerate microbial activity in that biogeochemical process that includes photosynthesis, the work that plants do.

                                    So, plants draw CO₂ out of the atmosphere and microbes down by the roots of the plant, and soil breaks down that CO₂, and some of the carbon goes into plant growth. Some of it goes back up to the atmosphere, and some of it stays in the soil. And the more we retain in the soil, the more productive our plants are and the greater the service they provide in pulling CO₂ out of the atmosphere. So, we are saying to farmers, “Find the best combination of changing how you grow food so that you’re maximizing the amount of CO₂ you’re drawing out of the atmosphere and, of that CO₂, you're maximizing the amount of incremental carbon you store in the soil. And when you do that and we can demonstrate that you have drawn an incremental ton of heat-trapping gas out of the atmosphere, we issue an NRT, and then corporations and individuals who want to offset their own carbon footprint can buy those NRTs (with the) confidence that they know they have bought real interest in 1 ton of heat-trapping gas pulled out of the atmosphere.” And even more attractive (is) that they’ve invested in a healthier, more productive food system at the same time.

Tom:                          Am I correct that you have created a marketplace for carbon removal? And this sets up ways for farmers to actually be paid to store carbon in their soil? That's the sequestration. How does that work?

Aldyen:                      Yes. We invite farmers to provide us a bunch of operating data — that’s information we need to know, both historical and going forward, to be confident that they are building up their soil carbon stocks. And when they provide us the data and then an independent third-party verifier provides us assurance that the data is reasonable and replicable — that’s the term we use, “reasonably accurate” — then we issue NRTs to the farmer in our marketplace. And the NRTs are offered for sale. And we only started offering NRTs for sale for our suppliers last September. And to date, when NRTs are listed for sale, they've been selling out within 24 hours.

                                    We often have a backlog of demand for NRTs, and farmers have been earning $15 a ton for those NRTs on average so far. To put that in context, the typical farmer who decides they want to pursue this objective is generating, on average, revenues in the order of $27–40 per acre per year before government subsidies. Now, that represents a wide range of earnings in U.S. farmland, ranging from, say, a loss of $9 per acre to earnings of $80 per acre. The typical farmer can adopt practices that will draw down roughly 1 ton per acre per year. So, adding $15 per acre per year to the earning potential of farmers for whom $27–40 is the normal range is very significant financially. So, again, you're able to deliver new revenues to farmers who really need it. At the same time, you're delivering this very significant environmental service to society.

Tom:                          In your (Alltech ONE Virtual Experience) presentation, you begin by sharing quite a lot of data to allow your audience to form their own opinions about what it says and how they should react to the information. And in your first slide, you note that even if all nations complied with the aims of the Paris Accord, the world would still need to cut or offset about 15 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas discharges annually by 2030. Of course, we know that all nations are not complying —  most conspicuously, the United States, which has pulled out of the agreement. As long as the U.S. refrains from meeting this goal, is it futile for the others to even try?

Aldyen:                      No. It means a couple of things. It means we've got to do our best, and then we have to figure out how to mitigate the impacts of warming given that, as you said earlier in the interview, it's probably inevitable, for the reasons you just outlined. So, the first part is (that) U.S. crop producers, on their own, have the capacity to draw down — while they're becoming more profitable — up to 1.5 billion tons a year. And all crop producers worldwide do have the capacity to draw down by docking regenerative ag practices anywhere. We're not sure, but (that would equal something) between 10 billion and 25 billion tons per year. Now, we’re not going to mobilize 100% of that capacity tomorrow afternoon, but that is the way to take a significant bite in that 15-billion-ton-per-year deficit that we’ve got to address by 2030. I just don’t see any argument why not (to do this) because, again, when we invest in regenerative ag, we are doing two things: We are taking a bite (out of) that 15-billion-ton-per-year deficit, and we're doing it in such a way that we're making the soils more resilient if the warming that we're worried about actually occurs. So, we should be optimistic that we can do a lot and start doing it.

Tom:                          How about the corporate world? How’s the corporate world responding to calls to reduce their contributions to climate change?

Aldyen:                      I perceive — I’m an eternal optimist — that things are changing for the better here. There is a history that’s evidenced in some of the slide that you just referred to, that I present often. There is a history of corporate talking the talk (but) not walking the walk.

                                    Fifty corporations worldwide account for 57% of all of the manmade greenhouse gas emissions, when we account for their production emissions and also the emissions that you and I discharge when we use their product, like the emissions that go out of the tailpipe of our gasoline-powered car. That's only 50 companies. And to be frank, while everybody is saying the right things, none of those companies have yet made a commitment or produced a plan to reorient their core business description to move away from fossil fuels as their revenue source. Again, many are talking the talk. But if you actually look at their financial statements, if you're looking at all of the big oil companies, they are saying the right things, but it's still the case that, year after year, more than 50% of their capital spending plan is dedicated to finding and extracting more fossil fuels.

