Peter and Paula Hynes founded Ag Mental Health Week to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health within the ag community and highlight the importance of prioritizing mental well-being. Peter joins Ag Future to discuss his story, the stresses of farming and events planned for the week.

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

Tom:                        We’re joined from County Cork, Ireland by Pete Hynes. Pete and his wife Paula are full-time dairy farmers, running 180 dairy cows on a grass-based system. The Hynes were named “Farmers of the year in 2017”; they serve as ambassadors for the #TacklYourFeelings campaign, and the couple has worked extensively to raise funds for charities since 2017. Pete, who also writes for the Irish Farming Independent, has struggled with depression and he says it has made him stronger and more determined to enjoy life by speaking about it publicly, realizing along the way how that has encouraged others to seek help. Welcome to Ag Future Pete.

Pete:                        Good afternoon, Tom. Lovely to be talking to you from Ireland, straight through to Kentucky.

Tom:                        All right. Well, it's been reported that you and Paula are always the first ones to raise your hands to create awareness around mental health within the ag sector. And that conversation about mental health hits close to home for you. And I wonder, before we go forward, if you could kind of set the scene for us by telling us about your own journey as a farmer coping with depression.

Pete:                        Yes. I suppose nearly 20 years ago now, I struggled with depression. At that time, I was working ridiculously long hours, and things got on top of me, and I left out my social life cold. I suppose, to cut a long story short, I hit a brick wall and lost all control of my feelings. Luckily enough for me, at the time, my wife eventually persuaded me to go to our doctor. And he put me in touch with a very, very good counselor, whom I visited regularly after (that), weekly, and walked through things. And I guess, in some ways, at that time, that was a huge challenge. It taught me to look after myself and my mental well-being a lot better.

                                 And it was something we hadn’t spoken about publicly until 2017. And I just mentioned something briefly on social media, and I got a message from a guy that night who was considering ending his own life. And just through talking to him about what I’ve gone through myself and keeping contact with him over the coming days and the coming weeks, he went and sought help. And he's really turned his life around since; he's got a new job, and he’s gotten married since.

                                I think, at that time, it just opened my eyes up, in a huge way, to the fact that I’m sharing my own story and chatting to those who were struggling in a similar way. It could really encourage people to seek help when they are in a dark place or really low or struggling with themselves. I guess that was, in some ways, how we started discussing mental health publicly.

Tom:                        How extensive are mental health issues among farmers?

Pete:                        I think it's a subject that the industry, as a whole, has really tackled in the last few years. Yet when you look at the statistics all around the world, the reality is that there's a 50% chance a farmer will struggle with their mental health if they're not prioritizing their mental well-being. That goes for all countries, from North America right across into Europe and into the Southern Hemisphere. Myself and Paula have spoken to college students in Kenya, where there’s a huge stigma around mental health — and yet, when you look at the statistics, they're very much the same (kind of statistics) as they are in Ireland.

                                 And I think, ultimately, what we need to do, as an industry — if we want to change the statistics long-term — is to engage with young farmers and get across the importance of looking after their mental well-being, because it's something that could really, really affect the industry and individual countries, depending on weather events or global markets or financials on farms, etc. So, all figures will go up and down from country to country. Globally, it's still a huge, huge issue that faces agriculture — and I guess (that is) because, also, it's an industry that is, in some ways, so isolated.

Tom:                       There is a broad spectrum of pressures on farmers. And I'm just wondering: What are some typical events or triggers that tend to cause mental health issues among farmers?

Pete:                         A lot of it really stems back down, at the end of it, to the financial pressure or family issues — and likewise, when you look at the financial pressures that affect farming, as I mentioned a minute ago, a global weather event can have a huge impact on crop losses or fodder shortages on farms, which could put a huge implication on the financials going forward. Likewise, global markets changing (can have an impact).

                                 So, there’s all those different issues that are impacting farmers. And I think even, when you look at it at the moment, climate change and, I think, the whole conversation around climate change puts a huge amount of stress on farmers for the simple fact that, if you look at how they farm across the world, every farmer is very, very conscious that we need to improve how we look after the environment and how we look after the climate. And one of the very first industries that is affected by climate change is agriculture and farmers and their incomes. And yet, with all the progressive work they do, they don’t get a whole pile of recognition for it, and they still feel like they’re getting the blame.

