“Mom, where are the baby boomers, where are the millennials? You can’t leave this (climate) crisis all on our shoulders … We are running out of time,” Heather White’s teenage daughter said tearfully to her at the dinner table one day in 2019. White, who has been a noted environmentalist for 20-plus years, recalled the moment during her keynote presentation at the Alltech ONE Conference (ONE). At that moment, she decided to dig into the mental health impact of the climate crisis and create an opportunity for more people to see themselves within the movement.

“The climate crisis is the biggest challenge of our time,” White said at ONE. “Everyone is needed, and everyone is welcome. But … it’s so overwhelming, most people don’t know where to start.”

Here are the three steps you can take right now to contribute to the climate movement:

Step 1: Think beyond your age and listen

First, White argues, it is important to think about the people who created opportunity for you — someone who might no longer be here but who changed the trajectory of your life. Our ancestors were intentional in trying to create a better legacy for us, and we can become good ancestors for the next generation, too.

Now, envision that it’s 2050. What would a teenager in 2050 thank you for?

White invites everyone to listen to young people about their climate concerns and also to give them hope.

“We need to be intentional and share with them about the progress that we’ve witnessed in our lifetime so they know that change, hope and progress is not only possible, but that it is inevitable,” White asserted. “That’s on us, and that happens with conversations.”

We all have a role to play in climate change, and White helps people find the roles they were meant to play.

Step 2: Find your unique role

With two decades of environmental advocacy work and national nonprofit leadership to draw from, White wrote a book titled “One Green Thing: Discover Your Hidden Power to Help Save the Planet”. In that book, she created the Service Superpower Profile Assessment, which is similar to a personality test that you can take for free here.

“This is an assessment that asks you, ‘Who are you in service? How do you show up for the people that you love?’” White explained.

After taking the assessment, you will find yourself among the following seven service types based on which one best suits your personality and talents:

1. The adventurer loves the physicality of the outdoors. They are a calculated risk taker. They love taking other people outside their comfort zone.
2. The beacon is all about social justice. They are comfortable behind the podium. They are visionaries who can see what’s possible.
3. The influencer is about bringing people together and connecting them.  
4. The philanthropist is the giver who gives their time and resources and connects other people to causes they care about.
5. The sage focuses on the spiritual connection to nature and the moral case for acting on behalf of the future generation. They can break through the political divide and find common ground for people to see the bigger picture.
6. The spark is the cheerleader who ignites the movement and is always ready to cheer on friends and family.
7. The wonk loves science, policy, data and graphs. They can translate complex technology into solutions people can understand and rally around.

“The point of these different seven personality types in service is this idea that you don’t have to do it all,” White assured the audience at ONE. “You can manage to your strengths and contribute to the movement based on your strengths. First and foremost, it is not about perfection. It’s about progress.”

Step 3: Apply the daily practice of sustainability

Now that you know what your service superpower is, it’s time to save the world. This is where one green thing — a daily sustainability practice — comes in.

• Start by making a 21-day plan filled with activities you want to do that are fun for you and good for the planet. If you need inspiration or you’re just curious, learn more about your service superpower and matching climate actions here.
• Follow your plan for 21 days. If you need motivation, reflect on how you want to show up for the people you love, then dedicate a time on your daily schedule.
• Keep your daily habit of one green thing after the 21 days.

“Individual action shifts the culture,” White said. “You are the influencer in your community. Because the reality is (that) all the solutions to the climate crisis exist right now. What is missing is the political will. And the political will only happens when every single one of us acts every day to shift that culture.”

With her experience in lobbying for environmental policy on Capitol Hill, White advises that we must create cultural change for policy to work and for market solutions to be adopted at scale. If we all do one green thing every day, we can build a momentum to create support for change to become reality.

White left the ONE audience with this parting thought: “What will your legacy be? Because together, we can create a Planet of Plenty^TM. Thirty years from now, what can we create together that will stop our future loved ones in their tracks and create a moment of breathtaking gratitude?”

To register for access to on-demand content and more from the Alltech ONE Conference, visit one.alltech.com.

[Ciudad de Serdán, Mexico] – On April 5, Alltech took steps to advance its leadership in sustainability through the company’s first global renewable energy project, a photovoltaic solar energy system, located in its production plant in Serdán, Mexico. The plant also presented its new source of compressed natural gas, which will help to considerably mitigate its environmental impact.

During the event, which was attended by local authorities, industry representatives and Alltech’s president and CEO, Dr. Mark Lyons, it was highlighted that this new energy system — designed by the company Iberdrola — will cover 46% of the Alltech Serdán plant’s energy needs. This will result in an energy savings of 22% in the first year, and an annual reduction of 20% of its CO₂-eq emissions (665 fewer tons of CO₂-eq emissions).

 “Alltech strives to have a positive impact in the 350 global communities in which we live and work, and our team in Serdán has long been exemplary in this regard,” said Dr. Mark Lyons. “Today, they have taken a tremendous step forward in advancing our efforts to reduce the environmental impact of our operations.

“The milestone completion of these energy projects was also a celebration of this team’s long-standing spirit of ‘making a difference.’ The products produced at this facility are at the core of our Planet of Plenty™ vision, which aims to improve animal welfare and feed efficiency, while ensuring nutrition for all and reducing environmental impact. For example, the Serdán team is committed to replanting yucca plants — three for each one harvested in the production of our De-Odorase® product — and they consistently put the community at the forefront of their endeavors. This facility and our local team members are truly a testament to our vision of Working Together for a Planet of Plenty™.”

Alltech Serdán also inaugurated a new system for the use of compressed natural gas, a more environmentally friendly fuel, which will further contribute to a reduction in its environmental impact. Designed with the company Enepres, this new energy source, unlike liquified petroleum gas, emits 30% less carbon dioxide (CO₂) and 65% less carbon monoxide (CO). The result is an annual reduction of 17% of its CO₂-eq emissions (570 fewer tons of CO₂-eq).

"These projects readily demonstrate Alltech's interest in investing significantly in energy efficiency and renewable energy," said Paul Kilgallen, Alltech Serdán plant manager. "The initiatives support our efforts to offer sustainable solutions that optimize the productivity of livestock producers, and at the same time, uphold the social responsibility we have as a business and as an industry."

Alltech Serdán’s new energy system and transition to natural compressed gas are also representative of Alltech’s efforts to achieve its emission reduction goals by 2030, deliver on its commitment to several UN Sustainable Development Goals, and achieve its vision of a Planet of Plenty™.

In fewer than 100 days, the Alltech ONE Conference (ONE) will return to Lexington, Kentucky, for a collaborative exploration of the challenges and opportunities in the agri-food industry and beyond. Alltech, a global leader in animal health and nutrition, announced that their 38th annual flagship event will be held May 22-24 both in person and virtually on a first-class platform, with live-streaming and on-demand presentations available to ensure accessibility to everyone, everywhere.

Reflecting the most relevant topics impacting the agri-food industry, the key themes of the discussions held at ONE will include science, sustainability and storytelling.  

“The opportunities are abundant for the global agri-food sector to shape the future of our planet,” said Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech. “We can deliver nutrition for all, while fuelling economic vitality and replenishing our Earth’s resources. The potential for impact is profound, but it requires a higher level of commitment and collaboration from every one of us. ONE is much more than a gathering; it is an invitation to step forward and share in a vision of promise for our ONE planet.”

ONE attendees will derive inspiration from keynote speakers who have unleashed the power of innovation and courageous leadership for positive impact.

Mick Ebeling, founder and CEO of Not Impossible Labs and author of “Not Impossible: The Art and Joy of Doing What Couldn’t Be Done,” will take the ONE mainstage in person, and his presentation will also be live-streamed for those joining virtually.

Ebeling was recently named by Fortune Magazine as one of the Top 50 World’s Greatest Leaders. He is a recipient of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian of the Year Award and is listed as one of the world’s most influential creative people by The Creativity 50s. Ebeling has sparked a movement of pragmatic, inspirational innovation, and as a career producer and filmmaker, he harvests the power of technology and storytelling to change the world.

Presenting virtually is Paul Polman, who has been described by the Financial Times as “a standout CEO of the past decade”. As CEO of Unilever (2009-2019), he stopped reporting quarterly earnings to focus on a long-term strategy that would successfully double revenues while reducing the company’s environmental impact by half.   

Prior to joining Unilever, Polman served as CFO and vice president for the Americas at Nestlé and as president for Western Europe at Procter & Gamble. He was a member of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel, which developed the Sustainable Development Goals and which he continues to champion, working with global organizations to push the 2030 development agenda.  

Paul’s new book, “Net Positive,” is a call to arms to courageous business leaders, outlining how to build net-positive companies that profit by fixing the world’s problems rather than creating them. He serves as the chair of IMAGINE — a social venture dedicated to systems change — and of the Saïd Business School. He is vice-chair of the UN Global Compact and is a B Team leader and honorary chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, which he led for two years.  

While the world-class keynote speakers at ONE will offer universally valuable insights, the subject- and species-specific tracks will explore emerging opportunities in aquaculture, beef, crop science, dairy, pig, poultry, equine, health and wellness, business, and brewing and distilling. Confirmed speakers are currently listed on the ONE website, with more to be added.   

Virtual attendees of ONE will have access to live-streamed keynotes and pre-recorded track presentations that can be viewed on-demand. For in-person attendees, the ONE experience will extend into beautiful downtown Lexington, Kentucky, with special events, dinners and tours.   

To learn more about the Alltech ONE Conference, including how to register, visit one.alltech.com. Join the conversation across social media with #AlltechONE.

