In a recent study, the American Institute of Stress reported that 75% of today's employees believe that they have more on-the-job stress than a generation ago. This stress has been amplified within the past year, especially for those in agriculture, as they have worked hard to maintain the global food supply chain. Padraic Gilligan of Gilligan’s Farm in Roscommon County, Ireland, joins us on the podcast to discuss some specific solutions he has implemented on his farm to de-stress his operation.

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

Brian:           Welcome to AgFuture, 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.

                     Do you feel stress? Are there certain activities, either at work or at home, that bring up specific fears or concerns? In a recent study, the American Institute of Stress reported that 75% of today's employees believe that they have more on-the-job stress than a generation ago. This may be from a multitude of sources, but it begs the question: How do we reduce stress at work, especially as work continues from one generation to the next?

                     Well, today, we have an extremely helpful episode of the Ag Future podcast. I'm Brian Lawless, North American brand manager at Alltech, and I'm joined by Padraic Gilligan of Gilligan's Farm. Gilligan's Farm is an award-winning lamb and beef operation in Ireland with its own farm store and many customers throughout Dublin and the world. But like many of us, they feel stress both personally and in their business — yet within their family business, they’ve found multiple ways to reduce stress, and it's making a big difference. The question is: How, specifically, can Padraic and Gilligan's Farm work to de-stress their operation? What has this meant for their business? How can we take these lessons and apply them to de-stress our own lives and work? Padraic, welcome to the AgFuture Podcast.

Padraic:        Thanks for having me. It's a great opportunity. Thanks very much.

Brian:           I'm excited to have you. Before we dive into the topic of stress, which we'll get to, you've built a really fascinating business. Can you tell us a bit of the history of Gilligan's Farm and your role within the business?

Padraic:        Yeah, I suppose. Gilligan's (has been) in operation for over a hundred years. My father started it back in 1911, and (it) has proceeded on over the years with stops and starts, good and bad. I reared animals on the farm. We have a great love for animals. When I sold animals, whether it be in a mart or factory, I always felt like — I like to sell myself to the public, to have a product that you could feel proud of. That's how I started the farm.

                     The stress part of it, it's been very stressful for the last six or seven months, especially with the COVID. It's very depressing for our farmers, especially here in Ireland — people who have been living on their own. The pubs are closed. We can't go for pints, and that has a big bearing on how people live and how they live their lives. People need to have fun along with work.

Brian:           Yeah. Obviously, not being able to have a bite with some friends is no fun. Talking about your farm, what changes has Gilligan's Farm implemented to manage some of these new stresses with COVID-19? What's changed for you guys?

Padraic:        What has changed? Lots of things have changed. With stress, animals are no different than humans. They get stressed. Our philosophy in that is to play music to the animals and to see them as well. With people, people have to have an outlet, have a bit of fun, try to lessen the stress factor of everyday living and just get them down. You have to open the drawer and deal with it and just close it and move on to the next drawer. That's how we are dealing with it — or my way of dealing with it.

Brian:           Yeah. I do want to touch on the music for animals here in a bit. I guess you started talking about the business that you had. Your father started the farm. You've taken it over, and we're now moving on to the third generation, which would be your son, Alan. It seems like the first way you've looked to de-stress your business is just to have a proper succession plan. I guess, maybe, give us a little insight (into) how you've been preparing or maybe removing the stress for your son, Alan, to take over the business, or as he's been taking over the business.

Padraic:        Well, I suppose it's funny. Look, if you're in business, it's stress-related. In the succession plan that I have to hand it all over to my son, which is — he's running the business and he has full control of it now. I'm taking a backseat. It's stressful for him because I have been in the business over the years, and of course, business has moved on. You have to be on top of it at all times to deal with it. He's probably saying sometimes, "Why would you let yourself in for all this huge workload?" In running a business — we have 22 people employed, and it takes management to do that. It is stressful, but you have to deal with it and not bring it home with you. Customers can be demanding. Ninety percent of them are very easy to deal with, and you've got the 10% that would be very finicky, and you have to deal with them as well. Do you know what I mean?

Brian:           Yeah. I feel like you've touched on two really important things. It seems like you've actively taken a transition in your own job responsibilities, where you're now saying, "Hey, I was the one managing the farm. Now, I'm actively the one taking the backseat." I would assume, for Alan, that's made a world of difference, that it's not now having two people in charge. There's been a transition of responsibilities within the business. Then the second thing that I think you touched on was, in some ways, not taking what you do in your family life during the day, during business hours, and taking it home with you. I feel that that can just add to stress, when you have the same people that you could be dealing with at work that you're then at home with, and you're taking that stress from one place to the next.

Padraic:        Absolutely. When you go home in the evening, you need to be chilled out. There's nothing better than listening to music or having a chat with the wife. All that is very important.

Brian:           Yeah, sometimes it is. It's just those simple things. Maybe moving on, to the second way of de-stressing a business, really focusing on this concept of educating your customers in a very clear way. Some consumers are conscious about where their food comes from, but many aren't. I think that even applies to cuts of meat and to the opportunities that could be available to chefs. Gilligan's Farm prides itself on top-quality meat. If I understand correctly, you are a supplier to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, and I read that you literally brought a lamb to him and showed him and his team the cuts. Now, I envision you walking into the restaurant with this entire lamb strapped to your back, but I'm guessing that's not the case. How did that relationship begin, and how did you educate Jamie and his team?

Padraic:        He's one of the guys that we deal with that's running a restaurant in Dublin. He's one of those people that is a perfectionist and really loves the products that we give him, and it's direct off the farm. He has a big thing about that. He said to me one day, "Would it be possible to take a lamb in here just to show the staff where all the cuts come from? We'd cook it and test it and we'll invite people in." I was meant to do it. Yeah, I thought it was a great idea. I brought the lamb and the saw and the knife and went to the restaurant. We had good fun. They found it very interesting. The staff then could relate to the customer of the lamb, where it came from, all the different cuts of the lamb, from the best to the worst. It's good education for people — especially people (who) live in the cities, (who) don’t understand animals.

Brian:           It seems like, within your business, there's this element of trust with the consumer. How important is consumer trust? How do you build that reputation and relationship with customers?

Padraic:        Well, it's funny you should say that. I find that fascinating, because when I deal with someone in a restaurant that's a Michelin-star restaurant, the first thing I'd say to them (is), "This is a marriage. This is going to be a marriage. You have trust in me, and I have trust in you." We take it from there, but I suppose you can bring in ten pieces of meat (that are) absolutely mouthwatering, and if you bring in the eleventh bit that's not as good, you're breaking the trust.

                     It's a matter of consistency in your product. You're not 100%, or there's nobody that's 100%, but you definitely have to be over 95% consistent with the product. That builds the trust. As the customer, when you have a meal or have a steak and you say, "Yeah, that was a lovely steak. Where did that come from?" All of that builds a relationship, and that's what you should be looking for.

                     To produce such a high-quality product is vital. I suppose Pearse Lyons was very fond of — when he'd come to Ireland, he'd always buy our meat for his conferences. That's how I got to know Alltech. Alltech has done huge work for us here on the farm. They are always at the end of the phone and would advise on different ways to treat animals, the feed for animals and all that. All that's important. All that is the link in the chain to the end customer. Does that make sense?

Brian:           Yeah. Speaking about links in the chain, I know Dr. Lyons was famous for wanting to (be able to) cut steaks with a spoon. Were you the man behind wanting to cut steaks with a spoon?

Padraic:        Yes, I am. To be truthful about it, there was a video here on the farm going back a number of years ago. They wanted me to cook a steak at seven o'clock in the morning. I said, “Yeah, we better cook it in the house.” I got my wife up anyway. My wife said she's not taking any part in cooking the steak, but I proceeded to cook it anyway. I was thinking to myself, “Well, how can I make this different?” I just got the brainwave: “Would it be possible to cut a steak with a spoon?” I tried it and it worked. I said, “Yeah, let's go for it.” It's on the video, cutting a steak with a spoon. That is, I suppose, a reflection on the product that we have. Tender and tasty, I suppose, is the slogan that we always used.

Brian:           Yeah, and Dr. Lyons was famous — he took that back to the U.S., and the late Dr. Pearse Lyons would show the quality of the steak by cutting it with a spoon. That's amazing.

                     Let's move into the third way to de-stress your business. You kind of touched on this a little bit when you talked about the animals and the music and just this theme of keeping your business fun and productive at the same time. I guess maybe my first question is — so, it's true that you constantly play music around the farm, and it's for the animals?

Padraic:        Yeah. We have a system in the farm to play the music. I suppose it goes back to animals being stressed. Animals can get spooked or stressed very easily. It's all about not stressing animals, and this is why I started playing music to them. My mother, when she'd be milking the cows years ago, when I was a kid, she'd milk the cows by hand, and she'd always sing to the cows, and they'd always give more milk, so I said, “Why not play music to the animals?” We started playing music to animals, I suppose, maybe 15 years ago.

                     There are particular songs that we play to them. Percy French was the greatest Roscommon man, a great Irishman, and he wrote lots of songs. Some of them would be "The Mountains of Mourne" and "McBreen's Heifer," all those. The lyrics in all those songs are absolutely class and really becoming of playing music to the animals. If you Google "Percy French," Brendan O'Dowda sang his songs. He has a lovely, soft voice, and animals really love it. It's amazing. We use it here in the abattoir when the animals are being slaughtered. We play the same music to them in the abattoir here, which is adjacent to the farm. The abattoir is on the farm. We have full facilities on the farm to do from slaughter to dispatch in whatever form the customer wants it. It really adds to, I suppose, the stress levels in the meat.

Brian:           Yeah. I peeked on the music charts in Ireland and there was one artist, Dermot Kennedy, that was very popular. There are also a bunch of global stars, like Justin Bieber, that are on the Irish charts right now. Have you found any music that the cows and the lambs do not like?

Padraic:        I suppose we just have this Brendan O'Dowda, Percy French's songs with Brendan O'Dowda, and it just continuously plays. There are about maybe 20 songs in the list, and they just keep playing. I suppose the animals get familiar with the sounds and the different — the voice is the same with Brendan O'Dowda. I wouldn't like to be changing to different artists because their voices can be sharp or different. I feel that the animals wouldn't get as attached to it, if you know what I mean. It's a particular type of music.

                     Now, young people might say, "You're silly. This is not for real," but it is actually. It is. We had RT on the farm here and we were slaughtering the animals, and they couldn't get over the animals, how relaxed they were in the abattoir just before they were killed. There was no stress. It's completely different. It's amazing. Over a period of months, they're familiar with it and it's not spooking them.

Brian:           Yeah, and it seems like this is something that has bled all the way into your relationships with the consumers and your customers, that there needs to be consistency of the final quality of the product and there needs to be consistency in the music or the rhythms for the animals themselves, to keep that going from beginning to end.

Padraic:        Absolutely. If I brought in different music, like rock music or whatever, it would spook the animals. It wouldn't be common for them.

Brian:           Yeah. Moving on to the fourth way to de-stress your business, it really revolves around taking care of your environment and, really, the whole supply chain. We know customers would like to be conscious of where their food comes from and not only how the animals are treated but the environment and how it can impact them. That's going to be a big challenge, and it's going to continue to be a big challenge, but I understand that Gilligan's Farm aims to be carbon neutral within ten years. Can you tell us a little bit about the plan? And probably just more importantly, why does this matter to you?

Padraic:        Well, it matters. I have grandchildren, and I'd love to see them in (the) environments where I grew up, going back 70 years ago, where things on farms were very simple. For instance, if you go out and plough the land, you can see the worms. They're there visually. You can see them in the ground. I feel, over the years, that was lost with different ways of getting rid of slurry and all that, spreading those in the wrong times of the year, when the worms are, I suppose, coming up in the springtime of the year now.

                     I remember, going back years and years ago, when slurry was a new thing, and when you spread it, you'd see seagulls in the field the following morning. My God, it's an awful sight to see, because you have worms killed by the thousands, which is frightening, really. I suppose, over the years, we always used straw bedding for animals. We're bringing that back out on the land, and it's actually good for the nutrients and it's good for the clay and to bring the worms back. If we plough a field now, we see hundreds of worms in a small area. It's very rewarding when you see that.

                     I suppose, going back to your point, the environment has to be minded, especially now, because with the climate, it has really changed in Ireland. We're getting periods of really dry weather and periods of really wet weather, and that is very stressful — especially on farmers with crops, saving crops and all that. So, we have to respect the environment. We have a program now where we grow trees, hectares and hectares of trees, to enhance the carbon.

Brian:           Yeah, so looking at the concept of how do we make sure we have nutrients in the soil, how do we make sure that we have even the basics, like worms in the soil, but then how do we look at things like planting trees and revitalizing or keeping carbon at the forefront of what's going on.

I really like what you said previously, though, because I think it wraps into this concept of succession that you're thinking of — "Hey, when I have my grandkids and my great-grandkids, I want to make sure the land works well for them." That's almost the first step in a succession plan where you're helping out your son, Alan, in his taking over of the business.

Padraic:        The land will always be there to feed the people, and to have it in good shape, I think, is very important.

Brian:           Yup. Finally, bringing this all to a close, I've been on your website. It's a beautiful website, by the way. The meat looks delicious. I saw just some of the cuts on there. It looks amazing. What website do people need to get to to buy the meat? How do they get access to this?

Padraic:        We have a click-and-collect. We also do a door-to-door delivery in Dublin. We started this about six months ago, when the lockdown came. People in Dublin would be ringing and wondering could they get meat, so we started this online shop. It's actually very successful. Our biggest problem is deliveries. I'd be a stickler on doing the job ourselves, so we deliver ourselves. I know it's time-consuming, but when people order meat and they pay for it online, we deliver to them, and we make sure that they get it when they're supposed to get it.

Brian:           Yeah. That's fantastic. Well, the website, I see here, is gilligansfarm.ie. You guys do deliver. You accept payment online. You do have an in-person store, but yeah, the challenge of delivery. COVID, in some ways, has really challenged us to be innovative, and it sounds like you guys are quickly adapting to the times and finding it challenging.

Padraic:        You just have to change with the times. People like Jamie Oliver in Dublin — we supply Chapter One, all those places where people would be going there to eat, (and) all those restaurants were closed. Suddenly, those people that love our meat were ringing, wondering: where could they get it? This is how that started.

Brian:           If there's an additional point of ways to de-stress, it certainly would be (to) change with the times. Be flexible. To sum up some of the things I've heard, I've heard, really, four specific ways to de-stress your business. The first would be have a succession plan, eliminating the fears of, "Does this all depend on me? What happens after I leave the business?" And you've put in that place with Alan, currently. The second thing seems to be (to) educate your customers clearly. If that means bringing the product to them, making sure they understand the value of it and how to handle it — particularly chefs and cooks — that's very important.