                                 So, when you look at it, a farmer feels like they're a young child inside the school that's constantly being scolded by the teacher and being told, “You're not doing well enough” and “You're not making any progress,” when the reality is, like, those farmers — we’re the school child that is trying our damndest, and we're improving every day. And we can see the impact we're having, yet we're getting no recognition for it.

Tom:                        How is the ag industry, as a whole, doing in the area of mental health? Has stigma kept farmers from confronting mental health issues?

Pete:                         I think, as the conversation has opened up — and there’s been some phenomenal people around the world campaigning for better mental health awareness in the U.S., Canada, right across Ireland, the U.K., and in the Southern Hemisphere — it has opened up the conversation a lot. But likewise, I think there’s where, probably, one of the biggest issues is; there’s still a huge stigma around the discussion of suicide in the agriculture industry.

                                 And I think the reality is (that) if we, as an industry, cannot openly discuss suicide, well then, someone that's at a really, really low point and having suicidal thoughts is not going to feel comfortable about opening up and saying, “Yeah, look, I am thinking of ending my life, and I really, really need help.” And I think we need to make those people in that position feel so comfortable about saying it publicly and removing the stigma around that area. I think that would have a huge, huge impact on the figures at the moment.

Tom:                        You mentioned climate change. I'm wondering if the pandemic has impacted your sense of mental well-being, and do you hear from others who are experiencing these feelings?

Pete:                        I think agriculture, in a way, can take a lot of positives from the global pandemic in that, all of a sudden, it brought a huge emphasis on the importance of quality food and global markets really, really straightforward during the pandemic — but then the negative side of it was that so many events that farmers would normally attend were canceled. Farmers are used to working in isolation for long periods of time. But then, when they do get down, they like to attend sporting events or big agricultural events. And when so many of those were canceled, I think it has had a huge impact on farmers.

                                But likewise, I think it’s had a huge impact on young people across the world, losing the communication and the avenues where they could meet up from week to week and socialize. And I think it's probably brought a bigger emphasis on the importance for us all to look out for each other and try to stay in contact in some way.

Tom:                        In 2020, you and Paula established Ag Mental Health Week. What inspired you to create this initiative?

Pete:                        Myself and Paula were having a conversation at the kitchen table one evening discussing Farm Safety Week, which is run in Ireland and the U.K. And at that time, when you look at it, the statistics show, tragically, (that) we lose more farmers to suicide than we do to farm accidents. And we have a specific Farm Safety Week, but we have no specific week for mental health and agriculture globally.

                                 And we felt it was certainly a conversation that was far bigger than Ireland. And if we, as an industry, wanted to make a real difference, we needed to have a united voice across the world, which is why we came up with the concept of Ag Mental Health Week as a global mental health awareness campaign for the agricultural industry.

                                 And at that time, we looked at the calendar, and we felt, with World Mental Health Day being on the 10th of October, that there was probably no more fitting day to kick the week off and run it for seven days straight, because I have seen some campaigns run for five days of the week. Farming is a seven-day-a-week job. And I think, with an awareness campaign, we would need to recognize that first, which is why we decided to run it for seven days straight with the campaign.

                                 And we’re absolutely astounded and humbled by the reaction to Ag Mental Health Week in 2020. It had surpassed anything that we thought it could do in the first year. And (we) always felt that it was something that we certainly couldn't do on our own, to drive the campaign forward, which is why we put together a global working group of like-minded people, from farmers to people in the ag industry, and just put our heads together (to) see how we could drive the week forward into 2021.

Tom:                        It really expanded quickly globally, didn’t it? And I wonder if you could tell us about the partnerships and the resources that have since come to the table.

Pete:                        Yes. So, I think, if you — just going back to 2020, we had environment ambassadors from 11 countries around the world. We had panel discussions involving six countries. And given the amount of work that had gone into running the week, we spoke to people in your own good company, Alltech, and people who we’d been in contact (with) for Ag Mental Health Week in 2020 as well. And we also spoke to friends of ours in the Zurich Z Foundation in Switzerland and CEMEX Global Alliance. And I think there were very like-minded companies that were really passionate about prioritizing (not only) mental well-being for their employees but for the sector as a whole. And we also contacted a lot of farmers in the U.K. and the Southern Hemisphere and started up a working group of, I suppose, in some ways, how we could expand the conversation and broaden the horizons and the reach of it.