Since 1985, Alltech’s annual conference has drawn leaders, innovators and changemakers within agri-food to Lexington, Kentucky. In 2020, Alltech reimagined the event in a virtual format to ensure that its ideas and inspiration could reach everyone, everywhere. Last year, the virtual event drew more than 10,000 people, including over 400 media, from 101 countries.

The Pet Sustainability Coalition is advancing pet businesses through the integration of environmental and social practices. Caitlyn Dudas, executive director and cofounder of the Pet Sustainability Coalition, joins the Ag Future podcast to discuss the importance of collaboration across the entire supply chain to meet the rising consumer demand for sustainable pet products.

The following is an edited transcript of the Ag Future podcast episode with Nikki Putnam Badding hosted by Tom Martin. Click below to hear the full audio or listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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.

                                 Armed with a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a master’s in environmental management and sustainability from Harvard, Caitlyn Dudas brings together pet industry leaders to strengthen their businesses while also shaping a future where pets, people and the planet can prosper. Caitlyn is executive director and cofounder of the Pet Sustainability Coalition, and she joins us from Boulder. Welcome, Caitlyn.

Caitlyn:                    Well, thank you, Tom. Happy to be here.

Tom:                        And you have an interesting background. I'd like to explore that for a moment, just to give our listeners some context here. And I know that, even as a young teen, you were traveling to struggling parts of the world. You were supporting humanitarian efforts, building schools, teaching sustainable farming methods, delivering hospital supplies, that kind of thing. What led you to that path so early in life?

Caitlyn:                    Well, Tom, I grew up in the Midwest in a small kind of hobby farm in Northwest Indiana. And both of my parents were very actively involved in progressive social movements. So, I think I learned early to be an active participant — but I also grew up on a farm. So, I had a lot of opportunity, kind of, to explore the natural world and to lead from a place of curiosity as a child. And so, I think the combination of those things — kind of a very strong sense of active engagement and encouragement from both of my parents to participate in a future that's good for everybody — I think the two of those things came together.

                                And I had the support from my family to really explore the world, and the role that I wanted to play in being a great citizen and a participant, whether that was traveling — you mentioned some of the things that I got the amazing pleasure to work on in Central America or in my local community. I was very interested in just learning and seeing what was out there. And I think, when you're exposed and see different places around the world and you see a different plate than the privilege, I think, that we often have here in the United States, any person would be hard-pressed not to want to be a part of the solution and to make people’s lives better.

Tom:                        I know it's difficult to reach back over a lifetime of experience, like what you just described, and unpack it, but if you had to, what would you say you've learned from those experiences that informs what you do today?

Caitlyn:                    One of the things that I did — for example, in college, I traveled to the Amazonian region of Brazil, in the northern region, in a town named Belém, which is at the mouth of the Amazon River, and I explored and spent time living in very remote villages with people who didn't have access to basic things, like groceries and a store. And they really lived off of the land.

                                 And this is an example of an experience where — I knew that there was a turtle species that lived in the region that ecological organizations have decided was a high-value species. And so, they wanted to protect it. And what they did is they basically decided they were going assess fines on anyone (who) killed one of these river turtles. And when I actually got the chance to go into Brazil and to live in these villages, (I eventually came) to understand that this same turtle was basically what many of the tribes used as an opportunity to trade in the marketplace. And so, what they brought was this river turtle to market, and then they traded it for other goods and services.

                                 And so, I started to understand a little bit about the differences between rules and regulations and the impact that they have on real people and real environments. And I started to understand that there are tradeoffs in environmental policy and in sustainability, but there are very few silver bullets where there's a solution out there that doesn't have a ripple effect or other impacts on — whether it's people or other environment.

And so, I think, in that way, one of the pieces I took away from some of these environmental or adventurous experiences (that I had) when I was younger is the complexity of the world that we live in and what that means about developing our problems and how we go about all the problems in our natural world. And to understand that the environment and humans are linked; you know, they do not exist outside of one another. And so, while many people may think of governmental issues as separate from human or community issues, really, we're all on the same planet. And through marketplaces, or through trading, or through food or shelter, it is impossible to separate the two entirely.

So, through those experiences, (I got a better) understanding of how interwoven our communities are, the natural world, and also how complex it can be to make systematic laws and regulations and changes that work for everybody involved.

Tom:                        Human conceit has always interested me — how we somehow imagine that we're not part of the natural world. It's interesting, isn't it?

Caitlyn:                    Yeah. You know, the way that we live is very disconnected from our natural world. We don't see where our food and water comes from; we don't see where it goes when it leaves our house. And so, I think, over time, in the process of living in a privileged place, we leave our connection to these things. After college, for example, I spent several summers taking high school students into our backcountry of different natural areas around the United States — all over the place, from Alaska to New Mexico to Texas — and really reconnecting them with the environment and remembering how closely connected we are. So, yes, I would agree. We are all connected, from the planet we live on, where our food comes from, and how much we really rely on the earth for our well-being.

Tom:                        Well, Caitlyn, let's talk about the organization that you now lead. How did the Pet Sustainability Coalition come about?

Caitlyn:                     Sure. So, I am a cofounder. So, Chris Bentley, who was a cofounder of Aspen Pet Products, which was a large manufacturer of dog toys and hard goods, was living here in Boulder. And I had just moved here after I finished my degree from Harvard in environmental management and sustainability. And I had joined a small nonprofit consulting company just outside of Boulder. And Chris had spent some time looking for an organization to build him a suite of tools where business could really kind of get on their path for sustainability, start measuring their impact and building plans for improvement.

                                Now, Chris Bentley, having kind of lived in Colorado for a long time, also has a very strong passion around sustainability and the environment. And he considered (the question), where did he, as a person, have the most leverage, right? So, where were his biggest opportunities to really make an impact? And he recognized, after spending 25 years in the pet industry, that his biggest lever for change was, really, as a successful businessperson. And so, with a very strong goal to use that position to really bring sustainability to the pet industry, he recognized early on in our work together that I have the skillset to be his implementation partner.

                                So, he really brought this vision, which we developed in partnership. You know, we looked at other industries — like the apparel industry and the natural food sector — to understand what they were doing around sustainability. We used them as a model to understand how we could effectively work with businesses, which really can have a much wider impact across all their stakeholder groups than individuals working on their own. And so, he and I together, we studied those separate industries, and then — he really had been working for years before we met to really understand the need of the audience. So, he would meet with CEOs and execs in the industry and say, “Hey, what are you doing around sustainability?” And (he was) really cataloguing, over years of these meetings, what they were doing, what they expressed needing help with and support with, and then (he began) working with me to build a model around a nonprofit that could deliver on that need and start to work with his community of executives that were ready to take action.

                                 So, together, he and I built the concept for the Pet Sustainability Coalition. And we pitched it to a group of about 15 to 20 different companies at one of the industry's largest trade shows in 2013. And out of that meeting, eight companies wrote a check for $10,000, and that became the seed money from which we started developing the Pet Sustainability Coalition. And then I was hired as the executive director to implement the vision that he and I continued to create. In addition, we expanded to adopt a formal board. And so, that board, along with Chris and myself, have really been the visionaries and the people responsible for, at the end of the day, turning that vision into an action plan.

Tom:                       Well, what would you say is the overarching mission of the coalition?

Caitlyn:                    So, our mission here at PSC is to advance pet businesses through the integration of environmental and social practices. That mission is really (working) toward a vision where the pet industry is not only doing less harm, but we're actually actively participating in building better communities and improving the environment in all the places around the world where we do business.

Tom:                       How many companies belong to the coalition?

Caitlyn:                    So, today, we're about 200 companies strong, and we have representation from the entire supply chain. So, we have retail members; we have distributor members. We also work with manufacturers, brands, producers and suppliers.

                                 So, all the way through the supply chain, companies come and they work with us. And really, we have a basic three-step model. So, they measure their impact. We are in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals developed in partnership with the UN Global Compact and the nonprofit B Lab. We help companies measure and benchmark where they are today, and then we develop improvement plans.

                                 So, it’s a very customized process to understand what objectives look like for every different business. For some companies, that might mean building or, ultimately, engaging and attracting and retaining top talent. You know, having a strong workforce is a real challenge for businesses today, and many people want to be participating with purpose-driven businesses that are (about) more than profit. They're really thinking about, “What is our place in the world, and how are we participating in a better future?” And so, other companies may be looking at cost savings and efficiency improvements. So, that might mean reviewing their warehouse, looking at things like alternative energy or where's their waste and their footprint. So, we work on a variety.

                                 Sustainability can mean so many different things to so many different people. That is really a custom process for most of our member companies to really identify what their objectives are, what is their priority, or what the return to their business will be from investing in a sustainability program — and then, when they’re measuring and improving, really working on celebrating those accomplishments.

                                Sustainability is a commitment to continuous improvement. At the end of the day, you don’t get to check a box that says, “Hey, I completed sustainability off my checklist today.” And since we’re continually improving — and every year, there's new technology out in the marketplace — we really think it's important for companies to celebrate those accomplishments and those milestones that they're taking as their impact continues to improve. So, our member companies are measuring. They’re building that improvement plan and then celebrating their accomplishments all along the way.

Tom:                        Caitlyn, under the “About” tab on your website are some core values, and they include a couple that I would like to bring into focus here. First, authenticity. Tell us about that.

Caitlyn:                    Yeah. So, “sustainability” has become a buzzword for so many industries and companies. And really, when you're in a place of shifting the market — so initially, businesses, their sole intention and purpose was to drive profitability to shareholders. And as that definition has expanded to today’s modern world, where businesses are really meant to drive value to stakeholders instead of shareholders and (are) really considering their impact on a much wider audience, not just to those shareholders, there have been a lot of different interpretations of what that might look like for different companies.