                     From the music end of things, the third way I heard to de-stress the business was keep your business fun and productive. It eliminates the concern of burnout. It keeps the animals consistent every day and keeps that consistent all the way from the farm to the fork, at the forefront of what's being done. Last but not least, de-stressing the business by taking care of your environment in the supply chain. You're just addressing concerns of, "Will there be enough resources? Can I look for my grandkids and great-grandkids to still have a good environment?" And just being part of the solution and not the problem.

Padraic:        Yeah, that's it. Just play your part as you go along. That's it.

Brian:           Padraic, you've given us a ton to think through. Really, I've been fascinated to talk to you and hear more about your business. Padraic, thank you for being on the AgFuture podcast.

Padraic:        Thank you very much, and thank you for having us. It's a pleasure.

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

An international research team at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom has established a link between the outcome of COVID-19 cases and the regional selenium status of people in China. The data was based on the real-time numbers of confirmed cases, recovery rates and mortality rates in each province or city. When analyzing these populations, researchers observed an association between the population’s selenium status (based on hair samples) and the rates of recovery (Figure 1).

In the Hubei province, whose capital is Wuhan, it was found that Enshi City had recovery rates that were 36.4% higher than other cities within the region, where the overall recovery rate was 13.1%. Enshi City is known for its high selenium status. Outside of Hubei, in the Heilongjian province of north-eastern China, where the selenium status is notoriously low, a 2.4% increase in mortality rates was observed.

China is home to people with both the lowest and highest selenium statuses in the world. Geographical differences across the country result in varied soil compositions, which can alter selenium levels. It is these differences in soil selenium levels that influence how much of the trace mineral enters the food chain from livestock feed, meat, milk and eggs, and the end consumer. Therefore, human selenium intake is very much dependent on the environment in which the crops, plants and livestock are raised.

Figure 1: Correlation between COVID-19 recovery rate in 17 cities outside Hubei, China, on February 18, 2020, and city population selenium status (hair selenium concentration) analyzed using statistical methods (mean ± SD = 35.5 ± 11.1, R2 = 0.72, F test P < 0.0001) Copyright ^© Rayman et al., on behalf of the American Society for Nutrition, 2020.

Selenium and its role in immune defense

Selenium is an essential trace element for both humans and animals and is required in small amounts for normal health, growth, reproduction and immune defense. It also provides a source of antioxidants, which help to address diseases related to oxidative stress.

Previous studies have shown the antiviral effects of selenium and have linked the evolution and spread of viral infectious diseases, such as swine flu and bird flu, to areas where soil selenium levels are lower (Harthill, 2011). Other studies have observed more severe viral symptoms and infection rates when dietary selenium is low (Beck et al., 2001).

Viruses produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) as part of their biological makeup. These ROS are believed to be combated by glutathione peroxidase, an important antioxidant for cellular defense in which selenium plays a major role. As such, it is believed that several cellular and viral mechanisms involving selenium and selenium-containing proteins can influence the outcome of viral infections.

Selenium and functional food: What do these findings mean for human health?

It is important that we consume a well-balanced diet that incorporates adequate amounts of selenium to maintain our antioxidant capacity and immune defense. According to U.S. standards, the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for selenium in humans is 55 micrograms a day.

Dietary sources of selenium include nuts, grains and vegetables, with Brazil nuts being the richest source of selenium. However, their content is highly variable and can range from 0.03 to 512 micrograms, the latter level being potentially harmful. In vegetables, up to 40% of selenium can be lost through cooking.

Highly bioavailable and organic forms of selenium have kick-started a new era in the availability of selenium-enriched products. Enriched meat, milk and eggs that contain up to 35 micrograms of selenium (more than 50% of the RDA) have been successfully developed and tested using SEL-PLEX^®, Alltech’s proprietary selenium-enriched yeast (Surai et al., 2009). Livestock that are supplemented with selenium-enriched yeast show improved health, disease resistance, fertility and antioxidant capacity. Due to the high bioavailability of organic selenium-enriched yeast, the trace mineral is effectively transferred to subsequent animal products. The result is meat, milk and eggs with consistently higher selenium levels that are available to us for consumption.

As we can see from this population study, organic selenium-enriched yeast could provide a promising development in functional food for human immunity and general health.

References are available upon request.

In the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic, many people are understandably concerned about their health and are looking for ways to decrease the likelihood that they will get sick in the future. Fortunately, there are several easy steps we can all take to improve our health right now and protect ourselves from illness down the road.

Amy Goodson, a registered dietician, addressed this subject at the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience with a presentation entitled “Preexisting Conditions: Health and Immunity in a Post-COVID-19 World.” In this presentation, Amy outlined five major preexisting medical conditions that can increase everyone’s risk of disease. However, she also included easy ways to decrease your likelihood of getting sick.

“There are so many things that you can start doing today to lower your risk for any type of disease,” she said.

5 big illnesses to keep an eye on

The five primary diseases and issues that increase everyone’s risk of disease are:

• Obesity
• Heart disease
• Hypertension
• Type 2 diabetes
• Lack of exercise

“All of these things together can really put a person in that vulnerable population or at a greater risk to suffer when it comes to other diseases and health concerns,” said Amy.

Despite how overwhelming it may feel to try to take on these significant issues, Amy assured that there are reasonable and straightforward ways to gradually move toward better health.

“A lot of times, people hear, ‘Oh, you should lower your risk for heart disease or for diabetes,’ and they don't know how to do that,” she acknowledged. “We're going to dial in on some easy, practical tips and help you set an action plan so that you can move forward into the next healthy step for you.”

1. Obesity

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2016, around 650 million people were categorized as obese. Being obese can impact other aspects of human health as well, elevating a person’s risk for heart disease, stroke, insulin resistance and even some kinds of cancers.

So, how can we combat a condition that is so widespread? According to Amy, the upside is that, for most people, obesity is preventable, and weight is something that can be controlled by taking three simple but crucial steps: “Eat healthier, eat less and move more.”

Some of Amy’s recommendations for eating a healthier diet include consuming more nutrient-dense foods, eating a carbohydrate and a protein at every meal and snack and following the “80/20 rule” — that is, sticking to the health guidelines 80% of the time and splurging on higher-calorie foods or sweets 20% of the time. After all, man cannot live on vegetables alone, and even registered dieticians like Amy do not recommend trying to.

“We want you to be on an eating plan that you can really maintain throughout the rest of your life,” she said.

2. Heart disease

The WHO estimates that 17.9 million people die every year from cardiovascular disease, accounting for 31% of all deaths worldwide.

While some people have a higher risk of heart disease based on their family history, there are simple ways we can all keep our hearts healthy. One of the most important things to do, according to Amy, is to “know your numbers” — that is, your cholesterol, your triglycerides and other important measurements you can learn by visiting the doctor’s office. 

“Many people think they're healthy, and they haven't been to the doctor in years, so it's very important that you go see your physician,” said Amy.

Some other ways to improve your heart health are increasing your fiber intake, consuming more “good” unsaturated fats — like those found in olive oil, avocados and nuts — and eating less “bad” trans fats, which are often found in processed and fried foods.

3. Hypertension

In 2015, 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women around the world reportedly had hypertension, or high blood pressure — and even more alarmingly, less than 1 in 5 of those people had the problem under control, which explains why hypertension is one of the leading causes of premature death.

Much of the advice for mitigating the risk of obesity and heart disease also rings true for decreasing blood pressure or managing hypertension, including moving more and eating healthier foods, especially those with less sodium. As Amy reinforced, it all comes back to taking the small steps that have a big impact.

“What we want to do today is focus on or change what we can control,” she said.

Some of those changes include taking 10,000 steps every day and reducing your sodium intake, which many doctors recommend keeping under 2,300 milligrams per day.

4. Type 2 diabetes

“There are millions (of people in the world) — more than the whole population of the United States — (who) have diabetes, so this is something that concerns me,” Amy said.  

A person is diagnosed with diabetes when their blood sugar levels are too high. Type 2 diabetes results from the body’s resistance to insulin, a hormone that helps transform sugar into energy. This differs from type 1 diabetes, which is often diagnosed in childhood and is the result of the body not being able to make insulin at all.

Hundreds of millions of people have an elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which is associated with a host of other health problems, including damaged nerves, worsening eyesight, foot sores and kidney failure.

Much like with the other major health risks, the key to avoiding or managing type 2 diabetes is eating more healthy foods. Amy explained the importance of “shaping a healthy plate,” which should include a carbohydrate (e.g., whole grains), a protein (such as lean meats) and a fat (like avocados) at every meal, along with plenty of vegetables.

5. Lack of exercise

“We know that, globally, 1 in 4 adults do not get enough exercise,” said Amy. “We need everyone across the world to get moving more.”

Along with the obvious benefits of exercise, such as developing muscle mass and managing weight, insufficient physical activity is a key risk factor for developing non-communicable diseases, like cancer and diabetes. However, as many people know, starting an exercise routine often feels like a hurdle as tall as Mount Everest.

“If it was easy, everybody would be doing it,” said Amy, “(but) there's a lot of practical ways that you can begin to include activity in your day on a regular basis.”  

To reduce the risk of chronic disease, Amy recommended that adults exercise at a moderate intensity level for at least 30 minutes a day on most days of the week. That doesn’t necessarily mean exercising for 30 minutes in one go; it could mean taking the stairs instead of the elevator, parking further away from an entrance and doing sit-ups during commercial breaks while watching TV.

For those who need more motivation to get moving, Amy pointed out that exercise has health benefits that go beyond the physical: it has been scientifically proven to elevate a person’s mood. 

“We live in a world that's stressful, and exercise is a healthy way to really relieve some of that stress and anxiety that many of us experience,” Amy said.

Taking the first step

So, what can you start doing now to decrease your risk for these illnesses and their negative side effects? For Amy, it’s all about starting small.

“I'm a big believer that small changes, made consistently, can add up to big results,” she said.  

Develop a personal action plan that will mesh with your life. Some of your first steps might include:

• Setting one or two small goals and working to make those a habit over the next month
• Going to the doctor
• Aiming to get three planned days of exercise a week

Amy also recommended finding an “accountability partner” or someone who can help motivate you to stay on track as you begin the journey to better health.

“It's hard to choose the best (food) options and exercise, but oftentimes, if you have someone to do it with you, it makes it a little bit easier,” she said.

Just like with COVID-19, protecting yourself from these five major health risks can seem daunting — but starting small can lead to significant changes in the long run.

“I just want to encourage you to take a step -- whatever that step is, and it's going to be different for everybody,” she said. “It doesn't have to be a big step. But small steps really can create healthy habits so that, in the future, you're not in that vulnerable population.”

Visit one.alltech.com for more information.

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

Cady Coleman has spent more than 170 days in outer space on various missions and truly knows what it means to be isolated. Despite our differences, she says we are all on a mission together during these times of change and uncertainty. In this episode, Cady explains the importance of diversity within teams and how seeing other people’s perspectives can help us work better together and get through difficult times.

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

Tom:                          This is Tom Martin. 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.

Mark:                          Hello and welcome to the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience. My name is Dr. Mark Lyons and I’m the president and CEO of Alltech. It's my great pleasure to welcome you to the first session of this event. For 35 years, ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference has been encouraging our attendees to think differently, to innovate in the face of disruption, and that's what we've done with our program this year: creating, for the first time, a virtual offering — something that we've been hoping to do for a number of years. At this time more than any other, these world-changing ideas, big-picture thinking and, more importantly, inspiration are perhaps what we all need a little bit of. So, we hope that these sessions are very useful for you, and we look forward to the interaction that we're going to have in our Q&A sessions. Fitting that this is our launch day, it seems most appropriate that our first keynote (speaker) has been to space and back.

Tom:                          Cady Coleman, chemist, two-time space shuttle astronaut and a pretty good flute player — we'll have more on that later — was aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule as part of a crew of three headed for the orbiting International Space Station on December 15, 2010.

Cady:                          It's an amazing ride. It's 8 and a half minutes to get to space. To me, as a person that just believes there's always more to define and explore in terms of ideas, in terms of horizons, in some ways, you know, even though I loved this ride, it's actually like the taxi to the place that we're really exploring, which was space.

Tom:                          In a virtual conversation with Alltech president and CEO Mark Lyons, Cady Coleman lifts us, in a time of so much turmoil, illness and uncertainty on our planet, to the unique and profound perspective of a perch looking down on Earth from 220 miles above.

Cady:                          To me, I used to think that space was someplace different — like, “I'm on Earth. I'm gonna go to space.” But actually arriving up there, it just made me realize that Earth and the place that we live is just bigger than we thought, and yet, it's home.

Tom:                          This is Cady’s story about experiencing half a year of living in weightlessness with five other people from very different countries and cultures.

Cady:                          People always feel kind of bad for us that it's small and terrible up in space. And I think they have this kind of image in mind. This is what the taxi ride looks like on the way up to space in the Russian Soyuz. So, I launched in and actually came back home to Russia for my stint up on the Space Station. And it is actually quite, quite tight. And even though it's only physically 8 and a half minutes to get there, to get to orbit, we actually spent, you know, hours and hours and hours practicing and getting ready and making sure we understand how to operate all the equipment in the Soyuz. So, it is small, but the Space Station itself is giant and huge.

Tom:                          How huge?

Cady:                          It's like 10 train cars all put together, but not just in a row; some are up, and then some are down, and some are sideways. And so, we have, really, these 10 train cars without the seats in them to be living in in that Space Station. We have really just a lot of room up there — privacy. And actually, we need all that room to keep all the equipment, to keep the experiments. I mean, storage is actually the biggest problem up there.

Tom:                          Okay. Let's back up just a bit. Cady mentioned practice. You don't just one day drop what you're doing and you board a rocket ship and escape Earth's gravity for almost a half-year aboard the Space Station.

Cady:                          So, I had some pretty exciting practice missions, so to speak. I got to live for 11 days underwater off the coast of Florida in the Aquarius Habitat. It's usually used for research, and it's also lent out to NASA for us to practice. Well, the other place that I got to do that is Antarctica, where I had a last-minute opportunity. I was the backup for this mission, and I had a last-minute opportunity to spend two and a half months in Antarctica. Six weeks of that was in a tent. There were four of us, two in each tent. And we were 200 miles from the South Pole. And I am not a camping girl. But where I wasn't camping girl, I sure am now. And that's the nice thing about these kind of jobs is they actually teach you all these things and how to stay safe — although I'm actually reminded of some of my lessons from Antarctica in terms of, you know, equipment and safety and, you know, for us to take your gloves off when you're outside as much as you want to.