                                    It really feels like we're on the brink. It really feels like at least some of the big leaders are considering change seriously for the first time. It's really going to be important for the companies we think of as big oil to change their image of themselves and think of themselves as “big energy.” And in that future, they're going to be way, way more focused on supplying electricity and storage capacity, battery storage capacity, than oil and gas. We're not there yet, but it’s starting to feel like we’re on the brink.

Tom:                          So, you just began to sketch out what, I take, an aggressive climate change action plan would look like, correct? And could you expand on that?

Aldyen:                      Well, an aggressive climate change action would, again, involve —  and it’s big, big companies, but we only need to get to 50 of them — it’s not thousands and thousands — to really change their idea of what their core business is and to think of themselves as in the core business of supplying energy broadly, not just oil and gas. And the really exciting thing about that is, you know what? That's not doing something they've never done before. That's very much like returning their business model back toward something much like what it was in the ’40s and ’50s.

                                    You know, when I was growing up in the ’60s, the first credit card my father had was from a company called Home Oil. And the same company that delivers oil to the tank in our house that we used to heat our home also ran the gas station we took our car to. So, going forward, that energy company is going to want to be both delivering electricity and heat to our home as well as electricity that we need for mobile transport. So, it’s just about them returning to a business model that they executed very, very successfully 50 years ago with different energy sources behind that business model. It's hard to make change, but they can. And that’s one of the key parts of what we need to see happen. I think we need to do a better job of inventing shifts in that direction both in terms of how we design policy and regulations as a society and how we communicate their options to consumers.

Tom:                          If “the big 50” got on board and everybody involved engaged in a very aggressive action plan, is it impossible to say how long it would take to draw down emissions to acceptable levels?

Aldyen:                      History tells us — it's not possible to say how long, but history tells us two things. So, we have some amazing pollution reduction success stories in our history — the whole industrialized world, not just North America. We got the lead out of gasoline and paint. We lowered sulfur levels in diesel and in the electricity supply chain. We got the ozone-depleting substances out of refrigerant chemicals and saw that hole in the ozone layer shrink. And in all three of those precedents, once we got rolling, we achieved the environmental goal way faster than we had thought we were going to before we got started.

                                    Whenever we look back, we see two things. If, in policy and regulation, governments decide that it's the role of government to set price or pick the solution and, then, put incentives in place to make the market adopt that solution, we fail. Every time we take that approach, we give up, and it takes a long, long time to achieve our environmental goal — if we even stick to our commitment to achieve it. Alternatively, if you look at all of our historical success stories, whenever a government said, “Okay, you guys, this thing that you’ve embedded in the products and services you sell is creating pollution that's damaging; reduce that input in your supply chain (to) this mandatory rate,” you figure out how to do it. So, you leave it to industry and the private sector to figure out how to price and what solutions to choose. Every time we’ve said to industry, “Take it out over time; you've got this much time; clear it out yourself,” we have actually achieved our pollution-reduction goals ahead of schedule and at way lower cost than anybody imagined when we started.

                                    So, the greenhouse gas version of that would be a simple regulation that says, “If you supply energy in the United States, you report your global supply chain fossil carbon content in that energy supply chain, and you cut it by …” And then we have a big fight over whether that “by,” what comes after “by,” is 3% or 5% per annum — but you don't tell them what to put in, and you don't tell them how to price things and, you know, allocate rights to do things. You just say, you know, “Get the fossil carbon out of your products and services you’re suppling us. Here’s how much time you have, and figure it out.” And I’m sure that if we just moved to that way of thinking, markets like the one we're building in Nori will become commonplace, where participants in the market will, on their own, trade credits to comply with the rule — and we will be surprised. We will be very pleasantly surprised.

Tom:                          You've noted that 100% of corporate investments in new energy solutions rely on continuing revenues from sales of fossil fuels. Isn't that a pretty serious contradiction, and is it possible to break out of that cycle?

Aldyen:                      When I say (that) the big companies have talked the talk and not walked (the walk) so far, it’s because, yes, what you just attributed to me is true. And more than that, when you look at the investments they’ve made in new energy solutions, yes, their commitments have always been conditional. And they maintain some revenues from fossil fuels and have margins that they then dedicate (to) new energy solutions. But in fact, most of the time, too, the private-sector investment is conditional on also getting a government subsidy. And as I said, when we get into that trap where reducing pollution requires government to say, “Oh, gee, yes, I approve the solution, and I'm gonna give it this subsidy,” it’s never worked. It's never worked in the past.