                                 And so, authenticity and the core value is really — at the end of the day, as an organization, we measure whether or not we're successful as to what? The actual science-based outcomes, right? So, are environments actually being improved by the work that we’re doing with our member companies? And at the same time, are communities actually being improved? So, what we do is we really think about, “How do we measure that?” So, we are continually aggregating data from our member companies, and we’re able to show a really interesting, authentic picture around different environmental and social metrics that actually lead to a better world.

                                So, we’re an organization that says, “Hey, you know, our mission is to advance the pet industry and to be a positive contributor the environment and communities. How do we measure that?” So, (those are) just a few interesting pieces. If you look, for example at alternative energy use in our member companies between 2016, say, and 2019, we can see a sharp increase in the number of our members that are using alternative energy. And on the social side, let’s say if you look at gender diversity, our member companies have a much higher percentage of gender diversity, of women in leadership, management and executive roles, than the average business as well.

                                So, authenticity and transparency is another one of our core values. It’s really ensuring that every program that we invest our member dollars in is delivering a return to that core mission.

Tom:                       I see that another of your core values is about focusing on implementation. What does that mean?

Caitlyn:                    Yes. Absolutely. So, for example, if I said that our member companies came to us and they measured, and then we developed improvements, and that was the end of the services and tools that we deliver to them, that would be the opposite of an implementation focus.

                                So, we are an action-oriented organization. An example of this is all of our memberships: We take 20% of that membership fee and we hold it aside in what we call a project credit. Now, that project credit can be used for a company to take action to complete a project or take a step that shows a measurable improvement, again, to, kind of, their baseline performance today on how they impact the environment and communities. So, that's one example of how we integrate opportunities for companies to take real action through their membership. So, that’s that kind of action orientation.

                                 I think also we’re in an environment — sustainability, in general, isn’t a place that has a lot of truths. There’s lots of case studies out there. And at this point, there are more than 500 peer-reviewed studies that show (that) sustainability drives long-term profitability for a business. But for a lot of what we do, there's no rulebook. There's no guide to how to run a coalition or how to advance an industry and sustainability. And so, when we talk about being implementation-focused, it means that, oftentimes, we’re pioneers. We’re out in the front of different issues that are coming to the industry, and we're really helping to spearhead new initiatives that have never been done before, instead of waiting to allow other actions to take place before we may decide, “Hey, this is improving. So now, we’re going to go ahead and give it a try.”

                                 I think an example of that might be some of our packaging work. So, we piloted a takeback program for all types of flexible bags that are used for pet foods and treats in about 120 different retail locations last year. Never before had the pet industry come together to collect this hard-to-recycle material. There had not been extensive testing done on the 300-million-pound packaging footprint that we have today that’s currently going to landfill. I’m not going to give you an example of how our organization has really kind of pioneered through action and different solutions to some of the environmental problems that we face.

Tom:                        What would you say are some leading issues that, in your view, Caitlyn, must be addressed and overcome by the pet industry to achieve meaningful sustainability?

Caitlyn:                    Yeah. So, as an organization, in 2018, we had about 80 member companies at that time. And we had an interesting shift in kind of an extension of our mission overall. You know, we had those 10 companies we started with, and we grew to 50, then we grew to 80. And what happened uniquely is that we suddenly had representation from the entire supply chain. I mentioned all of the different types of members that we have. And that put us in a new position. It put us in a position to understand and to start addressing areas of sustainability that are too big for a single company to form on their own.

                                 And at that time, we really started to look at: What are those areas of sustainability that really need leadership? They need thought leadership, they need experts, they need education, and then they need actionable ways for companies to come together as individuals, but in a way that aggregates their impact so that we can address these larger-scale issues working together as an industry overall.

                                 So, the three key topics of sustainability that we selected based on their ability to drive scalable impact — the first one is sustainable packaging. So, thinking about this big movement that’s happening across all industries and all sectors — it’s really looking at the impact of plastics in our environment. You probably know that there's been estimated to be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050, and (we’re) looking at, “What’s the footprint of our industry, and how do we start to advance solutions for the entire industry we participate in?”

                                 So that’s one piece. The second piece is around sustainable ingredient sourcing. So, the pet industry — obviously, you know, two primary categories (we’re) looking at are food and treats and then, on the other side, textiles and hard goods. Particularly in the consumables section of our industry, the food and the treats that we’re developing, about 25%, on the low end, it has been estimated, from all of the proteins that are grown and raised in the United States, eventually goes to pets.

                                 And so, we recognize this enormous opportunity to say, “Hey, if we’re at 25% participants, we have a big opportunity to start to evaluate: What is sustainability and the transparency and traceability of the ingredients that we use in this industry, and how can that be an opportunity for us to drive further impact and to participate in a bigger movement that's happening in the agricultural sector overall, toward more sustainable soil treatment and farming methodology and ingredient sourcing and formulation, so that we can be an active participant in the change that needs to happen to protect our environmental resources?”

                                 And then, finally, in 2019, we also took a look at social sustainability and equity, an equitable system. And we added diversity, equity and inclusion as a component, or kind of one of those large keystone initiatives that we wanted to start leading the way in as an organization. So, (we’re) looking at: What’s the overall status today around diversity in our industry? Is it equitable? So, is it serving all communities? And whether that’s the equitability of our farming practices to the diversity of professionals in our industry to meeting the needs of pet owners of different backgrounds as well.

                                 And so, those are the three key issues that we also help to address overall as an organization, kind of beyond helping every single member company improve, but also taking a look at those larger issues, including sustainable sourcing, sustainable packaging, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Tom:                        From your perspective as somebody who's keeping close watch on the pet industry, how could you assess the industry's movement toward sustainability?

Caitlyn:                    Yeah. So, there have been some key milestones that I think have served to progress the industry more quickly at different times. So, in 2016, millennials became the largest pet-owning generation. And it took a couple of years for, I think, the pet industry to really grapple with that intersection between millennials and sustainability. And it turns out, millennials care more deeply about the environment and communities than any other generation. But also, importantly, they're the first generation that’s willing to pay more for sustainable products.

                                 And so, I saw a very large shift between 2016 and 2018 in terms of an understanding of the demand for sustainability from consumers and, as a CPG[ET1]  industry, starting to really think about, “What is our responsibility and, really, our opportunity to meet those customers in that more kind of values-aligned way?” And so, there was a big shift in 2018. So, in 2018, as an organization, if we’re a reflection of the demand and adoption for availability, we have seen, as an organization, we've doubled in size every year since about 2018. And so, that’s really where we started to see that uptick, as pet businesses started to recognize this demand and opportunity for sustainability.

                                 Then, I would say in 2019–2020, there was also another big shift that we thought was primarily around sustainable packaging and collaboration. So, every year, we do a survey of our members in the industry. And early on, we recognized that there was a lot of fear in the industry around collaboration or collaborative models, around sharing information with other peers and competitors or brands of similar types and sizes. And everyone wanted to kind of work on their sustainability internally. We still do, but (we) have strict NDAs with many companies. They were not interested in developing case studies or sharing what they're working on.

                                 And there’s been a big shift in, (A), the desire to communicate externally around sustainability goals. So, I think, as we have seen expectations around accountability and reporting to wider reporting groups, there has been an interest in companies to really be seen as leaders and to share more information on their successes and challenges and data-driven goals and reporting. So, that's a big shift that we’ve seen. And I think, any time (there is) an industry where peers start kind of openly reporting on their sustainability, we see an acceleration in (the) adoption of sustainable practices, because it starts to become a minimum expectation to do business in the pet industry.

                                 So, I think there was a big shift there. And then, you know, one of (the) big areas, sustainable packaging, has been able to really push forward solutions. I can recall, in 2018, reaching out to a group of pet packaging suppliers and saying, “Hey, you know, there's 25 different solutions that are being pushed in the market today around sustainable packaging. We don't think that's healthy, and it's not creating a unified pathway to arrive at solutions faster.” So, we were able to kind of move from 25 down to five. We’re now getting down to about three. You know, we have seen an incredible acceleration of pace around sustainable packaging solution just in the last two years as well.

Tom:                        Well, for anybody listening who's considering career paths right now, what's your pitch to them for a life working to advance sustainability in the pet industry?

Caitlyn:                    Yeah. You know, I think sustainability is an incredible space to build a career in. It is creative because, like I was mentioning before, you know, there's not a roadmap already built. There's no guidebook. And so, for people who like developing something from nothing, it is a very creative space in which you get to iterate new ideas and test them and pilot them in different industries or different, kind of, smaller businesses.

                                 I think, also, businesses are an incredible engine for driving change, right? If you think about the scope from which a business works — whether it's working with all of their employees, which could be hundreds of thousands of people; or all of the natural resources they use, which could impact environments around the world; or all of the markets that they play a role in — again, this industry is very strong here in the U.S. but also in Asia, in South America and in Europe.

                                 And so, I find it to be a particularly impactful way to use my career in order to drive the world forward, to harness the power of business to do good in the world while, at the same time, working in a very creative space that’s impact-driven, that’s purpose-aligned, that attracts other purpose-driven individuals that are generally just a fun and vibrant and very inspired group to work alongside, who is — they’re all so invested in each other's successes. And so, it’s a very collaborative space to have a career in.

                                 And then, not thinking about the pet industry — you know, I had no sense that I would have a career in the pet industry. I knew I wanted to do impactful work that made the world a better place, and I can't say that I had, before doing this, squarely said that I would be in the business sector. And so, you know, the pet industry is the right industry for really bringing together multiple stakeholders, because its core consumers — whether that’s pet or pet parents — naturally have a strong caring bone in their body. This is an industry that attracts very caring people, and care, care starts with care for yourself and then care for your family, and then your family includes pets. And I'm pretty sure, pretty soon, you know, that starts its ripple effect as well, so then you start to care about your dog park, and you care about the other people at your dog park in your community and then your town and your environment, and then the U.S., and then the world, and then animals that live other places. And so, the pet industry is a unique, playful, caring industry from which to really grow this idea and movement around sustainability.