                                    I mean, you’re wearing, you know, three layers of everything, and let’s say you have to go to the bathroom during the day, which is going to happen. You know, you’re just so tempted to take those gloves off, because it’d be so much easier — your zipper is Velcro, all those things — and (it was all about) learning that patience of just, “Slow is fast and I have more time than I think.”

Tom:                          Learning to survive in such unusual and uncomfortable conditions may have been the immediate goal, but for Cady, there was another benefit that would serve her well aboard the Space Station.

Cady:                          I’d say most of the lessons I learned were about people, about being a crew.

Tom:                          And that perspective about people learning to get along and cooperate, collaborate.

Cady:                          Forty different nations (are) working all together every day — it's an International Space Station — on work that can't be done anywhere else.

Tom:                          So, what's it like, day to day, living and working in zero gravity, where just the touch of a finger can send you literally flying across the entire Space Station?

Cady:                          It's like living the life of Peter Pan, and everything is different, and everything is a discovery, but we're still human. You know, we bring our own, you know, things that we love to do. We each have our own way of bringing that experience back home. And we each, as humans, look out at the Earth and get to think about what it means that we're in space and people are down on the Earth.

Tom:                          And Cady, displaying a photo of herself with her Space Station crewmates, tells us that this situation — six people from the U.S., Russia and Italy together in this fragile habitat, circling Earth — offers a lesson that can be lost in the demands, the routines and the realities of life.

Cady:                          Every single person in this picture, I guarantee you, feels like there's something about them that is theirs that they bring that other people either don't know, don't understand or aren't open to. And so, I think it's really important to think about that — especially now that we don't get to connect with each other as much as we used to, now that we're isolated to phone calls and Zoom meetings and things like that.

Tom:                          And here's where Cady’s story gets really interesting, bringing together the experience of a long-duration space mission with present-day conditions down below — a pandemic, racial injustice and the challenges of overcoming differences to work in collaboration.

Cady:                          (Here’s) a little bit about getting along as a crew, and I say this because I think all of us are, you know, in unusual circumstances right now in terms of isolation and it being, you know, smart to stay separated from friends and family sometimes, but also at work, at school. I mean, I think that all of us work in groups where we don't get to pick who we are working with.

Tom:                          During her presentation, Cady mentions a recent hit movie.

[Movie clip]

Tom:                          An important eye-opener for many, an affirmation of injustice for many others.

Cady:                          I show you this picture from the movie “Hidden Figures” because I think, first of all, if I was talking to you in person, I would ask who's seen this movie, and then I would implore those of you that didn't raise your hands to go and see it. I mean, first of all, it's a fabulous movie. It's fun; it's interesting. I think it's just really charming. And at the same time, it makes this really big point. I mean, this is Katherine Johnson. She has a doctorate in mathematics, and she did the calculations that figured out how we get people from the Earth to space and safely back home again to their families, and (she) did this for Gemini, for Mercury, for Apollo and for the space shuttle, and yet her work was not celebrated until very late in her life. I mean, look at this picture. Our movie is called “Hidden Figures”. And in every picture that I've seen of her in in real life, Katherine is wearing — she’s a woman of color wearing a dress of color and (is) typically in a work picture in a sea of white guys in skinny black ties. And so, there's — I mean, you can't miss her. Right? But we didn't see her. And it comes back to my point that all of us bring something that needs to come out on the table if we're going to solve the problems that are in front of us today as a nation, as a world, as a planet.

Tom:                          Cady herself has encountered discrimination as an obstacle to realizing her dream of space walking. The women of “Hidden Figures” encountered (this) and persevered despite the dual blows of racism and misogyny. Cady, who is white, never experienced the pain of being underestimated because of the color of her skin. For her, it had to do with stature and gender.

Cady:                          Myself, I was the smallest person to be part of the space-walking team up on the Space Station. And it was kind of a big thing because, for the space shuttle, we had small space suits and mediums and larges and extra larges. But for the Space Station, they couldn't afford to have all those sizes, for various reasons. And what that meant was the smaller people, like me — actually, all of them women — then did not fit into the suits that we had on the Space Station. And I was on that edge. I mean, I looked at the space suit and I knew that I had a job that I could do in that space suit. I knew that I brought things to that team that others didn't. And I cheerfully showed up to meetings that I wasn't invited to, not because people said, “Oh, I don't think we're going to ask Cady, we don’t like her,” or anything else. It was just that they looked at me and they just couldn't imagine that I should be part of that team — but I knew. And when it’s something as important as exploring space, it gives you that extra, like, you know, that extra courage to just say, “I know. I am showing up.”

Tom:                          Cady, now herself a role model for many young women, had one of her own: the first American woman to fly in space, astronaut Sally Ride.

Cady:                          She actually made all the difference in the world in that — my dad was an explorer. He lived under the ocean. He was in charge of the building one of those capsules where men lived under the ocean. He was a deep-sea diver, and exploration was really real to me growing up. I was born in 1960, and yet the fact that I could be one of those explorers never occurred to me until Sally Ride came to my college and gave a talk. And I just thought — you know, you see somebody that you can relate to — and I just thought, “Wow. Maybe I could try to do that.”

Tom:                          And try, she did. More than try. Cady Coleman has logged more than 4,300 hours in space. The mission to the International Space Station, where she supervised more than 100 experiments, was her last before retiring from the Astronaut Corps in 2016. She has since been an advocate of expanding the role of private companies within NASA. And the recent SpaceX Dragon launch, carrying a crew of two to the Space Station, is the most dramatic example yet of the success of those efforts.

[SpaceX launch]

Tom:                          After her own 159 days in Earth orbit, Cady Coleman returned from the Space Station with fresh perspectives on the human condition, gained from weeks on end cooped up with five other human beings. The only thing between them and the deadly vacuum of space? A one-tenth of 1-inch aluminum pressure hull of the orbiting Space Station. Under these conditions, you really gain a more complex understanding of your crewmates.

Cady:                          And so, realizing that everyone has those different perspectives, it’s another way to think about, you know, how we relate to each other. The fact that when we look down at the Earth — I mean, our Space Station is pretty close there. Because we’re upside down and right side up, we learned to think about things and see things differently.

Tom:                          Cady Coleman’s advice has particular resonance in these times of division and increasing difficulty to communicate with people who view life differently.

Cady:                          Try to bring that to the conversations that you have at work, at home. When you're trying to convince someone of something new that is unfamiliar to them, try to look at them from a different direction, and find out something for yourself about them that allows you to work more closely together.

Tom:                          Recently, as the spread of the coronavirus mushroomed into a pandemic, Cady reached back to her experiences as a member of a team on a mission to suggest that we're now all on a mission.

Cady:                          We have this advantage as space explorers that, you know, we're part of a mission. I mean, we have jackets, you know; we’re wearing space suits. And it's really clear to you that, you know, you've got a job to do, and a lot of people are helping you do it. And so, it's easy to think, “It's important for me to be ready, and all these actions, they're important.” But I think with COVID-19, the mission can be less tangible. And just the fact that you can stay in your house with your family and stay safe and not do some of the things you'd like to do, it doesn't feel like this like step forward, mastering the engine systems — and yet it is. It's a step toward the mission. I think what can help people is just identifying. Give it a name. You know, this is the mission: staying safe. And these are the things we're doing today. And by focusing on that mission — I mean, to me, it’s interesting that I think the whole world understands this word “mission” in a different way because of this pandemic.

Tom:                          There was a Q&A portion during Cady’s virtual presentation, and COVID-19 was on the mind of Alltech’s Mark Lyons.

Mark:                          I think, through COVID-19, we're all hoping that there's some positive, there's some kind of silver lining, something that we're going to gain in terms of perspective. But I think there's also a sense that maybe we picked things up, we learned something, but then we maybe lose it. So, I wonder, you know, through your experiences, you know, having that new perspective, how do you make sure that what you learn, you can retain, and what do you think you did learn from that time in space?

Cady:                          Wow. You know, I was going to say that, you know, I see a lot positive happening. You know, there's sort of this, I call it, “activation energy” or some barrier to change, to doing something differently, and yet, you know, something helps you over that barrier, and in this case, the need during COVID-19 for people to solve all sorts of problems together, it's just there — and I see this. I see it on the internet. I see it in the news. Different people coming together, seeing something that they can do together and doing it. You know, asking each other, helping each other. Competitors making things together. I mean, it's so hopeful. You know, in the case of Alltech, I know you think so much about the planet and how your work is, you know, good for sustainability, for the planet, and people realize that's even more imperative now that, suddenly, the food chain is more real to all of us.

Tom:                          Now, about that flute…

[Music playing]

Tom:                          Cady is a member of the astronaut group, Bandella, performing here at the Folk Alliance Conference in 2015. At one event, the band had been invited onstage with Ireland's legendary Chieftains.

Cady:                          When I was at NASA, Paddy Moloney, who's the leader of the Chieftains, his son was an intern at NASA. And he actually stayed with a family that was kind of just a — they were just the people that were so good at gathering. I mean, (they) gathered people like me: all these people that love to play (music) but don't really play together. And it was a group of like 18 of us that would play some form of Celtic music, and then we ended up in small groups. And so, I knew Padraig, Paddy’s son, from my days there playing music. And when it came to going to the Space Station, one of the things I thought about was, you know, how do I bring people with me, and what's important to me, if I get to bring a few things, what's important to bring? And I really loved the spirit of Irish music. And I actually had decided I would learn how to play the Irish flute. Now, this doesn't mean that I knew how to play the Irish flute or that I, even though I carried it around with me on the road, that I learned enough. But I was inspired to go through Padraig to Paddy and to ask if I could bring some flutes with me to space. And by that time, actually, I knew the whole band. When they would come to town, we would go. And our astronaut band would get to be their guests, coming out on stage at the end, or they would kindly play along quite a bit.

                                    Anyway. So, I knew them, and Matt Malloy sent this flute that is like, I think, a treasure of Ireland. It’s an E flat Irish flute and just this beautiful instrument. A little bit smaller, for somebody like me, with small hands. And Paddy sent a tin whistle, and I brought them up to space. I brought a couple flutes. Every flute has its own little T-shirt that it was wrapped in so the pieces wouldn’t float away. And it just gave me really great pleasure to be up in that cupula looking out over the world and playing music. It kind of brings me into a little place that’s just mine. And it’s the same place where I come when I’m down here on the Earth, but then I got to go that place in space and look out at the world and just kind of, I don’t know, just feel a little more settled.

Tom:                          It would not be Cady’s only orbit-to-Earth performance with a legendary artist; there was another duet with the flute of the legendary Jethro Tull.

Cady:                          Tonight, Ian Anderson and I would like to honor Yuri Gagarin for his brave journey 50 years ago, and we would like to celebrate the role that humans play in the exploration of our universe, past, present and future, by sharing some music between Earth and space.

[Music playing]

Tom:                          Again, Mark Lyons.

Mark:                          You know, one of the questions we keep getting, obviously, given your background and our present time of social distancing and isolation is: Given the experience you had, of course, in the tent in Antarctica, under the ocean and in the Space Station, how do people respond? You know, what ways should we think about this isolation? You had, you know, professional, obviously, the best training in the world preparing for that. For a lot of us, we've been shutting doors all of a sudden. So, are there any tips that you might share with the audience?

Cady:                          You know, some of them are, you know, kind of like family tips where, you know, I look at — and you say, “Well, you got professional help.” It's surprisingly not as much as you might think, you know. We kind of have to put those things together for ourselves. But you know, when there's some behavior that is causing strife or some situation, (the best thing to do) is to think, sort of, further than the situation. It's almost like — I think back to when our kid was little and there'd be some, you know, bad behavior after picking up from school in the first few weeks of school. And you know, what I learned about — and I actually had somebody, you know, to help me talk through some of these things, because we commuted, but anyways. But you know, picking him up from school — I mean, this is a kid that’s, like, worked really hard all day long to hold it together, and then there he is with the people that he loves and you just lose it, right? And don't behave as well. And so, do you deal with the behavior, or do you think about what the reason is? And I think it has some applications to our time now.

                                    You know, I found, in our family, we're all kind of a little grumpy when it got to, like, dinner. First of all, we're hungry. And second, you know, we have three adults who are all working full-time from the same house, and suddenly it’s 6 o’clock, and who was in charge of figuring out what to eat? And so, you know, we ended up, you know, coming up with a little bit more of a system and actually acknowledging like, “Hey, everybody, you know, I thought I —” You just feel like you're the only one working, when actually, all of us are working really hard. So, recognizing the behaviors and then realizing that there's probably some, you know, there's some things behind them.

                                    And the hardest thing that we don't actually have to wrestle with much in space, I don't think, is that we know (that), eventually, we're coming home. I mean, it's pretty finite. I mean, I was up there for 6 months, and you know, the mission was extended by 2 weeks, which I was incredibly thrilled about, but I mean, it's still finite. Whereas with COVID-19, there's a lot of uncertainties — and uncertainties about finances, about dreams, about what you're going to be able to do next. And I guess really just owning that uncertainty, I think, is really helpful — realizing that it's hard, and don't expect it to be easy, and just acknowledge you're working through hard things.

[Music playing]

Tom:                          Astronaut Cady Coleman with Alltech president and CEO Mark Lyons, launching the 2020 Alltech ONE Virtual Experience. If you're interested in seeing Cady’s view from space, and to watch more video content from other thought leaders from around the world, register at one.alltech.com. I'm Tom Martin, and this has been Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Thank you for joining us, and be sure to subscribe to Ag Future wherever you listen to podcasts — and leave a review if you’ve enjoyed this episode.

Click here to register for the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience

Italy was one of the first countries hit by COVID-19, and after an eight-week lockdown, the next phase of reopening businesses has begun. Massimo Zanin of Veronesi, a major Italian animal feed company, details how Veronesi was able to safely help maintain the food supply chain throughout the lockdown and what he is hoping will happen for his country and the agriculture sector in general beyond the pandemic.

This episode is part of a special AgFuture series on the impact of COVID-19 on the food supply chain. Join us to hear how those on the frontlines of the global pandemic are working to overcome adversity and feed the world.

The following is an edited transcript of Michelle Michael's interview with Massimo Zanin. Click below to hear the full audio.

Michelle:       Hello! I'm Michelle Michael. In this special series of AgFuture, we're talking with those working along the food supply chain about the impact of COVID-19. My guest today is Mr. Massimo Zanin. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Massimo:       Good morning! Thank you for inviting me.