                                So, this year, we have panelists from, I would say, eight different countries. We’re really focusing on young farmers for research. And we’ll also be having discussions with politicians around the world, because I think it's probably very important that politicians and the agricultural sector are involved in the conversation from the point of view — having a better understanding of how policy can affect the mental health of farmers is going to be huge; (it will be) positive, going forward, when they realize that a decision made within a government is going to impact farmers on the ground. And I think politicians are very welcoming of that and very understanding and realize the importance of changing, I suppose, the culture and changing your mindset within the agricultural industry, that we do need to prioritize our mental well-being.

Tom:                        We'll have some more details on Ag Mental Health Week in a few moments, but I want to circle back to several things that you brought up. You have noted that the statistics out there show that we lose more farmers to suicide than we do to farm accidents. So, you've touched on this earlier, but I wonder if you could tell us: How are you addressing suicide?

Pete:                        I think there's a number of people around the world that are very, very open (to) the concept of discussing (this topic) publicly and have made a huge, huge impact in their own areas over the last number of years. Emma Picton-Jones, who lives in Wales, she lost her husband to suicide. And she set up the DPJ Foundation in Wales, which has opened up the conversation there. And I’ve spoken to Emma a number of times, and she will actually be a guest on one of our panel discussions during Ag Mental Health Week. She’s always stressed to me the importance of us being willing to talk about it publicly.

                                She said, even after she lost her husband, people were very slow to approach her, because they knew the background of her loss. And she said that was nearly harder for her, but also, she could understand it from the point of view of her husband not being willing to say that he had those feelings. And Cathal McCormack, from Alltech in Ireland, linked up with her last year and has since organized training for a lot of Alltech staff with her around mental health first aid training. And I think initiatives like that are so important, because farmers are isolated. If someone from the ag industry drives into the heart and they can spot the signs of a farmer who is really, really struggling and ask the right questions to try and get them to open up, I think there's so much more we can do. I think we need to make people who are feeling suicidal feel a lot more comfortable to discuss it openly with us.

Tom:                        Pete, do you feel that enough work is being done among young farmers, even on the campuses of ag colleges and universities, to prepare a new generation for the mental pressures and the challenges of farming?

Pete:                        The reality is, I don't think we're doing enough. I don't think we’re putting enough emphasis on encouraging young farmers to prioritize their mental well-being.

                                 If you look at a lot of the agricultural colleges, they have specific courses on farm safety and teaching young farmers the dangers of pesticides and showing them how to handle them correctly. Likewise, (there are courses on) the dangers of quad bikes, the importance of wearing a helmet. And I think we need to have the same modules built into those agriculture courses where we're teaching young farmers the basics of looking after their mental well-being on a daily basis, because the reality is, when you enter agriculture as a career, you are going to be put in times of stress and times of crisis, but when you're prioritizing your mental well-being, you're putting yourself in a far stronger position to deal with those challenges and overcome them. And also, realizing the importance of taking time out after busy periods on farms, like harvest and calving and setting in the springtime, etc.

Tom:                        Pete, what do you and Paula do to keep your mental compasses pointed in the right direction? How do you, as both business partners and husband and wife, manage the stresses of farming?

Pete:                        I think we just do simple things, like, you know, eating well, taking breaks, taking time out, discussing the challenges with each other and not bottling things up inside. Like calving — for us, we’re spring calving herds, so we have all our cows in a short space of time in the springtime, which is extremely busy; there’s no time off-farm. But we try and take a break prior to calving. We try and ensure that we’ve [0:18:15][Inaudible] so that we're getting adequate sleep while calving is busy. And also, we set in place time out for ourselves after calving so that we get to recharge the batteries and get away and enjoy life a bit. And I think that is vital.

                                 I guess one of the other things we do as a couple is we ensure that we go out on a date night at least once a month so that we have something to look forward to, with different surroundings, different conversation. When you’re busy, it gives you something to look forward to. And I think that’s all vital, that you know that there’s an end in sight from the busy period.

Tom:                        What would you like to see happen in the ag industry toward helping farmers cope with mental health issues?

Pete:                        I think one of the big things we really need to do as an industry — and I spoke heavily about this last year — is put crisis numbers on the back of all vehicles that are entering a farmyard, be it trucks, vans, etc., so that when a farmer who is struggling or feeling suicidal sees that number directly in front of them and knows what number to dial to get help in crisis. And I think even the simple message from putting those numbers on the back of vehicles entering farms (is important). And, in many ways, it’s the industry as a whole — be it milk processors, etc. — it’s the whole industry standing up and saying, “It's okay to seek help if you're feeling suicidal.” And I think that's one of the simplest or one of the biggest things we could do as an industry. And I've seen it work very, very well in some areas, but I think the whole industry needs to embrace it, because I think that could be a game changer in the short term.