Tom:                        All right. That’s Caitlyn Dudas, executive director and co-founder of the Pet Sustainability Coalition, with us from Boulder. Thank you so much, Caitlyn.

Caitlyn:                    Thank you, Tom.

Tom:                        You bet. And for Ag Future, I’m Tom Martin. Thanks for listening. 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.

Backed by more than 40 years of research experience, innovation and scientific expertise, Acutia is a continuation of the legacy of innovation established by the late founder of Alltech, Dr. Pearse Lyons. Nikki Putnam Badding, registered dietitian nutritionist and managing director of Acutia, joins the Ag Future podcast to discuss the origins of Acutia and how its innovative packaging and refill system might help mitigate the prolific waste problem associated with the supplement industry. 

The following is an edited transcript of the Ag Future podcast episode with Nikki Putnam Badding hosted by Tom Martin. Click below to hear the full audio or listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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.

                                 Alltech has, for years, been a global leader in the animal health industry. But now, the company is taking more than 40 years of scientific innovation and proven nutrition expertise and is applying all of that knowledge to human health. I'm Tom Martin, and joining me is Nikki Putnam Badding with the story of Acutia, the Alltech human health line. A registered dietitian/nutritionist, Nikki is its managing director. Hi, Nikki.

Nikki:                       Hi, Tom.

Tom:                        So, tell us a bit about your background.

Nikki:                        Sure. I'm a registered dietitian, and I have a background in research, nutrition counseling and retail dietetics. And now, I'm the director of human nutrition initiatives at Alltech and (am), as you mentioned, also the managing director of Acutia, where I oversee the business strategy (and) product formulation and manage companywide operations.

Tom:                        Am I right that the origins of Acutia can be traced to Dr. Pearse Lyons and two of Alltech’s flagship organic nutrition solutions, Sel-Plex and Bio-Mos? How did Acutia come about? If you could, give us the backstory.

Nikki:                        Of course. You’re absolutely right about that. And long before I joined Alltech, (the company’s founder) Dr. Pearse Lyons took interest in the application of Alltech products to human health. And it was a natural fit, because those with a science background know that animal health and human health are very closely linked. So, a new division of the company was created: Alltech Life Sciences, where the research scientists focused on utilizing internal expertise gleaned from (the company’s) experience in the animal health industry and applied that to human health — including the first iteration of human health supplements of the company — and (were) also carrying out clinical trial work.

                                 And then, in 2013, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Pearse Lyons myself during my job interview, in which I was proposing that Alltech hire me as their first registered dietitian on staff. So, he and I had a cup of tea, and thankfully, I got the job. And in true Dr. Lyons fashion, he sent me away with a 900-page book on selenium, asked me to read it and jot down a few notes and then start work the next week with a business plan for a human health supplement company. I read that book. I still have it here in my office today. And I put together a plan. And while, admittedly, Tom, it wasn't a very good plan — it sat unused — but the desire of Dr. Lyons to provide high-quality, effective, safe and attainable nutrition for people interested in improving in their health still remained.

                                 So, in 2018, five years later, Dr. Lyons asked me to revisit the idea of a human health business by joining an internal incubator, where a few of my colleagues and I were able to begin hashing out a true business plan to bring this idea to life. And then, in March of 2021, we launched Acutia.

Tom:                        Is Acutia an example of a business that emerged from the Pearse Lyons Cultivator? I think you just mentioned that — the Alltech program that mentors entrepreneurs and provides resources to help them take a startup company to the market. Is that the path that it followed?

Nikki:                       Yes, absolutely. As you well know, Alltech’s company culture emphasizes curiosity, creativity and entrepreneurship. So, within the program, we were given the time and, maybe most importantly, the space to explore new ideas to provide better solutions for our customers, meet the unmet needs of the industry, and maybe even do things that we had never done before as a company. So, Acutia’s true beginning as a business, yes, started within that program, with extensive support from many of my experienced and knowledgeable colleagues and a few external business experts.

Tom:                        Well, Alltech is known worldwide as an animal health organization, and I'm just wondering: Why did the company want to enter the human health side, and how does that align with their current business purpose?

Nikki:                       That's a really good question. Alltech was founded on the ACE principle, which brought focus to safety and benefits — that everything we would do would benefit the animal, the consumer and the environment. So, Alltech has since expanded upon that with our Planet of Plenty mission, whereby, working together with others, we can improve the lives of people, plants and animals while also ensuring a world of abundance.

                                 Acutia carries forward not only, then, Alltech’s legacy of innovation and that entrepreneurial spirit that I mentioned, but we're also guided by that Planet of Plenty mission — supporting the healthier tomorrow for our customers by connecting that science that we're so good at (with) sustainability and wellness.

Tom:                        Acutia offers a trio of supplements; two of them, Acutia Selenium and Acutia Brain Health, are now available. The third, Acutia Digestive Health, is on the horizon. Let's take a look at each of those.

                               Tell us first about Acutia Selenium.

Nikki:                        Sure. So, selenium is so important because it helps maintain a healthy immune system — something that all of us are interested in at this time. It also supports normal thyroid function and acts as an antioxidant. And antioxidants, they offer protection against oxidative stress to cells that are caused by free radicals. And while free radicals are produced naturally in the body, exposure to everything from pollution to sunlight can accelerate their production and then lead to oxidative stress. So, selenium, an antioxidant, helps to maintain cell health by protecting cells from that oxidative stress.

Tom:                       So, who should take Acutia Brain Health?

Nikki:                       Our brain health supplement was formulated for anyone looking to enhance their day-to-day nutrition and support their cognitive health and brain function, both now and into the future.

Tom:                        As I understand it, Acutia Brain Health does also contain selenium. How does it differ from Acutia Selenium?

Nikki:                        Indeed, our brain health supplement does contain selenium, that ever-important antioxidant that we discussed. In addition, it's formulated with plant-based omega-3 DHA and vitamin C to support the process of neurotransmitters.

                                 Now, neurotransmitters are often referred to as the body's chemical messengers. They're the molecules used by the nervous system to transmit messages between neurons or from neurons to muscle. These chemicals and their interactions are involved in countless functions of the nervous system, as well as controlling bodily functions.

Tom:                        What's the source of the selenium found in these supplements, and how do they differ from other selenium supplements?

Nikki:                        Acutia products utilize a food-grade version of Alltech’s Sel-Plex, which delivers a safe, high-quality, consistent source of selenium with each capsule. The form of our selenium is highly bioavailable, meaning that it's easily absorbed and utilized by your body. And when it comes to supplements, there are three characteristics that are absolutely critical. They need to be safe. Of course, they need to provide a consistent dose of the nutrients. And they should be easily absorbed by your body.

Tom:                       The digestive supplement is not yet on the market, as we mentioned earlier, but what can you tell us about it now?

Nikki:                       Well, we’re thrilled to announce we’ll be launching Acutia Digestive Health later this year. And hopefully, I’ll have the opportunity to join you again on the podcast to talk more about it then.

Tom:                        Okay. Well, let’s talk about the science behind these products. Alltech has, for many years, been widely known for its scientific innovation in animal health. How did the growth and development of the Acutia human health line benefit from that research?

Nikki:                        Well, (as) I mentioned earlier, Acutia supplements were developed with the support of research conducted by Alltech Life Sciences. With their support, we've applied more than 40 years of Alltech’s research experience, innovation and scientific expertise in the animal health space to human health. We're also very fortunate to have two of our senior Alltech research scientists on the Acutia team — chief scientific officer Dr. Ronan Power and research group director Dr. Alex Yiannikouris — to help guide the continued scientific innovation of our business.

Tom:                        Acutia’s approach to sustainability appears to have a lot to do with packaging and shipping, and it involves a refill system. Can you elaborate on that?

Nikki:                        Absolutely. This is truly one of my favorite things to talk about in regard to Acutia, because environmental sustainability is as much a part of our mission as our commitment to supporting human health.

                                 So, each component of Acutia’s unique packaging and refill system has been designed with sustainability in mind — particularly, reducing the amount of plastic waste that’s typically associated with the supplement industry. So, upon your first order, we send an optional starter kit that includes a reusable glass jar and a travel container. Your supplements are then packaged in compostable pouches, and you can store your supplement in your glass jar or take it with you on the road in your travel container. You compost your pouch and eliminate a ton of unnecessary plastic waste. All of your following orders are then sent in their compostable pouch for refilling containers.

                                 And all of the other packaging material — the shipping box for the starter kit, the shipping envelopes for the refill pouches and the informational card — they're recyclable, and they're either made from recycled post-consumer waste or made from material that’s been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council or the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. I'm sure you can tell that we're very proud of our packaging.

Tom:                        Well, tell us about Acutia’s partnership with Nori, the Seattle-based company that's created this marketplace for removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil, (which is known as) sequestering.

Nikki:                        Certainly. So, our commitment to sustainability, it doesn't stop at packaging. To deliver our supplement sustainably, we purchase carbon units from Nori, and those funds are distributed directly to farmers and producers, utilizing regenerative agricultural practices, which ties us back to our roots at Alltech. And by combining nutritional science with the sustainable delivery system, we're able to support the long-term health of the planet and the people who share it.

Tom:                       The supplement market is pretty huge. What distinguishes the Acutia line from all the rest?

Nikki:                       I'm glad you asked this. One of the biggest things is that our team is made up of scientists and dietitians. So, we are the ones that are formulating your supplement to optimize the quality, the absorption (and), of course, the safety and effectiveness, meaning that these products are truly great.