Michelle:       And I guess it would be good afternoon to you; you're in the northeast part of Italy, right? Near to Venice?

Massimo:       Yes, close to Venice, about one hour by car from Venice. Verona is the name of the city where we are based.

Michelle:       Italy was hit quite hard by the coronavirus pandemic, but you're starting to see a glimmer of hope, I think, right? What's life like for you right now?

Massimo:       Well, personally, let's say that, now — we had these eight weeks (of) lockdown. That means that in the last eight weeks, the only things we were able to do was come from home to the office and from the office going home. The other thing was shopping, but not so often. That's all. The rest of the things were not allowed, really. I think what the Italians in general demonstrated in these last eight weeks was (that) they were able to follow the rules given by the government, so really, they stayed home for eight weeks, (which is) incredible for the Italians.

Michelle:       It is incredible. Are things now starting to open back up slowly, though?

Massimo:       Yes, we are starting to go out. Today, after eight weeks, we begin the so-called phase two. That means that more industries are going to start, to restart, to produce, so that means that around four and a half million people are going out every day from today. I think that we (will) begin to see a sort of light at the end of the tunnel and we hope, really, to see a better time in the next (few) weeks, and “a better time” means more freedom to go out — and also from an economic point of view, because we cannot forget that not only the industry but all the shops, all the small activities (that) are here now, (were) shut down, so really, we hope to see all these activities starting again, because it's important for our people and for the economy of Italy to start again.

Michelle:       Speaking of business, Massimo, you're with Veronesi, one of the biggest poultry, swine and rabbit integrators, and you have a feed mill there as well. On a very basic level, can you explain what that means? What does a poultry, swine and rabbit integrator do?

Massimo:       Well, as an integrator, we are involved in all the activities along the supply chain. That means producing feed. We are in the market of raw materials. We breed many, many different kinds of animals — chicken, poultry, but also cattle, pigs, rabbits and so on, and then we slaughter and we transform these meats into products that we sell in the supermarkets. That means that we are involved in the whole supply chain.

                        At Veronesi, I imagine that Veronesi is, nowadays, a company that employs directly almost 9,000 people, but if we go also to the people working for us, even if not directly employed (by us), we are talking around 15,000 people working for the group. It's one of the most important agribusiness groups in Italy, one of the biggest in Europe, (with) a consolidated turnover of over €3 billion, or US$3.3 billion. And because Veronesi was founded 62 years ago in 1958, I have to say that it started on the first of May, and a few (weeks) ago, we celebrated our 62nd anniversary.

It was founded by Apollinare Veronesi, our founder, but in 1958, he was already 47, so not exactly a young guy starting this new adventure after the Second World War. He was already married and was the father of five children when he saw that animal feed was a new, important sector for the growth of the country at that time. At that time, we have to imagine that, in Italy, animal breeding was not exactly what we see today. Every family had, at that time, a couple of pigs or ten chickens to feed, but what did the people give to the animals at that time? Probably the waste of their meals, their family meals, so Apollinare Veronesi saw how important it could be to improve the quality of the feed given to the animals, so he started in 1958 with the feed production, and ten years later, in 1968, he began his involvement in the poultry sector, breeding first chickens and then turkeys, importing the turkeys from the U.S., because turkeys were not present at all in Italy. Then, later on, in the '80s, he expanded his activity to pig breeding and slaughtering.

                        Over the years, I'd have to say that this remained as the main sector, but the activity has been integrated or completed via internal growth and also acquisitions. Nowadays, we are involved in many activities, but we can, let's say, organize all the activities in three large areas. We call them the three Fs: feed, farming and food. We farm thousands and thousands of animals, and we go down after slaughtering, after processing the meat, to the market with two main brands, which are AIA and Negroni. AIA is the brand we use for fresh — even if processed, but still fresh — meat products. AIA is a product sold mainly in Europe, North Africa and Europe. Negroni is our brand for salami, ham, these great, typical Italian products. Negroni products, you can find all over the world, from Japan to the U.S., so everywhere. Now, our consolidated turnover is €3 billion, and almost 15% of our turnover is export.

Michelle:       Being one of the largest and most important agricultural companies, what are you facing today because of COVID-19 in your business?

Massimo:       Well, I have to say that we have (had) to change completely our way of work. We were, let's say, lucky because agribusiness has been considered, personally (in Italy) but also in other counties, as an essential business. That means that we choose and we're in the position to continue to work, but obviously — you remember that Italy was the first country outside China to be hit by the COVID-19 epidemic. It's true that the first stages were in a small area south of Milan. This area is really small, but it's a high-intensity area for our sector. In this area, there are a lot of farms, mainly dairy farmers, also pigs, and many feed mills. One of our feed mills — we have seven feed mills around Italy, but one of them is close to this area, so our involvement, I have to say, was immediate.

                        I remember the first time they came (with news of) the so-called patient zero. The first case of (COVID-19) positivity found in Italy was on February 21. It was Friday evening, and the day after, we had our first talk. They called up the board of the executive committee to decide how to manage the situation. It was really a new situation for everyone, and it was really unexpected, a new situation for everybody. We were afraid about the health of our people because we knew that we could go on with the production, but on the other side, we wanted to be sure to let our people work in a safe and healthy position.

                        So, really, we worked a lot that week to define protocols together with the workers, together with the unions, because the unions were afraid about this new situation, so we worked together in order to be able to continue to work without any risks, and so far, we have done it, I have to say.

Michelle:       That's great news. What does that mean specifically? What precautions did workers have to take on the job so that they remain safe? What did that look like?

Massimo:       Of course, there are different situations in different factories. If we look to the slaughterhouse, we can imagine how many people are working in the slaughtering line, and so the first concern was to give more distance between one (person) to the other. So, we intervened in the number of people working at the same time in that slaughtering line. That means that we have to slow down the rate of the slaughtering. That means that we try to reduce the number of the people involved in every single shift in the slaughterhouse. On the other side, we built a special track to go in and to come out (of the building on). Of course, every one of the people working in this situation was equipped with masks, gloves and all the equipment needed in those situations. I have to say that after two months of work in this situation, we are really — I don't want to say it out loud, but everything went really well.

                        On the other side, if we look to the feed mills, the situation is completely different because, thanks to high investments in the last years in automation, in the feed mills, we have limited staff presence, so it's easier to manage them, to make them operate in a condition of safety. Also, the people working in the feed mills were equipped with masks and gloves. Also, in the feed mills, we try to reduce the number of people per shift because the big concern was, from the beginning, to avoid the risk to have a stock shortage, because in the event of (COVID-19) positivity, of course, we should put in quarantine all the people working together, so we reduced the number of people per shift in the feed mills. Also, in the feed mills, I have to say there's (been) no problem until today.

                        Also, the truck drivers, looking to the truck drivers, they were the first figures involved in the program because in Italy, there was the so-called red area, the first area, the small area south of Milan, and they had to go there to deliver the feed, so they were the first people involved in the emergency. Also, to them, we gave our procedures. We gave them masks and gloves needed to get in contact with the farmers. They were invited to follow all the safety rules of the group. I have to say that in the last eight weeks, it's (been) really difficult to enter a donation factory, but really, it was necessary.

Michelle:       We know the workers were dramatically impacted. What about the customers? Were the customers of the company affected as well?

Massimo:       Of course, our customers, which are the farmers, they were involved also in the confusion of the market, but first, in our behavior to the customers, the farmers, we tried to find different ways to maintain this kind of comfort. Really, we invented different ways (to stay connected), like more frequent calls to them.

                        Our first concern, also there, was to say to the sellers, to the consultants that would usually have contact with the farmers, to be more frequently than normal getting in contact with them. We invented many ways to make it under a hashtag. The hashtag is #veronesiconvoy, #veronesiwithyou. Under this hashtag, we prepared more frequent newsletters, personalized WhatsApp messages, corporate videos explaining to them what we were doing in order to maintain the same level of service, of quality of the product and of services. We were giving them video messages. Of course, our experts, our technicians, (since they were) not in the position to ever have physical or personal contact, they began to use these platforms — like WhatsApp video calls — to give, in a remote way, their suggestions, the advice that the farmers needed. So I have to say that our breeders, we know that our customers are really our greatest asset, so they cannot think that they've been left alone for even one minute, so Veronesi has to be always there together with the customers, the farmers.

Michelle:       As much as it seems impossible to prepare for a pandemic, do you think the agriculture sector could have done things differently? And on that note, what lessons can we learn from this in the way our food supply chain works?

Massimo:       To be prepared, to be really prepared for such a pandemic, I think, was impossible. The question is, probably, “What can we do to improve in order to be better prepared for it?” There is not only one answer, of course. If I look to the Italian market, we are, for example, a net importer of raw materials. So, even if we think (we should try) to be more prepared, we cannot change our way of (importing) the crops in Italy. We are trying to increase the quantity of raw materials to grow in Italy, but it's impossible. We are a small garden. We cannot be competitive with the production in many other countries, so we still remain a net importer. I have to say that even if we were not prepared for the pandemic, after the first few days, where we were all afraid about the risks of shortages of raw materials — both macro raw materials, grains and so on, but on the other side, also, of micro ingredients — after the first day, we had to say that everything has come in the right time.

                        What we need is a better dialogue between the producer of the products like milk, like animals, and the final market, the consumer market, because the problem, for example, for some sectors was where to sell the product that usually went to export, went to foreign countries. When the flights were stopped, of course — for example, the wonderful mozzarella di bufala, the buffalo-milk mozzarella, had no more market, or the part of the market (where it sold the most), which was the export market, was stopped, so we had a surplus of production. We probably need a better dialogue between the first part of the production and the transformation, processing and distribution. This is what we need. For the future, what I see is a better dialogue along the supply chain.

Michelle:       That certainly could hold a lot of positives. How long do you think the agricultural sector could feel the impact from COVID-19?

Massimo:       When we talk of the agriculture sector, we are talking of so many different products. Look to the wine. Look to the vegetables. Look to the tourists and so on. Look into our sector, the sector we are involved in, the meat sector and the dairy sector — meat because we process and sell meat products, and on the other side, the dairy sector, because we sell feed to the dairy farmers. Probably the impact will be, for Italy, relatively long.

                        I'm positive about the future. I'm for sure positive about the future, but I have to say that remember that the tourism, for Italy, represents 13% of our GDP. Imagine that only in the last two and a half months — that means the beginning of spring, Eastern time — we have, usually, in Italy, 80 million tourists present. If we consider that they eat usually twice a day, that means that we lost, in the last weeks, around 160 million meals. This means, of course, meat, cheese. It means processed products like ham. It means wine, too. What we lose with tourists, we cannot recover with the consumption of the Italians. That's why I think that we need time to go back to the normal situation, to the situation before the pandemic.

Michelle:       As every economy has struggled around the globe, when things are safe again, I'm sure you want those tourists back.

Massimo:       Well, sure. That's for sure. This new experience, the experience of the pandemic — which is a first for everyone, I think, in the world — tells us that we can't wait to do things. As Latins say, "Carpe diem." So, the message for all the people listening to us today is: don't wait. For the next year, plan to visit Italy. We need everyone's support, really. Here in Italy, you'll find culture, history, nature, people who know how to work with you and push you, and the best food in the world, so we'll wait for you.

Michelle:       What do you want consumers to know about you, about the food supply chain?

Massimo:       As I said before, our business, our activity, has been considered as essential. I think that, really, they gave us the awareness of how important we are for the entire supply chain. We are important because we are preparing the food for the Italians. I say Italians because we are based in Italy, but it's the same for the industry working in the same sector in other countries. We were allowed to work because it was important to bring the food to the people staying home.

                        I remember, I served in the U.S. a few years ago on a farm, on a big farm, and we had shirts, and it was written on this shirt, "Our family is proud to feed your family." It is really important that our work or our job is to feed people. We are open to the people. We want to be transparent with people so that they know what we do and how we do it. It's really important. We invested, in the last year, a lot of money in animal welfare because we believe that better welfare breeds better animals and shows better results. As I said before, to work together with the supply chain, with all the players of our supply chain, is the only way, I think, we can really face the worst.

Michelle:       I want to go back to talk about empathy and a sense of family, a sense of community. Is there a stronger feeling now that we are all in this together, the agricultural supply chain, the consumers? Is there more of a connection now?

Massimo:       Well, a sense of family, I think, is, for us as Italians, at the top of our thoughts. We have seen in the last few weeks that everyone is facing the same problem, and probably the mistake we did (make) was to think, at the beginning, that the coronavirus was the Chinese (people's) problem; then we found it in Italy. Still, everyone thought to close Italy. Then, in a few days, we found it all over Europe, the U.S., South America, and all over the world, so we probably need to share more information. Sharing more information probably could have (been correlated to) less victims, so the method is, when we have difficulties like this, we need to face the difficulties together.

                        What we have seen in Italy is that we have a lot of volunteers helping families, helping other people living alone without having the possibility to go out or to go shopping. Really, what we noticed in the last few weeks is this kind of mutual help to other people, so at different levels — family level, private level, or at the highest level, between different countries. I think that we have to see all these things more in a community way.

Michelle:       Veronesi is a family company. Is that correct?

Massimo:       Yes, it is. It is. Still now, after 62 years, it's still a family company and was founded by Apollinare Veronesi, managed by the five sons after his death, and now we have the third generation in charge. Actually, the president is one representative of the third generation of Veronesis, but they're still now a family company. Yes, it is.

Michelle:       Alltech is also a family company, so we certainly have that in common. Mr. Massimo Zanin, thank you so much for joining us today. Stay safe. Stay well.

Massimo:       Thank you. Thank you so much, too.

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

Click here for additional COVID-19 resources.

As businesses and schools began closing due to the spread of COVID-19, the market for liquid eggs dropped while the demand for shell eggs in grocery stores increased. Dr. Kristi Scott, veterinarian for ISE in Maryland, discusses this shift in the sales of various egg products and how it has affected the industry in North America.

This episode is part of a special AgFuture series on the impact of COVID-19 on the food supply chain. Join us to hear how those on the frontlines of the global pandemic are working to overcome adversity and feed the world.

The following is an edited transcript of Michelle Michael's interview with Dr. Kristi Scott. Click below to hear the full audio.

Michelle:       Hello! I'm Michelle Michael. In this special series of AgFuture, we're talking with those working along the food supply chain about the impact of COVID-19. My guest today is Dr. Kristi Scott, a veterinarian for ISE in Maryland. ISE is an integrated egg-laying and production facility. Kristi, thank you so much for joining us.

Kristi:              Thank you for having me.