                                    It's not just about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. It's about every pollutant we've tried to move out of our supply chain. We get into this very, very difficult, slow process where market signals are perverted and the ability of the market to do what it does, which is innovate and compete on price, is impaired. So, yeah, I know (that) when we move off that way of thinking and say, “Okay, like I said, if you deliver energy, report your global fossil carbon content per million BTU of energy delivered, I don't care if the energy, you know, what the makeup of the energy product portfolio is you deliver, and leave it to the marketplace to find solutions,” the market will just bloom, and they’ll come up with ideas that you and I have never thought of to date.

Tom:                          Well, Aldyen, can most of us just go on with business as usual and rely on science and technology to save us from climate change?

Aldyen:                      No. As I think you’ve heard in my comments so far, I think we need to, as citizens, ask our government to seriously consider moving forward with the kind of command regulation that I just mentioned — again, the key being (that) it’s a command to reduce the fossil carbon content in the product supply chain and not to dictate what they sell and how they price it. We do need that regulation. I would argue we all know that, for example — and I know this is a source of debate in the U.S. at this time — but I think most experts, certainly, agree that the energy efficiency accomplishments we’ve seen realized in the traditional car fleet wouldn't have happened unless our government had said to the manufacturers, “You have to increase the efficiency of the fleet of cars you produce every year on this schedule over time.” That's called the cafe standard.

                                    One of the reasons you need regulations is because even when everyone who’s a leader in the industry thinks they know how to achieve a higher efficiency or deliver a better product, they still have to make a very risky up-front in investment. And often, when you’re in a competitive marketplace, you can’t afford to take the risk of doing that on your own and being the only one. So, sometimes, a simple, straightforward regulation levels the playing field, and then you’re motivating all of those very, very capable companies to compete for market share in the new context, where the requirement to lower the pollution — it’s called the pollution precursor — content in the supply chain exists. When you take that approach of basic regulation to level the playing field and leave it for the private sector to go for it in that context, we have lots of history that tells us (that) we surprise ourselves every time.

Tom:                          Aldyen Donnelly is a cofounder and director of carbon economics at Nori, a carbon-removal marketplace based in Seattle. She joins us from Vancouver. Thanks, Aldyen.

Aldyen:                      Thanks for having me.

Tom:                          This has been Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Thank you for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to Ag Future wherever you listen to podcasts.

From your breakfast smoothie to savory dishes, blueberries have a much greater versatility than their small size might convey. In order for that blueberry to get to your kitchen, growers of this labor-intensive crop must face the many challenges of berry production. After ensuring the presence of the acidic soil that various blueberry cultivars prefer, as well as ensuring that the variety used fits into the location’s growing season demands, the battle against environmental and disease pressure begins. A slew of diseases attack blueberry bushes, but the fungal diseases that attack the leaves, branches and flowers of the plant are some of the more common problems that directly affect the plant’s yield and its ability to continue to be a viable plant for future harvests. 

A few of the most common diseases that affect blueberries include botrytis, mummy berry and anthracnose. These diseases, which proliferate during the times of the year that are more humid, spread when infected material comes into contact with healthy growth. Rain and irrigation help with this transmission, either by directly depositing disease spores onto the bushes or by creating a wet environ that nests the infection and fosters more favorable conditions for spreading.

Botrytis

Commonly called grey rot, this disease is caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea. Signs of botrytis include blossoms that have turned brown, appear to have a grey powder and begin to die off. This fungus can be spread by the wind and via water splashed from infected blossoms and foliage, and it can lay dormant on pruned branches and plant debris from previous cuttings. Botrytis poses the greatest threat to the plant at some of its most susceptible growth stages: bloom and right before harvest.

One of the most important steps to take for botrytis control in blueberries is to plant bushes that are spaced far enough apart to allow for sufficient air flow. Drip irrigation is preferred in order to keep the aerial parts of the plant dry. Prune and remove infected and damaged twigs.

Mummy berry disease

Another fungal disease that makes flowers turn brown and die off, mummy berry disease also produces blackened marks on leaves that eventually wilt and die. Mature fruit that is Infected will become grey and hard and will fall off the bushes before harvesting time. 

Since this disease can be transmitted to healthy flowers through pollinating insects, wind and rain and can be transferred to new growth through fallen infected berries, one of the more effective ways to combat mummy berry disease is to keep the fallen infected berries from being able to access the plant. This can be accomplished by removing or burying mummified berries from under and around the plant by cultivating the soil underneath the bushes. While time consuming, harvesting and destroying mummified berries before they drop to the ground can be very effective for mitigating infection.