                                You know, the scientists are there from kind of the bench level, the nitty-gritty, and then the dietitians are there to talk about application with lifestyle — you know, how does that fit with your life? We're committed to the science of sustainable wellness — not only the long-term health and well-being of our customers but, also, doing our best to reduce our impact on the environment along the way.

Tom:                       How can people learn more (about) and, for that matter, purchase Acutia supplements?

Nikki:                        You can learn more and purchase Acutia at our website, acutia.com. You can find more information on our supplements, our team, the science behind our products and, of course, our commitment to sustainability.

Tom:                        And that’s Nikki Putnam Badding, managing director of Acutia, Alltech’s line of human health supplements. Thanks, Nikki.

Nikki:                       Thanks, Tom.

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.

As more and more companies promote anti-meat products, many consumers have been left with misconceptions about the relationship between livestock and climate change. Dr. Frank Mitloehner, professor in the department of animal science at the University of California, Davis, joins us to discuss the myths about livestock’s impact on the environment and why agriculture is not to blame for climate change, but how it is key for a more sustainable future.

The following is an edited transcript of the Ag Future podcast episode with Dr. Frank Mitloehner 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^TM.

                                    As the scale and impacts of climate change become increasingly alarming, meat is a popular target for action. Many climate activists urge the public to eat less meat to save the environment, and some have called for taxing meat to reduce consumption. Their key claim is that, globally, meat production generates more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector. However, this claim is demonstrably wrong, and its persistence has misled people about the links between meat and climate change. These words begin an article by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, a professor in the department of animal science at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Mitloehner specializes in the measurement and mitigation of airborne pollutants from livestock production, including greenhouse gases, such as the methane produced by cattle. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Mitloehner.

Dr. Mitloehner:         Well, thanks for having me.

Tom:                          So, we’ve turned to you to talk about confusion among consumers about the climate impact of the methane produced by cattle. And much of the confusion is due to marketing strategies and tactics by corporations such as Burger King, touting that it's adding lemongrass to cows’ diets to try to cut down on methane emissions, or Starbucks’ decision to stop using dairy products. And I like to begin by asking you to tell us about messaging that has resulted in these misperceptions about the relationship between livestock and climate change.

Dr. Mitloehner:         Well, a lot of this originated in a 2006 publication by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and they made the claim that livestock produces more greenhouse gases than transportation. And that is very unfortunate because when such an authority makes such a claim, then it has a lot of credibility. However, I proved to that this assertion was wrong and that they used different methodologies when they looked at the impact of livestock on climate versus those of transportation. And they actually corrected that and said, “Whoops, yeah, we were wrong, and we have gone back to the drawing board, and we now use the same methodology when comparing things.” But the horse had left the barn, and all those critics of animal agriculture glued on to this and gloomed on to this, and damage has been done. And so, now, many corporations are using the climate impact angle to either promote their own products or disparage the use of animal-source foods.

Tom:                          Advertising and marketing can be very pervasive and very persuasive. How have these messages been damaging for agriculture?

Dr. Mitloehner:         Well, when you repeat falsehoods over and over again, then, after a while, it becomes truth, at least in the eyes of many of the consumers, and that’s really unfortunate. And one of the reasons, one of the ingredients in this disaster is that agriculture has responded too late or, if so, with some PR (public relations) campaigns as opposed to a real educational effort in infusing truth into this discussion, because it is just propaganda and nothing more than that.

Tom:                          Let’s back up just a bit and talk to that consumer, who most likely has heard that cows produce methane, that methane is a significant greenhouse gas, and that beef production contributes to global warming and climate change. And first, if we could ask you, Dr. Mitloehner, to give us a bit of a primer on the chemistry that’s involved here.

Dr. Mitloehner:         Yeah. So, methane is CH₄, and it’s a gas that is indeed very potent as a greenhouse gas. However, when looking at methane, we have to think about where does the carbon in the methane that we’re also concerned about — where does it come from, and where is it going?

                                    Where it comes from is atmospheric CO₂, atmospheric carbon dioxide, which, during photosynthesis, makes it into plants. The plants suck it in, and then those plants convert some of that carbon from atmospheric CO₂ into carbohydrates, such as cellulose or starch. Sooner or later, a bovine comes along and eats, and then a portion of that carbohydrate it ingests will become methane. That methane, however, stays in the atmosphere for a relatively short period of time — 10 years — and is then converted back into CO₂, which then goes back into the cycle as plant food and so forth. So, it is a cycle called (the) biogenic carbon cycle, which is very different from fossil carbon, let's say, from fossil fuel extraction and use, which is carbon that was in the ground for a very long time (that) has been extracted, burned and, therefore, is now a new additive to our atmosphere.

                                    So, biogenic carbon from livestock versus fossil carbon from fossil fuel use are very different with respect to how they contribute to actual warming. Just to give you one idea here — because people are exaggerating the impact of livestock — in the United States, all beef production contributes to about 3% of all greenhouse gases (and) all dairy production to about 2% of all greenhouse gases. Okay? So, this is in the United States. Globally, all beef contributes to 6% of all global greenhouse gases and the dairy industry to 3% of all global greenhouse gases, just to give you a general idea. And one last thing: I just told you beef contributes to 3% in the United States. Contrast that to the fossil fuel sector contributing to 80% of all greenhouse gases. I view this campaign against animal agriculture as a smokescreen by those who are really mega-producers of pollution.

Tom:                          Okay. Let's dig into some of the discrepancies. You published a white paper; it’s titled, “Livestock's Contributions to Climate Change: Facts and Fiction.” And in this paper, you cite a claim that U.S. livestock greenhouse emissions from cows, pigs, sheep and chickens are comparable to all transportation sources. You found a very different picture. Tell us about that.

Dr. Mitloehner:         Yes. So, the different picture is that those people who painted that picture comparing livestock to transportation used one methodology to look at the impact of livestock on climate and a different methodology to look at the impact of transportation on climate. Let me explain. For livestock, they use what's called a lifecycle assessment, in which you look at all components of producing, let’s say, a pound of beef or a gallon of milk on climate, including the soil where the plants grow. The plants themselves that are then ingested by animals, the animals then produce some greenhouse gases themselves during enteric fermentation, meaning they are belching it out or their manure produces some. And then, sooner or later, the product makes it from the farm to the distribution center, from the distribution center to the processing center, and so on. Eventually, it ends up in a commercial restaurant or in your kitchen at home. A lifecycle assessment looks at the impact all the way from cradle to grave, meaning from the field to the fork. And that's the way it should be done. And the organization that made this comparison did that for livestock and they did it well. But when they compared livestock to transportation, they made a big mistake: namely that, on the transportation side, they didn't do a lifecycle assessment, but they only looked at direct emissions coming out of the tailpipe of vehicles — not the production of cars, trucks, trains, planes, ships, streets, harbors, airports and so forth. By doing so, they truly compared apples to oranges, using one methodology for the one and another methodology for the other. And as I said, they later corrected that comparison.

Tom:                          So, when we’re talking about climate change, why is it important to actually avoid comparing livestock emissions with those from other main sources of greenhouse gases?

Dr. Mitloehner:         Well, first of all, I think agriculture appreciates its contribution to a warming climate. We are contributing greenhouse gases, and we are actively involved in reducing those. So, that's just a little prelude. But comparing livestock to, let’s say, transportation, or power production and use, or the cement industry or so on is a dangerous exercise. And the reason is that the main greenhouse gas from livestock is methane, and methane undergoes cyclical conversion into CO₂. So, it is atmospheric CO₂ going into plants, going into the animal, and then that goes back into the atmosphere as CO₂ again. So, this is a relatively short life cycle. As long as you don't increase livestock herds, as long as you keep them constant, you're not adding new additional carbon to the atmosphere. Okay? This is really important. As long as you do not increase livestock herds, you're not adding new additional carbon to the atmosphere.

                                    But every time you use fossil fuel, you extract carbon from the ground in the form of oil, coal and gas. You are burning it, and you're converting that into CO₂, and that CO₂ has a lifespan of 1,000 years. Meaning every time you use fossil fuel, let's say, by driving a car, you are adding new greenhouse gases to the existing stock that's already there. So, livestock is cyclical and its impact is relatively short-lived versus fossil fuels, (which) are not cyclical. That's a one-way street, from the ground into the air, and its impacts are long-lived.

Tom:                          You argue that, in fact, the U.S. livestock sector has shown considerable progress during the last half-century in reducing its environmental footprint. Tell us about that.

Dr. Mitloehner:         Well, yeah. There's no doubt about that. So, for example, on the dairy side, back mid-last century, 1950, we had 25 million dairy cows in the United States. Twenty-five. Today, we have 9 million dairy cows. So, a large reduction of cows. But with this much smaller herd today, we are producing 60% more milk. Sixty. Sixty percent more milk with much fewer cows. And that equates to a two-thirds reduction of greenhouse gases from the dairy sector. On the beef side, we had 100 and — so, in 1970, we had 140 million beef cattle. Today, we have a little over 90. So, much fewer beef cattle. Fifty million fewer. But even though we have 50 million fewer cattle, we're producing the same amount of beef. The progress we have seen in this country is remarkable. We are producing 18% of all beef globally with 8% percent of all cattle. That is remarkable.

Tom:                          It is truly a model of efficiency. And is that, indeed, what has brought this about: science-driven efficiency?