Michelle:       Can you tell us a little about your role in the industry?

Kristi:              Yeah. I am the staff veterinarian for ISE America, and I'm in charge of the health and welfare for about six million birds located in South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. I also take care of the food-safety plants for six shell egg plants, as well as one liquid egg plant.

Michelle:       Can you elaborate for me a little bit on what that means? Explain your role in food safety.

Kristi:              Well, basically, I make sure that our plants are following the protocol that I've put in place for our safe quality food programs that we have for our customers to make sure that we have a good product that's going out, that's safe for consumers. We have different audits that we go through, not only from our customers but as well as third parties that come in and make sure that we are doing what we're supposed to be doing according to the Global Food Safety Standard that's out there for any kind of food product that is being produced, and I do that for all of our different plants.

Michelle:       Boy, in the middle of a pandemic, I can only imagine how your role has changed with COVID-19. How is your day-to-day job changing? What's the current state of things where you're located?

Kristi:              Well, I'm based out of South Carolina. At the beginning of this, we basically put a stop to all travel. Normally, I'd travel to all the different locations. I haven't been able to travel to the different locations and be there to help and see and do what needs to be done, so I've been working via email and text and phone calls and trying to help out where I can that way. The biggest difference has been that people turn to the veterinarian for more expertise in the science side of this and are asking questions that healthcare providers are trying to answer.

Michelle:       What are some of those specific questions that they're coming to you with at this time?

Kristi:              Well, how this coronavirus is different than the coronavirus that we see in the chicken houses that we vaccinate for, how this coronavirus is going to be spread from people to people, how can we keep our people safe, how are we going to be able to keep our plants running if we do get people sick, and how are we going to be able to disinfect our plants so that we can keep running, because the chickens don't care if we have sick people and don't have anybody to pack the eggs. They're still going to lay eggs.

Michelle:       Now, speaking of some of those plants, the layer industry in the U.S. has had to switch from breaker eggs to shell eggs to help adjust to restaurants closing and grocery stores booming. Before I ask you what that really means, I want to give our listeners just a little bit of basic bird information. When you go to the supermarket, most eggs are large eggs. There are medium eggs; those are the shell eggs. Also, you see cartons of eggs, egg whites, mixed eggs, etc. Those are from the breaker egg market. Is that a correct understanding of the two things?

Kristi:              Well, shell eggs — basically, breaker eggs come from shell eggs. We take shell eggs and take them to a specialized plant, where we break them open, take the juice out of the inside of the egg, and then plants will then take those eggs and put them in muffins or they'll put them in waffle mixes. What the biggest shift is, the places that utilize the liquid eggs are not running because people are not going to restaurants. People are not going to buy the convenience items as much. They're baking at home, so they're needing shell eggs. They're not needing liquid eggs that are already processed in a product.

                        Also, kids aren't in school and people aren't at work, so the liquid eggs that would have gone into those programs aren't being used. That whole market just stopped completely, and it's very hard to shift from taking eggs that were going into a liquid egg and then putting it into a shell, because some of those plants, the eggs come right out of the chicken house and go into an operation that cracks open the egg right away. There's no packing it in a carton. There's no putting it on a flat. There's nothing. It's right out of the chicken house into a liquid egg plant. That liquid egg now has no home, so that's one problem.

                        The other problem is that, sometimes, these plants were set up so that they were packing on flats that go into Denny's or IHOP or some of these other restaurants, and those restaurants are no longer serving, or if they are serving, there's very, very limited service and at a very reduced rate, so they don't have the packaging or the customer base or the ability to just take those eggs out of that flat and just go ahead and say, “Okay, now we're going to just go right into the grocery store.” It's a logistics nightmare to be able to get those eggs out of that direction and into the grocery store. It's not just flipping the switch and (saying), “Okay, here we go.”

Michelle:       Are breaker eggs and shell eggs processed the same? You talked about how you have this market for eggs, but restaurants are closed. Those breaker eggs can't simply just go to a store. Talk about that processing plant situation and why that's the case.

Kristi:              Well, breaker eggs and shell eggs are processed the same up to a point. They're all washed. They're all graded. Now, with shell eggs, they're graded based on external factors, like the shell has to be smooth and it has to be clean, to a certain extent. It has to not be cracked and it has to be a certain size. That's the kind of grading we do for shell eggs to go into a carton for the final consumer.

                        On a liquid egg plant, the eggs, after they're washed, we have people that are looking for the broken shells. They're looking to see if they're leaking outside of the shell, and then they're also looking to see if there are any internal problems that they want to pull out the egg, because we're just taking the juice out of those eggs. The process is similar in that they're washed, but from that point on, it's very different.

Michelle:       I wonder if you can talk to us about the effect on the actual birds. Do they have shorter life spans? Does this all change the amount of eggs they lay if you're trying to go from breaker eggs to shell eggs, for example?

Kristi:              No. The only difference might be the type of bird that we use. Some breaker markets, they're going to use a bird that lays a very big egg because they want the most juice out of the egg that they can get, especially if they're going right from the chicken house into the breaking plant, because they don't handle the eggs, so they're not going to be broken in any way. They're just going to go right in, be washed, be opened up and get all that juice out, whereas, when you have a shell egg market, eggs that are going into a grocery store, you want a certain percentage of large eggs and a small percentage of extra-large and maybe even a little tiny percentage of jumbo eggs and even a smaller percentage of medium eggs, because we still do have that market. We need a variety in there, and the shell has to be such that it needs to hold up to being packed into a carton and then handled again and taken into a grocery store, to where it'll be put on the shelf. People will open up that carton and see that the shells are still intact, and they want to take it home to their house.

Michelle:       Speaking of eggs in the stores, at supermarkets and grocery stores around the globe, I wonder if — and I know the panic-buying has died down somewhat at this point — but are grocery stores requesting more eggs now due to a higher demand because of this pandemic?

Kristi:              Yes, there's still higher demand, and depending on when you hit the grocery store, it's interesting. When they normally get their egg shipment, some companies are getting their same shipment that they've always been getting just because that's the amount they get, and so that's what they're getting. Some companies are set up that when they hit a certain level, that's when it orders automatically in their system, so they're having more and more ordered. It has to do with the different stores and how their ordering system is. It's more of a logistics matter.

                        I think that people are still buying a lot more eggs just because they're cooking at home. Kids are not back in school, so it's something easy somebody can make for breakfast. They are baking comfort foods at home, so they need eggs for baking. People are realizing how many things that they cook that they put eggs in and not even realizing, "Oh yeah, when we make this, we actually put eggs in this," so they're having to buy more eggs than they were in the past, when they were eating out more.

Michelle:       With that large demand for eggs right now, how does that impact producers in North America?

Kristi:              Well, it's interesting. The liquid egg market is basically zero. It's gone. With the shell egg market, it is starting to drop off just because the liquid egg producers and the producers that can change from packing eggs that went to the restaurants to go to the grocery stores are now starting to flood the market that way, so it's starting to come back down. There was a small jump in prices, but now, it's starting to come back down because it's starting to flood the market again.

Michelle:       I'm curious if you can explain how easy or how difficult it would be to change the bird to lay eggs for the table egg market, for example.

Kristi:              That's not something that you just go in there and say, "Hey, girls, we need to now just lay large eggs." You have to really plan that ahead of time. You have to feed her and set her up so that that's what you want to do. If you want all extra-large and jumbo eggs, because either that's what your market is or that's what you're doing for liquid egg, then you go in there and you give them light to stimulate lay or you go in there and you feed them based on that's what you're looking for.

                        When you want to change to just getting more of a large market — which is usually what people buy in the grocery store in our area, at least, is large — you have to think ahead and think about what kind of protein you want to feed her, when you want to give her light, how much light you want to give her, and changing that late in the lay is not something that you can just go in there and flip a switch. It's a lot harder than that.

Michelle:       It sounds like it's quite a process. This increased demand, does that impact pricing?

Kristi:              Yeah, and like I said, it was very short-lived. It was very short where there was a small jump in prices, but it wasn't a lot. We're very good (in the sense that) everybody rallies and gets eggs where they need to be. Eventually, it will really quickly level out, and there'll be plenty of eggs in the market. It'll be a flood again and the prices will be back down to a level that eggs are selling below what it costs us to make.

Michelle:       Is there a difference in nutritional value with a shell egg versus a breaker egg for humans?

Kristi:              No, ma'am.

Michelle:       I'm curious if you can talk about what you see as the potential long-term impact on the poultry industry because of this pandemic.

Kristi:              It's going to make people more aware of where their food comes, at least in the short-term. Unfortunately, people, I think, they forget very easily. They will forget that our teachers should be paid a million dollars and that our farmers are some of the most important people out there because we all need to be fed and that the truck drivers that get the food and the supplies to the grocery stores are very important.

                        They'll forget that sooner rather than later, but on the poultry industry, I think people will realize that, ultimately, we can't do this without the people that are working and are considered essential.

Michelle:       We so appreciate all of their efforts. Kristi, are there consumer trends in the midst of this pandemic that you find interesting or relevant?

Kristi:              I think it's interesting that people are baking and cooking comfort foods because it gives them a sense of normalcy.

Michelle:       We all like comfort foods. Kristi, you've been doing this for almost two decades. Have you ever seen anything like this in the industry? People talk about this pandemic, and the word we keep hearing over and over again is “unprecedented”. Is the impact in the industry also unprecedented and something that you've never really seen or felt before?

Kristi:              Never. I thought that the flu, the AI, that hit the industry in 2015 could never be topped, and this has definitely topped it, by far.

Michelle:       You talk about AI. That's avian influenza. Can you describe how that was different than what we're experiencing today in the industry?

Kristi:              I think (it was different) because people were more aware of what flu does to people, so people were more willing to accept that we needed to control it and we needed to get this tamped down; we needed to get this under control. It devastated the industry in the Midwest, definitely, and was an eye-opener for a lot of people on how to handle our biosecurity and how to keep things in check, how to monitor and how to look for things, but I think people were more willing to accept it and more willing to go with it because they understand flu and they understand, “We need to control this.”

                        When this coronavirus hit, I think it was so novel and so unique that it just was hard for everybody to wrap their head around. It was hard for everybody to figure out how to make this happen and how to make a normal life out of this and why we needed to do the things that we're doing. There are still people out there that are like, "Oh no, this isn't real. This is a hoax." Well, maybe not. We might need to keep figuring this out and getting this under control.

Michelle:       You mentioned biosecurity. Has it changed once again with COVID-19 as it did, as you mentioned, with avian influenza?

Kristi:              I think it made people realize that you can only control what is happening at the facility, and that's all biosecurity really is, is you can only control what is happening right there. I've had a lot of people say, "Well, I can't ask people to wear a mask even though they're standing shoulder to shoulder in this plant because they ride to work together." I said, “You've got to control what's happening at your facility. You can't control what happens outside your facility.” That's what biosecurity is about. That's what all this biosecurity, even with people, is about, is controlling what's happening at the facility and making sure that we keep animals safe as well as people safe.

Michelle:       A lot of people, you said, have been turning to you to ask you questions specifically about COVID-19. What are people feeling? What are their emotions? What's on their mind right now?

Kristi:              It's a very wide array. It's interesting to see how different people are reacting to this. I've gotten everything from "Oh my God, I've got the corona and I'm dying" to panic to sorrow to "This is a hoax and we all just need to get it and get over with it."

Michelle:       Well, we certainly hope that, around the globe, we return to whatever our new normal is going to be sooner rather than later. Kristi, take care of yourself. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Kristi:              Thank you for having me.

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

Click here for additional COVID-19 resources.

While some pork processing plants have shut down temporarily, swine farmers are being forced into difficult circumstances. Dan Bussieres, swine nutritionist in Quebec, explains the challenges that come with farmers not being able to move their pigs to processing plants and shares what trends he is seeing within the industry.

This episode is part of a special AgFuture series on the impact of COVID -19 on the food supply chain. Join us to hear how those on the frontlines of the global pandemic are working to overcome adversity and feed the world.

The following is an edited transcript of Michelle Michael's interview with Dan Bussieres. Click below to hear the full audio.

Michelle:       Hello! I'm Michelle Michael. In this special series of AgFuture, we're talking with those working along the food supply chain about the impact of COVID-19. My guest today is Dan Bussieres from Quebec. Dan is a swine nutritionist who works with producers all over Canada. Dan, thanks so much for joining us today.

Dan:               You're welcome.

Michelle:       Can you tell us a little bit about your role in the industry? What does your day-to-day look like?

Dan:               I have been in the swine industry for 25 years now. I (have) run my own business, with some partners, since 2005. My role has been mostly swine nutrition support to producers in the swine industry in Canada. I'm also involved a lot in research with our customers and some of the research barns we look after in Canada. I'm also doing some consulting with a group in China for about three years now and (am) also doing some work with some groups in Japan over the last year.

                        My day-to-day is reformulating diets for customers, evaluating new feed programs, making sure we are on top of our nutrition program in terms of new research that we are doing and, also, with other people in the industry. We are involved a lot with the suppliers in conducting research programs with them, to be in contact with them as well, to understand the new technology available for us on the market.

                        Our focus has always been on cost as well, so we've been doing a lot of research, but at the end of the day, our focus has been to be cost-effective in our production with our customer. We also have a production company that raises pigs in Quebec. We produce about 250,000 or 200,000 pigs a year in Quebec. This is not a huge number based on the U.S. standard, but for Quebec production, it's a nice number. Like I said, we have some skin in the game, so we're not just consulting with our customers. We also raise pigs ourselves, which helps us to understand better the needs of our customers.

Michelle:       When it comes to consulting — particularly right now — on the nutrition side of things, how crucial is your role, especially right now, in the midst of this pandemic?

Dan:               I think things have been different over the last month and a half, with less traveling and more web meetings. Our role is to make sure our customers get served the way they were (being served) before (the pandemic). I think technology help us a lot to be effective on that side. On the nutrition side, I don't think there has been a lot of change — although, recently, we've had some issues with some supplies of ingredients, like DDGs, wheat, so some ingredient suppliers have been short due to some reduction in internal production, so we have to do a lot of reformation lately, and we'll talk about that a bit later, all the strategies around slowing down pigs, some of the packing plant issues that we have in Quebec and also in other parts of North Canada. I think it's more effective in answering your customer, which we'll always try to be because, sometimes, you need to introduce requests pretty quick, so that's our goal: to be effective, to answer our customers.

                        In terms of research, there's a bit of a challenge now to conduct research due to the fact that we may be short of labor, in some form, (and) access to feed meal for manufacturing diets. Also, our research diet has been a bit limited now, so we have to juggle around with some of the research projects that we have on the go, but so far, it's been not too bad.