Anthracnose

Plants infected with ripe rot, or anthracnose, may not show any symptoms until after harvest. This is a tricky disease that spends the winter months hiding in infected twigs, older growth and live buds. New infections occur in humid conditions, when rain and irrigation can transfer spores, most often between the flowering and berry development phases. If any symptoms manifest prior to harvest, they will appear near the time of berry maturation, and a few flowers may wilt and turn brown, or the flower part of the berry may soften. The greater danger with anthracnose comes during post-harvest, when berries are packaged and stored; salmon-colored spores will appear on the berries and spread to other berries in the same package.

Mitigation strategies for anthracnose are similar to those for botrytis: Separate bushes to create more space between each plant; drip irrigate; and increase the air flow in the plant through pruning. Additionally, quickly move harvested fruit to cold storage.  

Growers can also use fungicides to help limit the spread of these diseases. However, with the future of many fungicides in question, what else can growers do to help their blueberry bushes? Once the practices that create physical barriers for fungal infections, such as plant spacing, have been implemented, the focus should turn to the plants themselves. After planting and during the growth phases, it is important to ensure that the plant’s nutritional needs are met. Well-nourished plants are more capable of resisting environmental and disease pressures.

Growers can complement their existing fungicide programs with biostimulant nutritional aids, such as AGRO-MOS, maximizing plants defense mechanisms.

Benefits of Agro-Mos:

• Based on nutrigenomic research
• Proper nutrition aids in reducing overall plant stress
• Complements existing pest-management programs while avoiding residues

Find out how Agro-Mos can be beneficial in your berry production!

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.

When growing soy, the ultimate goal is to maximize crop yield while maintaining crop and soil health in order to continue using that land for soy production or as part of a crop rotation schedule. Each step in the life cycle of the plant has its particular needs, but when focusing on the soybean flowering phase, some special care can result in greater yields when the time for harvest arrives. 

Flowering and fighting stress

The flowering phase is an integral phase for soy plants. What happens during this time and how many flowers the plant is able to produce and maintain will determine the ultimate yield of each plant. Much like humans, plants are also affected by and suffer from stress caused by external factors. A lack of rain and excessive heat are formidable enemies for soy and can severely impact the plants’ development and productivity. In order to minimize the damage that can be induced by these stressors, producers should ensure that the crop is in optimal health and is able to remain in good condition. 

Feed the plant

To improve a plant’s stamina and increase its chances of surviving and even thriving, the grower should ensure that the plant is able to receive and use the appropriate nutrients during periods of stress. Luiz Gustavo Floss, a grains consultant for Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina, notes that some practices are indispensable for improving plant development and flower retention — factors that impact profitability. 

“The plant needs to be well-nourished at the moment of flowering to form as great a number of pods as possible, resulting in an increase in production and greater grain weight,” Floss explained. 

Solutions to protect against stress

Providing nutrients and other stress-reducing substances to the plants prior to and during times of stress will help producers reduce their risks during flowering. Agronomist Vinícius Abe, an Alltech Crop Science technical manager specializing in grains, says that these compounds will allow the plant to be better prepared to resist external factors.

“These elements are fundamental for the development of the plant,” Abe explained. “Zinc is a good example of one of these essential elements. It’s an enzymatic cofactor that aids in protein synthesis and in the photosynthetic process. But there are also other important nutrients, such as copper, boron, calcium, nitrogen and potassium. These nutrients are fundamental for the proper formation of the reproductive organs, filling of the grains and productivity.”

When a plant receives the essential amount of the nutrients, these stress-reducing substances begin to work quickly to stimulate the plant so that it will reach a balanced state and have the ability to perform the necessary functions, especially in the production of amino acids and hormones. 

“When we apply an amino acid externally, we stimulate internal production so that the soy plant can pass through this phase more balanced,” said Abe. “Some stressful situations, for example, can make these functions become unregulated and will result in the plant having its productivity compromised.”   

The Alltech Crop Science solutions based on plant extracts and nutrients complexed with amino acids also have a beneficial impact on the quality of soy plants. With the demands for particular protein levels in the international market, the use of these solutions will translate directly to increased profitability for producers. 

“The improved development of the plant becomes possible when care is taken in the materials that are used, promoting improved genetic expression and productive potential, as well as decreasing the impact of stress factors on the plant,” Abe said.

Did you know?

The average soy plant will usually have between 300 to 450 flowers, but more than 80% of them are lost due to various factors that create stress in the plant. There are several steps that growers can take in order to help reduce the loss of flowers. These steps include implementing appropriate crop management techniques, like proper fertilizing, spacing, stands, irrigation and the delivery of nutrients such as calcium and boron, which will increase the probability that flowers will remain on the plant and lead to increased pod production.

Roles of certain nutrients in soy production

• Zinc: Important during the formation of chlorophyll; influences protein level.
• Copper: Involved in the ability of the plant to synthesize lignin.
• Boron: Integral to the formation of nodes and nitrogen fixation.
• Potassium: Plays a role in photosynthesis.

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