Dr. Mitloehner:         Partly. I think there are four main tools that the animal agriculture industries have used. One is research and development in the area of genetics, using better genetic material for both plants and animals. The second one is that we have improved reproductive efficiencies in livestock. The third one is that we have installed a veterinary system that can both prevent and/or treat diseases. And last, but not least, we have developed a feed system, a nutrition system, that optimizes nutrient use for livestock and poultry. And the combination of these four — of genetics, of reproduction efficiencies, and improvements to the veterinary system and the nutrition system — the combination of those four has allowed us to shrink our herds to historic lows (while) producing more than we ever have before.

Tom:                          What would you say needs to be improved right now? How can we get accurate and fair emissions assessments so that we're on the right path to solutions?

Dr. Mitloehner:         Well, that’s a really important question, and if you ask a scientist what needs to be done, a scientist will tell you, “Listen, you know, there is not enough funding in this field.” And I'm not different. I’ll tell you it is dismally small, what the public sector pays to get information on the impact of our food supply chain. There hardly is any funding, and there's very little funding in the private industry sector as well. And the reason why that matters is because of the lack of funding, most scientists just keep the fingers on their hands off that type of research when, indeed, it's urgently needed and constantly in the media. I would hope that particularly the public sector, federal and state agencies, would support investigation into the true impacts of livestock and into, also, research that further reduces those impacts.

Tom:                          Earlier, you mentioned the FAO, the U.N.'s food and agricultural organization. The FAO has formed an international partnership project to develop and adopt a gold standard of lifecycle assessment methodology for each livestock species in the feed sector, and that’s been a few years now. Where does that stand today, and is it, in your opinion, making a difference in the public's understanding of the role of livestock in the production of greenhouse gases?

Dr. Mitloehner:         Yeah. So, this project is referred to as LEAPP, and that stands for Livestock Environmental Assessment Performance Partnership. And this partnership is comprised of three sectors: governments, on the one hand, and then NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and the industry sector. So, that’s all livestock, poultry, feed and so on. And that’s under the auspices of the FAO, and I was actually the first chairman of this committee. And we developed many guidelines on how to do a proper lifecycle assessment for livestock, for feed — not just for greenhouse gases, but also for nutrients, for biodiversity, for water use and so forth. In this context, we have developed, I would say, at least one dozen guidelines that are now considered the global gold standard for LCA, for lifecycle assessment. And I think that, as a result of that, accurate quantification has really taken off.

                                    It's really important that the public understands that nobody is sitting on their hands — that there are active measures (being) taken to find ways to accurately quantify and further mitigate emissions from animal agriculture, from agricultural overall. The agricultural sector is very involved but, unfortunately, (is) oftentimes behind the curve in communicating this.

Tom:                          In your white paper, you make note that all regions have unique demands and abilities and, thus, require regional solutions. So, taking the United States as a as a model, as a microcosm of the globe, is U.S. agriculture presently structured in a way that would accommodate a more regional approach, or does this imply the need for a restructuring and better coordination?

Dr. Mitloehner:         Yeah. So, the United States is indeed the most efficient of all agricultural systems in the world. I don't think there's much debate about that, but that's not to say that what we do here and how we produce, for example, animal-source foods in the United States could be a model for all of the rest of the world. We could be a model for much of the developed world, but not for much of the developing world, where efficiencies, first of all, (in) livestock production are much lower, but that's largely a result of a lack in infrastructure. So, for example, I told you already that we have 9 million dairy cows here in the United States. In India, they have 300 million dairy animals, both cows and buffalo. And it is a religious belief that eating bovines is a sin. So, they don't eat cattle, but they have a lot of them. So, we're not proposing or suggesting that they should change their religious belief system, but we are suggesting that if they want to meet their nutritional needs and use cattle to do so — for example, (via) dairy products from cattle — then they could do the same that they do currently with one-quarter of the current cattle population, because having such massive number of animals does have a considerable environmental footprint, one that can be strongly reduced. And we here in the United States — scientists, practitioners and so on — can assist other people throughout the world, other nations throughout the world, (to) become more efficient. For example, we can assist them in building a veterinary system, or we can assist them in building a nutrition sector or a genetics sector that's really called for, and it needs to be done in a very sensitive way, where we work with these different places to develop what's right for their respective region.

Tom:                          The challenge, Dr. Mitloehner, of supplying food to a drastically growing human population is foremost on the minds of researchers and organizations concerned with nutrition. A Planet of Plenty, (for) example, is the aspirational goal of Alltech. Do you believe such a goal can be achieved — and, if so, sustained?

Dr. Mitloehner:         Yeah. That is a very important question. You know, I just turned 50. And when I was a little boy, we had about 3 billion people in the world. Three billion. Today, we have 7.6 (billion). By the time I'm an old man, we’ll have 9.5 billion people. In other words, we will triple human population throughout our lifetimes. And at the same time, we don't really triple natural resources to feed those people. In other words, we have to. It is imperative that we do drastically increase production of food for a wildly growing human population, because if we don't, we'll have some big problems on our hands.

                                    Can it be done? Can we produce more with similar inputs as we do today? The answer, in my mind, is yes. We have shown it, for example, here in the United States over the last 60 years. We have kept the inputs for animal agriculture constant, but we have tripled the outputs. Tripled the outputs. I mean, that is just an unbelievable success story. And, (as) I told you, we cannot transfer the U.S. model to the rest of the world, but we can assist others in drastically improving. For example, a country like China, which produces half of the world's pigs — 1 billion pigs per year — has a pre-weaning mortality (rate) of 40%. They are losing 400 million pigs every year (during) pre-weaning, and that is just a travesty and something that's totally unnecessary. We can help the Chinese. We can help the rest of the world do much better without really sucking up a lot (of) additional resources. We can do more with less, and that's at the core of sustainability.

Tom:                          Dr. Frank Mitloehner, professor in the department of animal science at the University of California, Davis. And we thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Mitloehner:         Well, thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.

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

Click here to register for the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience

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

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

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

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

                               Greetings, Rob.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom:                      Well, that is absolutely fascinating.

Rob:                        It’s cool, yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

As a futurist, Jack Bobo works to stay ahead of consumer trends by detecting the disruptors that trigger them. We spoke with him about the rapidly changing global food supply chain, what will impact future trends in agriculture and what he believes is in store for the future of food production and consumer habits.

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

Tom:            The agricultural landscape was rapidly changing even before the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the global food supply chain. The way we produce, distribute, and consume food will soon look very different. What lessons can we take away from this to guide how we feed the planet in the future?

                     As the CEO of Futurity, Jack Bobo makes it his business to stay ahead of the trends and detect the disruptors that trigger them. He joins us to share his insights on the challenges and opportunities awaiting us in the next era of agriculture. Welcome, Jack.

Jack:             Thank you for having me.

Tom:            First, if you would just help us calibrate our expectations. What is the role of a futurist?

Jack:             Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, a lot of us think about the future, but we're not necessarily thinking about what's going to happen 10 or 20 years from now and what that's going to mean for our children and future generations. Part of what I try to do is to help people not just look ahead for next year, but how do you look around the corner of what's happening.

                     Sometimes, I describe it this way. Imagine you're in a car and you look in the rearview mirror. Well, that's what hindsight is, and then you look through the windshield. Well, that's foresight. You can see a certain distance down the road, but insight comes from the GPS because that's what tells us what's around the corners. For a futurist, that's what we try to do. We try to not just look at the trends that everybody else are talking about, but what are the forces that shape the trends. That's how you get ahead of a trend so you don't get run over by them.

Tom:            How do you identify those forces?

Jack:             Well, what we do is we look for signals. There's a science fiction writer named William Gibson and he would say, "The future is already here. It's just not widely distributed." So what we're doing is we're looking around at what are those innovations that have the opportunity to scale and have a broader impact. Once you do that then you want to try to figure out how do those signals connect to each other. Let me give you an example. Today, people think about robotics all the time and they think about things like AI, artificial intelligence. Well, when you take artificial intelligence and you put it together with a physical embodiment, well, that's what a robot is. You're putting together two ideas and forming something new.

                     Another way of thinking about it is people often worry about robotics taking away jobs and that's one order of magnitude separation, but what about the fact that we manufacture a lot of things in China because labor is cheap? Well, if robotics comes along and reduces the cost of labor, why are we even producing things in China anymore? Because then transportation becomes a much bigger part of the challenge. So why not bring all that production back to the United States or Ireland or other parts of the world?

                     What we're really trying to do is we're looking for those little things that other people are talking about and then we connect them in interesting ways and it gives us insights that we wouldn't have otherwise had if we try to follow that trend directly at the single line.

Tom:            This is fascinating, so you crunch data, you watch trends, you have all sorts of resources. Can you tell us what the trendscape, if you will, what it looked like as the world -- we're just beginning to come to grips with the meaning of the term "pandemic". What sorts of behaviors peculiar to such a crisis have you observed?

Jack:             Yeah. What I'm seeing is some trends are accelerating, some trends are decelerating, and some trends are being disrupted. An example of a trend that's being accelerated, well, we were already moving to online purchases of foods and other goods, but if you look at the month before the pandemic hit, only about 5% of Americans were purchasing their food online. A month or two later, 40% of people had tried purchasing food online. When it comes to things like online purchases, it's a huge barrier to get people to try that for the very first time. It's pretty easy to get them to try it again if they have a good experience. And so we actually just compressed five to ten years of growth in online food purchases into two months and that's something that's going to have a long-term impact. It changes the dynamics of where people purchase food. Of those purchases, nearly 50% of those people were purchasing online for the first time, and of those, Walmart captured about 60% of that opportunity. There are really interesting dynamics that are happening because of that and it's shifting the landscape.

                     If we look at food purchases before the pandemic, most people were beginning to eat food outside of the home, more than half of food purchases, but of course, after the pandemic, almost everybody's eating their food at home. This is a trend that has a potential of staying power and it shifts the direction that things were going and has moved them backwards to a different place. This is a trend that's going to have a long-term staying power because of the economic implications of the pandemic as well. Coming out of this, people aren't going to have as much disposable income, they're more likely to go back to basics, and this is going to have ripple effects through production, how we consume food, nutrition, and how we engage with food and culture as well.