Michelle:       I want to go back just a moment to what you just talked about. We've heard that some meat processing plants in Canada — especially a swine processing plant — needed to shut down for some time because workers contracted coronavirus. There are similar stories in the U.S. How is this impacting the industry in Canada right now?

Dan:               Well, in Quebec, that's probably our biggest concern right now: the fact that we have some packing capacity that has been reduced. The plant that shut down three weeks ago reopened last week, but with a much slower pace, which is about 4,000 pigs they killed last week versus 28,000 they normally kill. Two weeks prior to that, they were at zero. Today in Quebec, at the end of last week, we had about 90,000 to 100,000 pigs that were not killed over the last two to three weeks, which is about 20% to 25% of the normal killing that we have as a backup, so that's a bit of a concern for now.

                        For the next two to three weeks, we still can probably keep some pigs in the barn with doing different strategies, but we are very concerned about the fact that if we cannot ramp up killing production, that's going to become an issue. There's talk about humane euthanasia on pigs. Nobody wants to do that, but I know there's some government talks about that, that we should do it if we have to do it.

                        In the northern part of Canada, Ontario has been really good. The two plants in Ontario have been pretty much full-speed. They took the strategy to do some Saturday kills as well to keep up on production. Out west, if I look at Manitoba, Alberta, where there's a major plant, so far, it's been good. The COVID-19 situation over there is less of an issue versus Quebec. Quebec has been hit pretty bad with COVID-19 over the last couple of weeks, so that's a concern.

                        The other plants are also slowing down a bit. There are two plants that are accessed from workers from the Montreal area. Montreal is in bad shape for the COVID, so those workers cannot come to the plant anymore, so short labor means they cannot kill as much pigs as they used to. Overall, it's okay right now. It's under control, even though there are some pigs backing up, but we have to find a solution within the next two to three weeks. If not, there's going to be some problems here.

Michelle:       Dan, I want to break this down for a minute because, when you're confronted with a situation like this, what happens? Normally, a producer would feed for efficiency. How do you manage pigs when they are the right size to go to the processing plant but COVID delays that from happening? Do you have to slow the growth? If so, how do you do that? Is that safe?

Dan:               First of all, when we first heard about that plant closure three weeks ago, that's what we did right away. We set up a diet, what we call a “low energy maintenance” diet, which is a bulky diet that we can feed to our pigs that are ready to go to market. There are different ways you can do it. Do you want to slow down the pigs that are ready to go to market or do you want to slow down all the pigs in your system to avoid more pigs being ready to go to market within the next two to three weeks?

                        The first strategy for us was to slow down the pigs and late finishers so we don't get pigs that are too big, although the packing plants have opened the grid to ship heavier pigs, because that's what we have been doing over the last two to three weeks. We always ship the heavier pigs, so pigs that are heavier than normal. Feeding a bulky diet has been the first thing we put in place to try to limit the growth of those pigs without compromising health and welfare, because that's the other concern. If you limit growth by feed restriction or other means, you can impact the welfare of the pigs and have other issues, so our goal was to feed a lot of fiber, high-NDF and soluble fiber, in our diet to try to maintain the pigs' well-being without aiming to grow too fast.

                        There are a lot of strategies that can be put in place to slow down the pigs. This is probably the best one — although, over the last two to three weeks, like I mentioned, we have lower access to some of the high-fiber ingredients that we used to have, either from a cost perspective or just a supply perspective. It's okay, on paper, to set up those diets, but at the end of the day, you need to be able to access the ingredients that you want to get those diets going and also do it in a cost-effective manner. There's a little bit of a challenge around that right now. Like I said, we've been okay so far, but there's a limit to slow down the growth of the pigs. Also, there's a limit to adding more pigs to a barn. You need to empty the barn at (some) point because crowding and other things can become an issue.

Michelle:       Dan, when you talk about slowing the growth of pigs, are there things not to do?

Dan:               Yes. Like I said, we always have to keep in mind the well-being of the pigs and make sure that we do the right things with the pigs, even though we want to slow the growth of the pigs. One thing that we don't want to do is restrict water intake. Make sure that pigs still have access to water. Although we know that if we drop water intake, pigs' slow growth will happen, we don't want to do that. We don't want to create a situation where we get issues with the pigs' welfare, so no water restriction. You can get into salt poisoning as well if you lower water intake, so that's an issue. That's something we don't want to see.

                        Overcrowding to an extreme point — like I said, at (some) point, you have to realize that crowding is not a good thing and that (it) will affect not just the growth of the pigs but also the welfare of the pigs. We don't want that to happen. We want our industry to be well-seen by the public people, so although we have to take some action, we want to make it in the way that we treat our pigs okay as well, so overcrowding to the extreme point is not recommended. Also, people will say, “Drop the salt and it will reduce water intake and it will reduce the growth of the pigs,” but if you drop the chlorine level when you bring down salt in the diet, you can reduce also the feed intake and you can get some issues with the welfare of the pigs.

                        Increasing temperature and lowering ventilation — in Quebec right now, it's still a bit of winter. It's still cold, so doing those things is not that bad, but once you go to summertime, you don't want to create some issues with ventilation, air quality and, again, creating some issues with the well-being of the pigs.

                        Those couple of points should not be thought about. Look at the diet first. Talk with the nutritionist. Talk with your production people and try to find a way to achieve your goal without compromising the welfare of the pigs.

Michelle:       It seems producers are facing so much uncertainty at this time. How long can producers sustain operating this way? Is there an expiration date, so to speak, to where they won't be able to continue slowing the growth?

Dan:               Like I said, the first two to three weeks or four weeks, we're okay to manage it, but we are close to the end of that period. I was mentioning that if, in the next two to three weeks, we are not able to go back to a higher speed of killing pigs in Quebec, we're going to face a problem. That's why there's been talk about humane euthanasia of pigs. Nobody wants to go there, but there's a point where we're going to have to think about that. We already thought about it, but there's a point where we may have to go at it. The issue with the swine industry is that the time before you make a decision for those pigs go to market, we can slaughter sows, reduce breeding, reduce farrowing rates, but those things will have an impact in four to six months. People don't want to make a decision now that would impact throughput in four to six months, when, we think, things would be back to normal.

                        The chicken industry in Canada has cut down by 15%, but the chicken turnover is pretty quick. It's 30 to 35 days to produce a chicken, so by reducing hatching by 15% within the next four or five weeks, you're going to see some impact. Pigs are different, so it's tough to make a decision that will have an impact in four to six months, thinking that the situation would be back to normal — if we know what is normal at that time. That's another issue. People are just crossing their fingers, hoping for things to turn around quick and then just living with this situation for three to four weeks without having to kill pigs on the farm or doing some humane euthanasia at the plant.

Michelle:       Certainly, we all hope this is resolved and much, much better four to six months from now, but what's the worst-case scenario in four to six months? You talked about there being problems down the line, potentially. What are your thoughts?

Dan:               Well, if there's a problem, that's a tough situation, because we need to have a crystal ball to see what will happen in four to six months. If we knew, we can make the decision right now that will get some impact at that time and make us able to go through that situation, but we don't know what will be the situation in four to six months. That's our biggest challenge. That's a bit different than when you get hit by a disease like ASF, which we have some plants in Canada to act against that. We know that if ASF comes to Canada, there's going to probably be four to six months or a year when we won't be able to export pigs, something like that, so then we can make decisions based on those terms.

                        Today, with the COVID, it's much tougher to make decisions, because we hope and we all expect the situation to be back to normal within a couple of months from now. If that's not the case and we don't make a decision now, we're going to face some problems down the road. We've had some discussions last week with some producers in Canada and in the U.S. as well, and I think everybody's on the same page on that: they just wait and see. I know, in U.S., there's more sow liquidation happening right now, and I don't think it's only a matter of COVID; it's a matter of price, which is related to COVID, but the price is so bad that some people are making decisions to take down some sow numbers.

                        In Canada, we haven't seen that yet — although some smaller producers, we think, will take opportunity of the situation right now to quit the market. We have a lot of small farrow-to-finish independent farms in Quebec that don't have any people to take over. When the price is good, they keep going, because they certainly can make some money, but with the situation right now, (with) the price and the uncertainty about COVID and the future, we're going to see some liquidation of smaller farms in Quebec.

Michelle:       Dan, I want to go back to something you just said for our listeners who may not fully understand. You said ASF. That is African swine fever that you're referring to, I assume.

Dan:               Yeah.

Michelle:       Now, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, there were other viruses, like African swine fever and others. Are producers still dealing with those issues and, now, COVID-19, on top of all of this?

Dan:               Well, like I said, we don't have African swine fever. In North America, it's not an issue. The one thing that is probably good about the situation right now is (that) the risk of getting African swine fever in the North American industry was coming, probably, from people traveling from Asia, bringing back some food products that could get into food chain or production chain. With the closure of the border and much less traveling, I think that's a safer world right now for us, in terms of protecting our industry from ASF.

                        With that being said, the risk is always there, but there's a difference. The ASF is the worst thing, because we have to shut down our exports in Canada, which is 70% of our big production. COVID, we think it's a temporary situation that will resolve. The only thing we don't know is how long it's going to take to go back to normal.

Michelle:       I want to talk about biosecurity. That's always been extremely important in swine production, but have you noticed any changes or extra precautions that you and your clients are taking during this pandemic?

Dan:               There are a couple of things that we are doing differently. It's mostly (related to) the protection of the people we work with in our business. As an essential lead business, we're still doing business on a daily basis. In terms of office staff, we try to reduce the traffic at the office, but at the production plants where we produce feed micro-premix, our staff is at full capacity. We try to minimize the contact between people.

The paperwork has been changed as well. The delivery on the farm has been done in order to reduce human contact and exchange of paper, so we put in place those extra safety procedures to make sure that we protect our people.

                        In some of the farms, we know that COVID is not — so far, we have no proof that COVID could be transmitted to livestock, so things didn't change that much on the farm virus committee to protect their pigs from the disease. We are more scared about PRRS and other diseases on the farm side. COVID doesn't affect pigs, but at the same time, we think the workers on farms have (taken) extra steps in protecting themselves between the workers — so washing their hands, wearing masks, things like that. Again, it's the same for everybody. If some people have some signs of COVID or things like that, they won't go to work.

                        The problem on the farm is, when you have a small farm with yourself and your wife and no employees, the risk of transmitting disease to other people is less, but at the same time, if you get sick, you still have to go on the farm and feed your pigs. For larger farms, it's less of an issue because there are more people, but at the same time, if you lose half of your working staff on the farm, it's tough to replace that.

                        So far, it's been okay. The countryside is more remote than the big city. In Quebec — Montreal has been, like I said, the biggest place for the COVID, but if you look at the backyard or the countryside, it's been not too bad so far. I haven't heard of any cases in terms of farm people, working people on farms, that have been affected. So far, it's been okay.

Michelle:       That's good news. When you talk about changing the way you feed pigs because you can't move the pigs, you do that through nutrition modification used to slow the growth. Are there behavioral issues or other issues in the barn that you, then, also have to manage?

Dan:               So far, it's been okay. Like I said, feeding the high-fiber, bulky diet will get the pigs satisfied and won't create, so far, any tail-biting or behavioral issues with the pigs. The issue we may face is when we start to crowd the pigs. If we have a barn where we do double stock and we cannot reduce crowding after a certain period of time, then the crowding may become an issue — (especially with) access to feed, access to water. The nutrition side, I'm not too worried about what we have done or what we are doing, unless we add some crowding and water issues in terms of access for the pigs.

                        There are other people that have looked at some other ways to reduce the growth of their pigs, like increasing the temperature in the barn. If you increase the temperature, feed intake will go down and you may slow down the growth of the pigs, but those types of strategies have to be really well-done because you can create some issues with the welfare of the pigs. Those things have to be done with some thought behind it. Like I said, the other thing that people can do to reduce feed intake is to add some calcium chloride to your feed. There's a good dataset that shows that calcium chloride will reduce feed intake, but you need to have between 2% and 4% of the product in the feed, which can reduce the feed intake of the pigs, but at the same time, because you are adding a lot of calcium along with the chloride, you need to adjust your calcium-to-phosphorus ratio.

                        All those strategies are short-term strategies. If we think about long-term strategies to slow down the growth of the pigs, none of those strategies are good over time. We're talking about the two-to-four-week strategy, and after that, like I said, if we have to keep slowing down the growth of the pigs, there's going to be some other stuff that needs to be done, which is reducing the throughput of the pigs in the farm. This means euthanasia of pigs or reducing the number of pigs by farrowing number, things like that, which takes time to be done.

Michelle:       Dan, as a nutritionist, have you ever faced anything like this in all the years you've been doing this job?

Dan:               Never. Never, for sure. We have, sometimes, some pigs that cannot be shipped to the plant because of holidays, short weeks, those types of things, but when we talk about a situation like this, today, where we don't know how long it's going to take, (no). The other thing is that we're starting to have some more cases in some of the plants that are still running. Those plants will be shut down or (will have to) reduce throughput by a lot. The one that reopened last week, it's good. There are still four, five, six other plants in Quebec that haven't been too much affected so far, but if there's an increase of COVID cases in those plants, they're going to be shut down or they're going to be reduced by more than half of the throughput.

                        There's a lot of uncertainty. Honestly, we go day by day and then we can bring something different, so we need to be able to adapt. Our pig producers are pretty resilient, but it's tough, and the price on top of that — everybody knows that the live price of the pigs was the lowest we've ever seen for a long time (before the pandemic), so we are losing money right now when we ship pigs to the plants. We keep those pigs for extra time in the barn, and we have to feed those pigs, so even though we feed them the low-energy diet, there's added cost to feed those pigs. When you put that all together, that's tough on the cash flow.

                        The biggest issue for producers is cash flow right now, because you don't ship your pigs or you get paid for the ones you ship like crap, so you lose money on every pig you ship. You don't ship all the pigs you have, and the pigs you keep in the barn, you have to feed those pigs, so there's cost added to those pigs. It's really not a fun situation. Cash-flow-wise, it's really tough for the producer. The government can come back with some programs to support that, which we don't have. We have some programs that can help on that aspect, but not to the extent of what we're living right now. A compensation program based on cost of production is one thing, but now, it's beyond that. Yeah, that's going to be tough for some people, and some people won't make it and will use that time to exit the production.

Michelle:       Producers, as you've mentioned, they're extremely hardworking individuals, very passionate about what they do. As you continue to consult, describe the emotion you're hearing from producers firsthand, if you could. What's the main thing you're hearing during this truly unprecedented, challenging time?