Tom:            Let me pick up on that term "long-term consequences" because they're so fascinating to try to contemplate right now not only economic, not only social, but also mental and psychological. They're all linked to the myriad of changes that are being forced upon us by this outbreak. Do you see anything there of consequence?

Jack:             Yes. Well, it seems like every two weeks, there's a new sort of psychological aspect to this conversation. During the first couple of weeks, I was talking to people about panic buying and retail therapy, and then I started talking about are there food shortages happening, and then we were talking about food production squeezes. Now, we're beginning to look forward and say what are the longer term implications to our food supply and how we produce food that are going to come out of this, and so there are definitely consequences.

                     How people think about food, well, when you look at what people are purchasing, there's this trend back to basics. People are looking for foods that create comfort. Before the pandemic, big brands, big food was considered a bad thing. People were looking for small niche startups, things like that that were interesting and cool. Now, all of a sudden, the fact that you're buying brands that you were buying 20 years ago or when you were a child is bringing comfort to people, and so that's changing how they're thinking about the food brands that they buy.

Tom:            It's still very early in this crisis to be able to make definitive statements about what I'm about to ask, Jack, but I wonder if at this stage, you are already able to see what sorts of consequences are in store for Generation Z.

Jack:             I think people haven't quite wrapped their minds around the fact that this is the biggest economic impact since the Great Depression. Obviously, the Great Depression marked an entire generation of people who even today, their purchases and spending patterns are influenced by what happened to them back in the 1930s and early '40s. I don’t think most people grasp the fact that many young people today are going to have just as much of an impact on how they view the world.

                     For students who are at universities and are graduating this fall, but also for the next five or ten years, they're going to be entering the worst economic climate since the Depression in trying to find jobs. People were already struggling a little bit -- younger individuals -- to find jobs who've just been out of college, and so that's going to be dramatically more challenging for them. You have to remember that the income that you have in your first five or so years out of college really determines how much income you're going to have when you're retiring, so the impact on their financial well-being will reverberate through their entire lives.

Tom:            Okay. Let's turn to how COVID-19 is revealing some issues in the ways we get the right food to the right people at the right price. What have these disruptions shown us about our food systems?

Jack:             Well, I think they've definitely shown that there are some vulnerabilities in the way that we've been producing food. Historically, there has been an emphasis on the efficiency of our food supply and for really good reasons. If you go back 50 years, about a third of all the people in the world went to bed hungry every night. By 2020, only about 12% of the people on the planet were going to bed hungry, so efficiency has done an amazing job of raising people out of poverty and improving health and nutrition. On the other hand, that consolidation of our food supply system has an impact when there's a disruption to it.

                     If you have only a handful of companies that are producing the livestock products in the country and one facility is shut down, that can impact 5% of all production and then that becomes a bottleneck for the entire food system. A repercussion of that is that with that shortage then consumers end up paying more for their food, so just a 5% disruption can raise prices for the consumer.

                     On the other side of that equation though, livestock producers have fewer places to send their animals, and so all of a sudden, they're getting paid less money for each head of cattle. Think about that. Consumers are paying more and the people producing the food are getting paid less, and so that sends terrible signals to our market. It encourages people who produce food to produce less just at a time when we actually need more. So we're going to have to figure out how to maintain the efficiency of our system, which we need, but to add to it a resilience that's currently lacking.

Tom:            Is this what you're talking about when you described friction in our food systems or is that something else?

Jack:             Yes, that's one example of friction in our food system. Another would be when workers get sick, that's one example, but also drivers for transportation. If they're sick and they're not able to move the food from one place to another, the people that are working in the retail space are also a risk point or pressure point for this food system. Ports are also a place where there could be pressure, export markets, import markets. Each of these, if there's just a little bit of impact of the pandemic on them, just 1% or 2% then that has a ripple effect because it creates a friction that disrupts that entire chain from the farmer in Indonesia to your dinner plate.

Tom:            You touched on this just a few minutes ago, but I'm wondering if you could elaborate on it, how the consumer mindset has been changed and where you think it's going in regards to food trends.

Jack:             Well, one important outcome from this is that consumers are paying far more attention to our food systems than they ever had. Something that I often talk about is how consumers have never cared more nor known less how their food is produced. Well, that was true before the pandemic. Now, all of a sudden, people do have a better sense of how their food is produced, and because they're paying attention to that, that means that they're likely to ask for changes in that food system, so the relationship of the consumer to the food supply has been forever changed.

Tom:            Well, as a result of the stay-at-home imperative of the pandemic, farmers have been forced to euthanize millions of hogs and chickens, give away tons of unwanted potatoes or even plow them under, pour out enough milk to fill a small lake. Restaurants have closed of course all over the country that's thrown the food industry into chaos. It has convulsed the very specialized supply chains that are struggling to adjust. In light of all that, what does the future of farming and food production hold?

Jack:             Well, a lot of that goes to the question of the resilience and having diversified food systems so that if you're a farmer, you can sell not only to the retail market, but you can go to grocery stores or directly to the consumer. One outcome from this is that there are likely to be more direct consumer opportunities for farmers. That's a good thing because that gives farmers more opportunity to make a little bit more money when they're doing it, but it also helps them to explain to the consumer so that they can better understand how that food is produced. That's going to be a good connection that's coming out of all of this, but part of it is just the complexity of our food supply.

                     When we talk about having to euthanize animals, and pork industry is a good example of that, what people forget is that the animals that are going to slaughter this week, well, those sows were impregnated 300 days ago, and so the decisions that are being made today are decisions that really were being made 300 days ago. We need to keep that in mind because producers today have to decide, "Do I start to have the sows have a new litter today? Will there be a market for them a year from now?" People have to really think far into the future and that's just part of the complexity of our food supply, is people were thinking about this a year ago and now, we're seeing the benefits of their preparation, and what changes will they make though in this uncertain environment.

Tom:            Jack, at this early stage, who do you see coming out of this thing as winners and as losers?

Jack:             Well, I think that certainly online purchases are going to be big winners in all of this. The big food brands are coming out of this in a better position. Restaurants and small businesses are going to be hammered and that's going to be really unfortunate, and so I think we need to figure out ways of helping to maintain those smaller businesses because in many ways, small businesses are the engine of growth and it's going to be really impacted by all of this. I think the largest impact though still comes back to the financial implications for people that are going through such a massive financial challenge and that's going to again reverberate for a long time to come.

Tom:            Well, Jack, this is all so fascinating. I'd like to suggest that we revisit in about six months. Six months seems like another time zone for all of us. It's just incredible to think about what could happen in six months given all that's happened in only a few.

Jack:             Yes. Thank you. I really appreciate the conversation.

Tom:            Also, I have to imagine that going through life as a futurist must be pretty fascinating.

Jack:             Well, it's been a lot of fun because I get to work with a variety of organizations, associations, startups, big food brands, and I like to tell people that my personal mission is to de-escalate the tension in our food system so that we can all go about our business of saving the planet in our own way. I'm always excited to see what different organizations are doing in terms of their part of making the system better.

Tom:            Futurist and Futurity CEO, Jack Bobo. Thank you so much, Jack.

Jack:             Thank you.

Click here to register for the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience

What does it take to build a healthy, synthetic salmon gut? When it comes to fish nutrition, a lifetime of health and performance can be greatly influenced by the early stages of the gut microbes. Dr. Martin Llewellyn and Raminta Kazlauskaite of the University of Glasgow are creating new ways to improve sustainable fish feed and drug stability for salmon aquaculture farming with SalmoSim .

The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin’s interview with Dr. Martin Llewellyn and Raminta Kazlauskaite. Click below to hear the full audio.

Tom:              We're entering a new frontier in fish nutrition and among those conducting cutting-edge research in the field are Dr. Martin Llewellyn, a research scientist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and PhD candidate Raminta Kazlauskaite. Llewellyn, author of over 50 peer-reviewed research articles, has expertise in salmonid parasitology and nutrition. Kazlauskaite's focuses are in the fields of bioengineering and molecular biology, and together, they have been working on creating an in vitro system replicating the Atlantic salmon gut. They call it SalmoSim and they're here to talk to us about it. Thank you for joining us.

Martin:            It's nice to be here.

Raminta:        Thank you.

Martin:            Thanks for having us on.

Tom:              What is the problem that you set out to address resulting in the development of SalmoSim?

Martin:            Atlantic salmon are a funny old fish. They're a carnivore and we don't farm many carnivores, so there's a big problem around sustainability of salmon feed, as well as its price because what you have to do to feed a salmon is you have to go out -- when we first started farming salmon, we'd have to go out and catch an awful lot of wild fish, grind it up, and feed that to the salmon.

                        These days, things are changing quite a lot. We're feeding new feeds to salmon all the time with a focus on insect-based, plant-based feeds including things like soy, gluten, protein. What this means is we're basically challenging the salmon gut every time with things it's not entirely used to. There are so many different feed additives in different protein sources out there on the market that there's an awful lot of in vivo testing. That means testing of salmon to see what they're happiest on, what they're healthiest on, what they grow best on.

                        Essentially, we've built this system to act as a pre-screening tool because these trials are really expensive and there aren't many places that do them, so it's a massive bottleneck. You're looking at estimates for a single trial of around £150,000, maybe $200,000 just to try a couple of different ingredients in the sea cage to see whether your fish are going to perform well on your feed. What we've developed the system for, as well as to do pure science because we're from the University of Glasgow, we're not strictly a commercial entity, but as well as doing pure science, we'd like this system to be a useful way for people to triage or pre-screen, so you come with ten different alternatives or ten different ingredients and be able to narrow that down to two that then take on to a trial in real salmon and reduce the cost of the whole process of getting from these new feed ingredients, new additives that people dream up in the lab all the way through to having the right feeds to bring up healthy, happy, productive fish.