Dan:               Like I said, it's a bit different, because Quebec is in a different situation than the rest of our customers in Canada and even in China. I can come back (to discuss) China after, but if I talk about Quebec, like I said, other people are asking what will happen within the next two to three weeks. Everybody is pretty comfortable with where they are today, even though they know it's not easy, but if things don't go back to normal within the next two to three weeks, that's going to be tough. We're going to see, like I said, some people quitting production. We'll see some bankruptcy.

                        I think, on mental health, it's pretty hard as well, for some people. In Quebec, I think the situation is a bit different than the rest of Canada. (In) the rest of Canada, people are not seeing (the effects of the pandemic) except the price, which is not good — but the throughput of pigs to the plant, except (for) some people in Ontario that were shipping to Quebec, has not been too bad. Things are okay in that sense, although the price is something that's (affected) probably, well, everybody in Canada.

                        In China, COVID has been there before, so January and February were tough for them, but because of the ASF that has been going on in China for two years now, the price of pigs are really, really good, so everybody that still produces pigs makes a lot of money in China. Even though you lost 20% to 25% of your production, with the profit per pig that the market has been showing recently, they still make money. In China, the mindset is a bit different. Although they've been affected by ASF and then COVID, in terms of issues with labor and things like that — and there's an issue with moving pigs between provinces and things like that — the price has been so good that all of that has been compensated (for) by good prices and making some profit, which is a bit like the PED (virus) in 2013 in the U.S. The PED brought the price to a record level in 2014. I know some people lost money because they were affected by PED, but overall, the industry had a very good year because of the short supply of pigs at that time.

Michelle:       Dan, you mentioned some of the consulting and research that you do there in China. Can you tell us, are there lessons from China that we can use here?

Dan:               We can talk about ASF as a lesson — that we have to keep it away from us. The problem in Canada is that we are an export market, so ASF — to go to a country where you don't export versus (a country that does) export, I think the impact is much different. For us, it's a no-no. We don't want to get ASF in North America, that's for sure.

                        I think the Chinese — we want to keep working with that market. It's a very good export market for the meat packers in North America. We want China to go back where they were before. We hope not, but we like them to have short supplies of meat so we can export meats to those places. In terms of COVID, the other situation that happened with COVID in China is that the price of vitamins and amino acids has been raised since February to March due to the closure of some plants, due to short labor, due to the Chinese New Year that spanned for four weeks instead of two, so there was a lot of delay in production and shipping of goods from China to North America, so the price of amino acids and vitamins has been up. That's another side impact of the COVID from Asia that affects our cost of production.

                        When I looked at it last time, there was about two or three bucks per pig's increase in cost of production in terms of feed cost, due to the amino acid and vitamin price from January to March. So, within two months, you're adding $2 or $3 per pig on the feed cost because of that situation, (which) is out of your control. We rely on China. We hope they control their stuff to make sure that they don't create issues on our end, but we would like to think that China should have a short supply of meat so we can still export meat over there, because that's probably our biggest opportunity for the industry to keep making some money on the meat side.

                        The problem we have right now in the industry is that people don't have access to packing, don't have interest in the packing business or meat retail, just producer stuff for them, because the price of the live meat is really low — although the price of sending meat to Asia, Japan, China, for a packer is still pretty good.

Michelle:       As you mentioned, the next few weeks will determine so much. Our fingers are crossed for all of those resilient producers out there. Dan Bussieres from Quebec, stay safe and well. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Dan:               Thanks for your time.

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

Click here for additional COVID-19 resources.

While the spread of COVID-19 continues to affect the food supply chain and consumer demands, how has aquaculture handled all the changes? Nick Lykiardopulo of Philosofish, located in Greece, shares challenges that are currently impacting the aquaculture industry and what he expects for the future of fish farming.

This episode is part of a special AgFuture series on the impact of COVID-19 on the food supply chain. Join us to hear how those on the frontlines of the global pandemic are working to overcome adversity and feed the world.

The following is an edited transcript of Michelle Michael's interview with Nick Lykiardopulo. Click below to hear the full audio.

Michelle:       Hello! I'm Michelle Michael. In this special series of AgFuture, we're talking with those working along the food supply chain about the impact of COVID-19. My guest today is Mr. Nick Lykiardopulo. His company, Philosofish, is a Greek business producing sea bass and bream. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Nick:               Hi! Thank you for having me in this interview.

Michelle:       We're going to talk about fish farming today. Where are you located, and what is your role in the aquaculture industry?

Nick:               I'm currently in Greece, but I actually live in Switzerland. I chose to sit out the lockdown in Greece partially to be closer to some elderly relatives and partially because of business interests, particularly aquaculture in Greece, which has been going through some challenging times during the crisis, and I wanted to be nearby. I'm an investor in a large aquaculture business in Greece.

Michelle:       From a personal standpoint — we'll get to the impact of COVID-19 on aquaculture in a minute — but from a personal standpoint, what's going on outside your door right now? What's life like for you?

Nick:               Well, specifically in Greece, Greece has been one of the success stories in terms of control of coronavirus. The government took very draconian and early steps to control social contract. As a result, even though Greece has a similar population to the state of New York, it's had less than 150 fatalities and less than 2,500 infected, confirmed infections.

                        In terms of the local society, everyone's been experiencing the same lockdown as everybody else in the world, but the sad headlines we've seen elsewhere have been absent from Greece. From my own point of view, I'm a man who catches ten-hour plane flights a week, and so it's had a big effect on my lifestyle — one which I've actually quite enjoyed, being in one place for a month and a half.

Michelle:       Let's go now to the impact of COVID-19 on your actual business. You talked about aquaculture being impacted greatly. Can you just give us the basics of what's going on in that world?

Nick:               Well, I think the two significant effects are, first of all, on demand, on our sales, largely because of the closure of restaurants, hotels, the cruise line industry, the disappearance of people traveling for holidays or on business. A big part of the demand for aquaculture is now closed, which has had an effect on the sales of a lot of aquaculture businesses who directed their product towards those channels. Obviously, there has been an increase in those that sell largely to supermarkets.

                        The second effect — and immediate effect, at any rate — has been on the logistics chains. Shipping movements have been difficult and complicated. Road transport and ferry transport has been affected. Drivers and products are subject to greater delays at borders and periods, sometimes, of quarantine. This has made distribution more difficult. On top of that, air freight has substantially reduced in terms of its capacity to carry seafood because there are so many less passenger flights, which also carry freight at the same time as the passengers.

Michelle:       From a fairly basic point of view, when we talk about the aquaculture industry, the types of fish farming that you're talking about, is there a certain type of fish that we're speaking of?

Nick:               Yes. The Mediterranean fish market is predominantly made up of sea bass and sea bream — or in the States, (they’re) usually referred to as branzino for sea bass and dorade for sea bream, branzino being more well-known to U.S. consumers, but there are other species which are being produced and developed in the Mediterranean.

                        It's a white fish, relatively small in terms of its volume compared to salmon — around 300,000 annual production, compared to slightly over two million tons of salmon.

Michelle:       But across the board, all those species are impacted at this time.

Nick:               Yes. From what I read and learn by joining webinars, a very similar experience has been had by the salmon industry, and I believe (it’s) the same with shellfish and other forms of aquaculture.

Michelle:       Without the ability to move fish at this time, can we discuss some of the global stresses and strains, some of the challenges facing fish farmers right now?

Nick:               Well, short-term, the challenges are that if you don't sell your fish, there are several knock-on effects in our business, in our business model. Mediterranean fish production is a two-year growth cycle, and so if, for a period — especially one that is about to go through the high-growth period of the year, the summer — we don't sell all of our fish, we are presented with a series of problems. First of all, we continue to feed our fish, which means that we have greater feed costs, (which puts) quite a lot of stress on our businesses' cash flows. As a result, probably most businesses reduce the level of their feeding to a non-optimal level, so they're not making the best use of their resources. At the same time, the fish grow to, in many cases, above the best ideal size for the market. At the same time, the cages become more crowded, increasing the risk of disease. Often, the licensing, regulatory and just physical restrictions mean that the fish can't be spread out more widely to alleviate those problems.

                        The next effect is that in not selling mature fish, new fry is not being stocked, which cannibalizes our ability to produce fish during the next two years, so for 2021 and 2022. Further on, that creates a logjam in our hatcheries, where the fry, which were waiting to be stocked, start to become too large and too overcrowded to remain in the hatcheries, so it has quite a considerable effect on our business model.

Michelle:       It sounds like a snowball effect, really. From the consumer point of view, should we be concerned that, down the line, there could be a shortage of fish in supermarkets?

Nick:               Well, I think there will be less production in the next year, but by necessity, fish farmers will stock less fish in their cages. They will seek, as best as they can, to sell cheaply their fish currently, but investment in future biomass will be reduced. I don't know if there'll be a shortage on the ground, but it's quite difficult to define what a shortage is in a protein market, because none of the fish that is produced is thrown away and all of it gets eaten, so demand pretty much equals supply. It's just that consumers may have to eat different products to the ones that they prefer in order to satisfy their dietary requirements.

Michelle:       When we talk about these disruptions, will that affect fish pricing in the future?

Nick:               Yes, I think it will reduce fish pricing in the short-term but increase it in the longer term, for a variety of reasons — firstly, because of less supply; secondly, because the cost of operating all businesses, not just aquaculture businesses, will become higher. Supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, cruise ships, transportation businesses will all have to live with a degree of social distancing for many years to come. This is not a problem which is going to be solved in the next two to three months, so the cost model for all aspects of society, public transport, the way we operate in our office spaces is going to become more expensive across the board.

                        That, inevitably, will filter through to the prices of whatever is being produced — in this case, fish. On the positive side, it seems likely that energy prices will go through a period of considerable reduction over supply of energy, and that will counteract some of the effects that I described.

Michelle:       Another potential positive, I suppose you could say, (is that) fish is known as a healthy diet option. Do you think, in the long-term, this crisis will make consumers more aware of the benefits of seafood?

Nick:               Very much so. We're seeing this as a very positive development for the industry. Firstly, there have been a number of academic and governmental comments about how vitamin D- and omega-3-rich diets improve the immune system and how it is one of the ways that people can prepare themselves better to fight off this or any future virus. Also, I believe that there is an increasing focus on healthy diet, partially because of an imposed more sedentary lifestyle, but partially because it is clear that obesity has been a major increased risk factor in terms of mortality and serious repercussions of the virus. These are not problems that can be solved in one or two months of changing one's diet, but actually, one's immune reaction can be improved in the very short term.

                        One's general well-being and the quality of one's diet takes longer to improve, but we believe that there'll be more focus on that as time moves on — and more focus on the traceability and the animal health aspects of producing food. I think it's fairly widely accepted that whatever the immediate causes of the current pandemic, elements of poor animal health have contributed to the start of the virus, and I believe that both governments and consumers will become increasingly focused on this.

Michelle:       Certainly, so many changes from this pandemic. I'm curious, from your point of view, if you think the aquaculture industry has ever faced a challenge as serious as the coronavirus, or is this unprecedented, just like the pandemic itself?

Nick:               Well, I'm not sure that the pandemic is unprecedented. It's certainly unprecedented in our lifetime, but I think if we look back in history, there have been many pandemics. If we take Spanish flu, which was only a hundred years ago, at that time, between 3% and 6% of the population is estimated to have died as a result of Spanish flu. The economic effects were very, very strongly felt — actually, particularly in the United States, and very differently from one city to another, depending on its reaction to the epidemic. Going back further, in the 14th century, there was a great famine which killed 30% to 50% of Europe's population, and the Black Death is estimated to have killed around 25% of the world's population, so it's not unprecedented in human history, just in our lifetime.

                        I think that as far as the aquaculture industry is concerned, it has faced some very big challenges from animal disease, from outbreaks of disease amongst the animals that we farm and, indeed, the effects of El Nino on the cost of feed and the availability of feed inputs, but it's certainly, in my understanding, the worst crisis that we've faced in terms of reduction of demand because, apart from the period of closure of restaurants, as I've said, we can expect a very substantial decline in world GDP, in the spending power of consumers and the ability of governments to fund projects because of lower taxation receipts.

                        The overall effect on the world economy and, therefore, the buying power of our customers is, I believe, unprecedented.

Michelle:       Restaurants are closed. Farmers now have to hold onto their fish longer. Does that change the way they operate — feeding, stocking, things like that?

Nick:               Yes. It means reduction in feed rates, reduction in stocking rates. It means a greater focus on new forms of sales. Quite a lot of home delivery is now taking place. Supermarkets are increasing their proportion of the food market in the absence of restaurants. Consumers are favoring products which have longer shelf life and greater ease of handling, not just canned and frozen foods, for reasons of easy cooking at home but also preferring to avoid the risk of fresh meat or fish or other products having been recently handled on the fish counter or the meat counter in the supermarket.

                        People's purchasing habits are changing, and the focus of the industry will be increasingly on easy-to-cook, ready-to-eat products and elements of food safety. In the very short-term, though, people tend to reach for cheap staples: dry foods, rice, pasta, and those are the things — tinned tomatoes — which are sold out first in the supermarkets, but over a longer term, I think people will want protein with easy-to-eat and easy-to-store characteristics.

Michelle:       It's been said that crisis, at times, drives innovation. Do you see any positives coming from what's happening right now in the world?

Nick:               Yes. I think we will see, in our industry, a less fragmented industry, because it will be generally easier for the larger and better-capitalized businesses to survive. I think we will see a greater emphasis on production being close to consumers in the market and not being reliant on very long supply chains, which may be interrupted for one reason or another.

                        I think a focus on food safety will be a great opportunity for the industry. Countries will also focus on food security at times when imports, for one reason or another, become difficult. We have seen that China, for example, has had to dramatically eat into its strategic food reserves in order to avoid food shortages during this period and is now actively replacing that food, but I think it's unlikely that other countries will not learn the lesson of the potential of food shortages when supply chains are interrupted. I think all of that is an opportunity for the aquaculture industry to direct investment with considerable government support throughout the world and to develop new markets.

Michelle:       Nick, you're a recent investor in the Mediterranean industry, is that correct?

Nick:               Yes, that's correct, in the last five years.

Michelle:       How do you see your business developing in the next five years?

Nick:               Well, I think we see quite considerable opportunities for growth. We have a strong investor group who are committed to the food sector generally — and particularly to aquaculture.

                        We believe that the opportunity is there for aquaculture producers to follow — certainly the Mediterranean ones — to follow the model pursued by salmon and shrimp and other sectors of our industry and produce less and less round fish and more and more processed and ready-to-eat products, all of which requires considerable amounts of investment and a great deal more employment to items which will be much in need in much of Europe — and particularly in Greece — over the next few years.

Michelle:       And nobody knows, day to day, nobody knows a timeline. The pandemic really is driving the time, but how long might we expect the effects of the coronavirus pandemic to influence the aquaculture industry?

Nick:               Well, I think, because of the long growth period for fish, undoubtedly, for the next two to three years. The economic effects on GDP, disposable income, different travel habits, the way people take the holidays — I think we'll have a longer effect of at least five years. Restaurants will not be able to operate, for a long period of time, in the way that they have done in the past. Table density will be reduced. Health requirements will be much greater. Hotels will have to operate in a completely different way to the way they do now, which will increase costs, reduce the number of available bedrooms (and), therefore, the number of people eating meals. Cruise ships, for example, will have to operate, if they do, in a completely different way. All of those will have very long-term effects on the way we live our lives. I can see five years as being the minimum period that we will see the effect.

Michelle:       I'm curious if, in your eyes, you think this pandemic will impact the way consumers look at farmers. Are farmers more appreciated as the world's food supply is threatened at this time?

Nick:               Yes, I think they are. I'm not so sure how long consumers' memories last, but certainly at the moment, the lack of mobility for cheap labor, pickers, seasonal workers in many parts of the world — either mobility within the country or mobility across borders — has focused on the need for sustainable local farmers. I think that people appreciate those in the food supply chain, even down to those stocking shelves in supermarkets, as being key workers. A number of politicians I think quite rightly said that we will all look at the people who collect our trash and the people who stock our supermarket shelves in a different way following this crisis.

                        I just think that society has a relatively short memory. Ten years from now, people will be increasingly less careful about passing disease one from another, but in the short-term, I think this crisis will drive a great deal of change in the way we live our lives and the way people think about life. I'm in my 60s. I'm one of the first generations that has not faced the likelihood of imminent death at all during my working life, but my parents and grandparents all lived through very significant wars, outbreaks of disease, persecution on a global scale. We've lived a kind of charmed lifetime in which we haven't faced those risks. We're very saddened, certainly, in the developed world when people die at a young age or in accidents, whereas for many, many centuries — and, indeed, it is still in some parts of the world — the fragility of one's life is a daily worry for people. I think this will change people's psychology, certainly, for the next few years.

Michelle:       This virus certainly has changed all of us. Mr. Lykiardopulo, stay safe, stay well. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Nick:               Thank you for having me. Thanks a lot.

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

Click here for additional COVID-19 resources.

Recently, there have been many stories of those extending compassion and stepping up to help those in need. Bill Gray shares how Gray Ridge Egg Farms donated 108,000 eggs to food banks, churches and other institutions in small communities and why they felt compelled to go the extra mile to give back.

This episode is part of a special AgFuture series on the impact of COVID-19 on the food supply chain. Join us to hear how those on the frontlines of the global pandemic are working to overcome adversity and feed the world.

Hosted by Michelle Michael

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

Co-produced by Brandon Whitworth

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

The following is an edited transcript of Michelle Michael's interview with Bill Gray. Click below to hear the full audio.

Michelle:       Hello! I'm Michelle Michael. In this special series of AgFuture, we're talking with those working along the food supply chain about the impact of COVID-19. My guest today is Bill Gray, a major player in Canada's egg industry. Bill, thank you so much for joining us today from Ontario — is that right?

Bill:                 That's right.

Michelle:       Your operation is one of the largest processors of farm-fresh eggs in Ontario. Tell us a little about yourself and Gray Ridge Egg Farms.

Bill:                 We started in the early '30s. It was started by my mother and father, (with) very small beginnings — from a local farm, then moving into Ridgetown — again, small beginnings, and we grew a little bit at the time. We were actually located with the egg-grading operation in Ridgetown for some 58 years, closing that in 1992.

Michelle:       A lot of family history then.

Bill:                 Definitely a family business, and I'm very proud to be a part of it.

Michelle:       How does your company work with egg farmers to provide eggs for Canadians?

Bill:                 We buy eggs from the farmers that are at arm's length. That's not through the Egg Farmers of Ontario or Egg Farmers of Canada. We've had many long-term suppliers — Mr. McKinley, who started with my father. The McKinley family, not the original Mr. McKinley, is an 84-year supplier. He started with that at that time, and we've had many, many more long-term suppliers, and we have new people as well.

                        In terms of working with Egg Farmers of Ontario, Egg Farmers of Canada, their position is to control the production and supply what we need in terms of weekly demand. They're doing a pretty good job. Sometimes, they run a little bit short, and in those cases, we do have some traditional import quota that we use to bring eggs in from the U.S., if and when needed, and only if and when needed. So, all in all, the mandate — and I was on the e-Commerce of Canada for 12 years, and their mandate is to supply Canadian eggs for the Canadian public.

Michelle:       Mr. Gray, times are tough in every industry right now. There's nothing "normal" about what's presently going on in the world, except that people will always need to eat, and now, more than ever, people have turned to eggs. Do you see or feel that increase, a higher demand, in this pandemic?

Bill:                 Oh, no question. In fact, our retail stores, in some cases, have been rationing — and that is not only in Ontario, but across Canada and, indeed, into the United States. We are, in fact, in the last week or so post-Easter, we are catching up to demand. On the other side, we also are in the further processing business, and that end of the business has slowed down considerably, as has our wholesale business that supplies restaurants, healthcare systems, hospitals, nursing homes, et cetera — but no, the demand is all on the retail side.

Michelle:       When we talk about that increase in demand, how much are we talking? What was the demand before COVID, and how has that changed numbers-wise?

Bill:                 Well, we're primarily retail, so we're finding it larger than some, perhaps, but we see growth on the retail side. Quite frankly, when we have been unable to fill orders, we probably were running (at) about 90% fill rate, which is actually pretty good compared to (others) across this country and our friends to the south.

Michelle:       So, then, how would you describe that in terms of consumer trends when it comes to buying eggs at this time?

Bill:                 Consumer trends, of course, with people staying at home, I think (they are making) more breakfasts, just simply more baking. I know my wife is doing an awful lot of baking. I understand the grocery stores are out of flour, so that does tell you something. Of course, with baking, eggs are one of the primary ingredients.

Michelle:       Mr. Gray, what message do you want to convey to people eating and buying eggs?

Bill:                 I may be a bit prejudiced, but eggs are a nutritious food, high in protein, with multiple uses and (are) one of the few foods that have achieved, year over year, per-capita growth. That's a privilege today, by the way, in the food industry.

Last but not least, (they are) reasonably priced and no surprise during difficult times, such as now. Over the years, when we're experiencing dips in the economy, the actual egg consumption goes up — and that's historic, by the way. Every dozen counts. When I see people on the street and they recognize me and they say, "Oh, I bought a dozen of your eggs," I say, "Thank you very much." We market a dozen at a time, and we're very appreciative of all those that have patronized our brand over these many, many years. That's why we're still here.

Michelle:       As a producer in the poultry industry, it's unique in the fact that you really can't get large eggs or extra-large eggs without the small and medium eggs that come at the beginning of the flock. Is that right?

Bill:                 That's correct.

Michelle:       What does that mean for you, the egg farmer — or the processing plants, for that matter?

Bill:                 Well, prior to the pandemic, we were actually marketing our large (and) extra-large eggs. The medium, we're going to the further processed market. With the smalls, we have a huge market in and around the GTA for three-egg breakfasts, thus (there is) a market for the smalls. Right now, we are marketing the medium eggs at retail, mainly in a 30-egg tray over-wrap, and that has been going over very well. We do market some in one-dozen cartons, but in the main, it's the 30-egg pack.

Michelle:       In the midst of this crisis, there are so many stories of good, of human compassion during this pandemic, and you're one of those great stories. Gray Ridge Egg Farms donated 108,000 eggs to small communities in need. Tell us more about this incredible act of kindness.

Bill:                 Well, we were happy to do that. We had eggs packaged for, as I mentioned, the three-egg breakfast trade, so the orders slowed, and those eggs were still well beneath the best-before date. In fact, they were only a few days old, so we decided, rather than switch gears, that we would simply donate those eggs not only to food banks (but) to churches, to institutions, to a variety of sources. We were able to solicit volunteer people to load a few cases of eggs in their cars or pickup trucks and drive them around. I think one particular chap went out as far as 50 kilometers. We were also very pleased to have our local MPP as one of the volunteers who was delivering. He went out quite a bit farther, and he said he was going up close to 50 miles, so it just all worked out very well. At the end of the day, it was very gratifying for us. Those smiles and those few little "thank-yous" certainly was a bit heartwarming, particularly in the condition or the situation that we're in now.

Michelle:       What inspired you to make that donation?

Bill:                 Well, the slowdown in the demand for the smalls was what inspired us, so we thought, rather than repackage that product, that we would simply send it out to people in need — and believe me, there are plenty of people in need, and we're happy to help out. We've been quite blessed ourselves, so we're happy to help others.

Michelle:       Mr. Gray, I want to go back just for a moment. You talked about there being plenty of people in need. Can you talk a little about that need?

Bill:                 Well, I'm not an expert on that. I just go by what you see on the streets, and there's certainly a lot of sadness, not only in the big cities, but also in the city where I live, which is London. So, we think it's our duty to help, to a certain extent, people who have fallen on hard times, and that's been our philosophy over the years. As I said, we do have other charities that we do throughout the year.

Michelle:       Can you talk about the response that you're getting from those communities in need, those that received the egg donations? How are they feeling?

Bill:                 I think they're doing okay. We don't have first-hand knowledge, but we think that it's working pretty well. People are now, after a few weeks of isolation — some voluntarily, some compulsory — are getting into a routine. Again, you don't see many cars on the streets, which lead back to people eating at homes, in their homes, and also, you see lineups at the grocery stores.

Michelle:       It's funny, during this time of social distancing, to feel this closeness in communities. Why is it so important to you to make this kind of donation at this particular time?

Bill:                 Well, it's something that we do not only at this time, but throughout the year. We have charities that we support, and we're happy to do this as a company that's been around Southwestern Ontario for a long period of time. In fact, we've been around here for 84 years, to be exact.

Michelle:       I assume it took some flexibility. What kind of flexibility did this require for folks in the supply chain to repackage and send these eggs to those in need?

Bill:                 None at all. They were packaged in 15-dozen boxes with six 30-egg trays, so none at all. The case is one cubic foot, so they would fit in a trunk or the backseat of somebody's car or in a pickup truck. People took four or five or some took ten cases and just simply spread them around, as they say, probably a 25-k or 30-k radius.

Michelle:       This story has reached many Canadians, and we hope to reach others globally. What advice or thoughts do you have for other groups wanting to donate in a similar fashion?

Bill:                 Well, donating, I feel, is a very personal situation. I don't tend to advise anyone on how or why they should donate. In our particular case, we believe that that was the right thing to do rather than repackage the eggs, as I mentioned, and this is not the end. We will be doing more.

Michelle:       Now, your company philosophy, your personal philosophy, of “keep growing, keep building and operate as if you'll go on forever” is a guiding principle. What does it mean to you, and how does it connect you, your family and the company with your community?

Bill:                 Well, our company has had the same philosophy all my lifetime, and before me. It was drilled into me. There's the old saying, “If you're standing still, you're going behind,” so we've been very active in not only upgrading to the latest of equipment but, also, in the last 40-plus years, we've been doing a lot of acquisitions, which has worked out very well for us, so we're not stopping. We have people of all ages in senior positions, and it's important to keep the people at all levels with a growing company. It's contagious.

Michelle:       Mr. Gray, do you feel also closer to the consumer during this pandemic?

Bill:                 I would say, even though there is no personal contact, per se, but we're certainly much closer to our customers, as they're requesting special deliveries to accommodate their increased demand. Our sales team has been working very closely with our customers, and we do have a lot of retail stores in Ontario, in Alberta and BC. We're involved in three provinces. All are doing well, and we've had actually some nice compliments from our customers.

Michelle:       Do you think, Mr. Gray, there will be any long-term concerns in the poultry industry because of this pandemic?

Bill:                 I can't foresee anything at the moment, no. Nothing we can't handle, I'll put it that way.

Michelle:       You don't see any long-term concerns at this point. What does that say about the resiliency of farmers?

Bill:                 Farmers are very resilient. They depend on the weather. They depend on market prices. You know the old saying: “If you didn't do it this year, well, look forward to next year.”

                        I think that's the case in the whole agriculture industry. It's a very sophisticated industry today, with tractors that run without people on them. I was just reading an article this morning, and technology has certainly worked its way into agriculture, and it will only continue.

Michelle:       We talk a lot about crisis driving innovation. How might there be a positive from this crisis?

Bill:                 Oh, I think there will always be a positive from a crisis of this sort. One thing, I believe, (is) that it gives good recognition to eggs. I noticed one — only one — of the ads on television, they were comparing eggs to toilet paper, (which is) not something we want to promote, but it was interesting that eggs were front and center, so I think that we will get very good press from what's transpired in the recent weeks. Farmers like their way of life, and farmers are happy people, and they like to please their consumers.

Michelle:       Biosecurity has always been important on the farm and in the egg-processing facility. How have those protocols changed?

Bill:                 Not much, actually. On our laying farms, we have a "shower in, shower out" rule for the four barns. That's the cage-free. For the caged barns, we have a complete change of clothes, plus handwashing on the way in and again on the way out. In the plants, we have washing when you go from one section of the plant to the other, handwashing. We have implemented — and have been for many years in the breaking plant — hairnets, uniforms, again, handwashing. We also have mats on the floor, disinfecting mats where you walk through, and we do provide special clothing, special shoes as well.

Michelle:       Yeah. I'm curious how this donation to those in need, how you describe your emotions.

Bill:                 Well, I think my emotions came from the "thank-yous" and just to see people; it was a pleasant get-together, and there were actually some videos taken. Frankly, it's just a heartwarming experience. We like to give back to our community. The community has been good to us, so why not?

Michelle:       Do you think, long-term, stories like this will change the way the consumer perceives agriculture — in a more positive light, in most cases?

Bill:                 I think so. We'll have to see what the future holds, but definitely, when people have the time, and many are not working in their office or working from home. I think that it takes a broader look. I know that we're looking at other aspects of the world as well. I find it an interesting time, albeit not the most pleasurable time, but there's always something good that comes from something not so good.

Michelle:       Bill Gray, a good neighbor and a stellar story of giving in the world of agriculture during this tough, tough time. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Bill:                 You're very welcome, and please stay well and keep safe.

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

Click here for additional COVID-19 resources.