Tom:              What are you seeing in terms of cost savings?

Martin:            At this stage, we're right at the beginning. We know that we could do it substantially under the cost of a current feed trial but where ours doesn't completely replace a feed trial in vivo. It's one of these things that's kind of like for like cost saving. It's hard to estimate that. I don't quite know what that is at this stage, but it's likely to be very substantial just because the cost of what we need to do in the lab is just really a tiny fraction of the cost of what people have to pay for these in vivo trials.

Tom:              This technology is created in vitro. Do you want to tell us more? Raminta, do you want to talk about that?

Raminta:        Yeah. What we do, we literally just transfer all the salmon gut inside the lab. We have three bioreactors, but they represent three different salmon gut pieces, stomach, pyloric cecum, and midgut, so it's similar to us humans like stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. What we do, we literally just take bacteria from these three different gut compartments and transfer them into three bioreactors or jars and then we set the right conditions and we get it running.

Tom:              I was going to ask you what it looks like in the lab, but I guess you've just described that.

Raminta:        Yeah. Literally we have a feed bottle. We have three bioreactors and then we have waste and it's continuously going. In other words, we just use SalmoSim to produce really expensive salmon poo.

Tom:              Okay. If you could expand on that and give us an idea in a practical sense how this tool is used.

Martin:            First, I'll tell you what a bioreactor is. A bioreactor is like a very fancy fermentation vessel and a lot of the people that we work with at the University of Glasgow work on anaerobic digestion of food waste. All the stomach is essentially is an anaerobic digestion tool, so we've taken that same technology of these closed units where you can change the pH and monitor the pH, change the temperature, monitor the temperature.

                        We're putting in enzymes directly extracted from salmon. Also, we're putting in the microbial communities the bacteria, as Raminta says. What we would do when we get a new feed, what we tend to do is stabilize the system on a feed, our control feed, and then change the feed and then essentially begin to introduce that into the system, which is essentially grinding it up, feeding it through the pipes, and beginning to take it into this three-compartment model, so it'll go into the stomach. It'll be exposed to these different pHs, enzymes, and then it'll get transferred into the pyloric cecum. Again, there'll be different pH, different enzymes it's going to get exposed to, the microbes as well, and then moving on to the midgut. It'll get exposed there.

                        If we're looking at drug stability, let's say we were taking one of these sea lice drugs, and quite often, some of them are in-feed, some of them aren't in-feed, but with an in-feed one, you absolutely want to make sure that it's not getting released in the stomach, so there's very little absorption that happens in the stomach in Atlantic salmon. Most of the absorption happens in the pyloric cecum. If your capsules, if you like, if your microcapsules you've absorbed your drug onto are releasing all that drug and the drug is potentially getting degraded inside your stomach compartment then really you're losing a lot of efficacy with the delivery of your drug dose. So what you want to do is make sure that the highest pharmacologically relevant concentrations of the drug are in the pyloric cecum. Again, we could take various different combinations of the drug, maybe try them alongside different kinds of feeds, for example, and see which feed combination or encapsulation combination delivers the best dose of drug to where we want it to get it to. That's I guess an example of how --

Tom:              So that's the ultimate holy grail that you're going for?

Raminta:        No. We look at [0:07:03] [Indiscernible] stability hopefully, as well as probiotic survival in different gut compartments and how do we affect bacterial communities, VFA analysis.

Martin:            Certainly, anything that you want to do to a real fish, we can give you a sort of an early warning system to rank the different possibilities in order of their likely efficacy in an in vivo model.

Tom:              How could a greater understanding of these processes reveal pathways to improve growth efficiency of fish fed on plant-based diets?

Martin:            Lots of different ways. The first and most obvious way is I think probably digestibility, so just how readily large complex organic molecules like protein is broken down into smaller organic molecules like amino acids and then presumably absorbed by the fish.

                        The slightly further on the line things are the impacts on the microbiome. So at the moment, we could detect whether there was a significant perturbation in the microbial communities by bringing in sort of a plant-based feed. The science is less developed there, but if you're shifting your microbial communities away from a stable, potentially complex microbial community to one microbial community dominated by a small number of microorganisms, that's normally a bit of a red flag. Those types of communities are normally more easily invaded like pathogens, for example. There are also other things beyond digestibility related to the microbial composition of the gut that I think we can predict with our system in relation to what happens if you feed them on a soy meal-based feed certainly for plant protein. That's the main thing.

Raminta:        For feed, yeah.

Tom:              Alltech as a leading agricultural biotechnology company has been making important inroads into the aquafeed sector. What is the company's connection with this research that you're conducting?

Martin:            We were dreaming this idea up about three years ago. There's a guy called John Sweetman and someone else called Philip Lyons and these guys have both been working in aquaculture for a long time. I was interested in this initially as a tool to understand what are the ecological processes that underpin microbial community assembly, so why are microbiomes like what they are from a pure academic perspective, but talking to these guys at actually this kind of conference where industry and academia are brought together and you get these lovely link-ups and explosive, potentially explosive, disruptive combinations then we got to talking about this. They were enthused. They saw potentially some of the early promise for some of the applications I've just described to you, so Alltech very kindly funded a PhD student, and that's Ruminta.

                        Yeah, Alltech have been really a major catalyst for actually getting this idea off the door and brought it into reality. Ruminta actually made that reality happen. I never believed we'd get as far as we have today. It's all Ruminta's hard work.

Tom:              I'm really interested in something you just said too about this conference and how it brings together industry and academia. Have you seen sparks fly this time?

Martin:            Yes. Certainly, I've had some interesting conversations around the place and you can see interesting conversations are being had I think across all different sectors. I'm really pleased to see there's increasing people talking about sustainability in livestock production that's all the way from agriculture to chickens and beef, et cetera. I'm particularly impressed by how far and how much industry is recognizing that as important with an aquaculture session, so I sit within my aquaculture sessions, having sat with a few other sessions and I really think we in aqua -- I don't want to blow our trumpet too much, but we're really thinking about is what we're doing sustainable.

                        We've got these brilliant feed conversion ratios compared to huge amounts of other -- we're down at FCRs of 0.8 whereas poultry, I don't know, but they're around 3. We're talking about ingredients, where are they coming from. We can't rely on marine protein, so there's a real environmental responsibility, I think, that is there in the aqua sessions and I really hope it's building in the other sessions too. I think there's been lots of really good open discussion around that here, which is being really encouraging, I think.

Tom:              Yeah. I think it's safe to say that sustainability has quickly become something of a watchword or a guide star for [0:12:04] [Indiscernible] our clients.

Martin:            Yeah, that's right.

Tom:              What's beyond this research? Are there uses for this technology in other species, do you think?

Martin:            Yeah.

Raminta:        Definitely. It's just time to validate and to see what is happening inside of a SalmoSim or other species that are representative of what happens in real fish, so just time and money, yeah, but it's definitely, definitely possible.

Martin:            Yeah. We've taken about two years to get this far with Atlantic salmon, but we've learned an awful lot along the way, so I do think it is transferable, but like Ruminta says --

Raminta:        It just takes time.

Martin:            It takes time, yeah.

Raminta:        And some resources, yeah.

Martin:            Yeah. You could apply it to tilapia. You could apply it to trout, just a bit of time, a bit of resource, and demand really.

Tom:              Dr. Martin Llewellyn, a research scientist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and PhD candidate Raminta Kazlauskaite.

I want to learn more about aquaculture nutrition and management.

Heemskerk and Alltech collaboration working towards a cost-effective solution for rising ammonia levels

[DIESSEN, the Netherlands] – The agriculture industry in the Netherlands has been heavily hit by demands to reduce nitrogen (N₂) emissions. Following a Council of State judgment, the Dutch government is now looking at how the agricultural industry can play a role in reducing overall nitrogen emissions, such as ammonia and nitrous oxide, from cows and manure.

Following last week’s declaration of a “climate and environmental emergency”, by the European Parliament, farmers and the agriculture industry can lead the fight against this crisis. Global animal health company, Alltech^®, has partnered with Dutch dairy nutrition company, Ingenieursbureau Heemskerk^®, to develop a solution. They are collaborating on a new technology, specifically designed to improve protein utilisation and reduce ammonia emissions in dairy cattle. Heemskerk intend to bring this product to the market in the near future.

“We need to ensure that we get the most out of the protein in our animal feeds and use the latest technologies to reduce agriculture’s ammonia emissions. Producing more and better quality food, whilst at the same time reducing waste, aligns with Alltech’s vision for a Planet of Plenty™,” explained Robbie Walker, business development manager, Alltech.

“Our partner, Heemskerk, is working to create a solution that can empower farmers in the Netherlands to make a real contribution to solving some of the environmental impacts created through agriculture while working towards new, sustainable dairy production practices,” added Walker.

An additional solution to treat ammonia in manure storage facilities is also being developed. Adding a feed solution to the daily ration of cows, coupled with a manure storage facility treatment solution, could potentially see a reduction of 38 kilotons of ammonia (NH₃) per year.

“Speed and agility are essential if farmers are going to have a positive impact in the fight to reduce nitrogen emissions,” said Eric Heemskerk, founder of Heemskerk. “By collaborating with Alltech, we are working to create a cost-effective solution to the ammonia crisis that can be easily deployed. Ultimately, the product we will be bringing to market is backed by science, and we look forward to empowering farmers to make a real difference.