Tom:                        Ag Mental Health Week 2021 is coming up, (on) October 10–16. And what sorts of events and resources will be offered?

Pete:                        So, we’ll be running seven nights of panel discussions, which we will livestream on our Facebook page at Ag Mental Health Week. The first evening, we’ll have young farmers on. So, we have a young farmer from Australia, a young farmer from Ireland, and I also think we have a young farmer from North America. The second night, we will be having two politicians on: Minister Martin Heydon from Ireland and Minister Bloyce Thompson from Canada.

                                 And we’ll be having discussions with doctors and GPs that week, with support services with the ag industry. We’ll also be having a specific panel discussion with veterinary surgeons. Lizzie Lockett, the CEO of the RCVS in the U.K., is chairing that panel discussion. And we’ll also be talking to families who have lost loved ones to suicide or had family members struggle with their mental health, just discussing how that has impacted the family as a whole. So, those panel discussions will be one of the key things. We’ll also have daily tips on how to prioritize your mental well-being on our social media channels.

                                 And then, on the 13th of October, we are pushing Mile for Mental Well-Being. So, we want as many people in the ag industry across the world to get out and run or walk a mile that day just to highlight the importance of prioritizing your mental well-being but also just taking that space, for maybe 10 or 15 minutes in the day, to clear your head and focus on something other than being at work all the time. We’ll also be encouraging as many sports services and charities around the world to run their own events during Ag Mental Health Week. And we’d be really keen to promote those for the support services. And I know there’ll be many more events planned during the year or during the week.

                                The response last year was phenomenal. The media were very, very good to get behind us and open up the conversation. So, we hope they’ll do the same again this year. So, we’re looking forward for the week.

Tom:                        All right. We’ve been joined from County Cork, Ireland, by dairy farmer Pete Hynes, co-founder — with his wife, Paula — of Ag Mental Health Week. Look for it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For Ag Future, I'm Tom Martin. Thanks for listening, and thanks for joining us, Pete.

Pete:                       Thanks again, Tom. Wonderful to chat you up.

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

In the dairy industry, successfully implementing solutions that “kill two birds with one stone” requires innovation and usable data. Finding ways to reduce the carbon footprint on dairy cattle operations while also maintaining high milk production is just that kind of situation.

It is important to understand that dairy production is on a continuous path of growth. Some insightful data provided by the IFCN shows that global milk production is projected to increase by 35% between 2017 and 2030. This level of growth is promising for the industry but will also present many challenges and raise questions about our ability to provide more with fewer resources while adopting practices that are environmentally sound. To top everything off, all of this must be achieved while also continuing to increase transparency for consumers about how their milk is produced.

The main question is: Can we reduce the carbon footprint of milk while also improving our production and profitability?

Greenhouse gases have been a trending topic among consumers for several years, and this topic is now resonating more with dairy farmers across the world, as new regulations and initiatives are being presented. To achieve reduced emissions, we must look at ways to optimize production — including via nutritional solutions, which will play a very big role as we go forward.

Dairy producers can utilize nutritional solutions as tools for reducing methane emissions from dairy cows, but technologies that offer environmental benefits cannot compromise on animal performance, as doing so would mean requiring more animals to meet the growing demand for food. However, before looking to implement any of these solutions, dairy producers will need to measure their carbon footprint.

TOOL ONE: Alltech E-CO₂

To successfully reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we must first know where these emissions come from. Analytical services, such as Alltech E-CO₂, identify and quantify these hotspots through accredited environmental assessments. Over the past 10 years and more than 10,000 assessments, Alltech E-CO₂ has found that the two largest sources of emissions on dairy farms are enteric emissions (i.e., methane from the rumen) and feed use. Together, these two sources contribute more than 60% of all emissions on dairy operations. These sources relate to rumen health and an animal’s ability to best maximize the feed it is being fed. By ensuring the production of a healthy and productive cow, we are helping operations improve their production efficiency while also enabling energy to be utilized for milk production and regular body maintenance, rather than being wasted by fighting health challenges. This type of information is critical for identifying targeted solutions that will enhance our methane mitigation strategies.

To successfully reduce a farm’s carbon footprint, we must look beyond one gas in one area and consider the balance of emissions across the entire farm. A lifecycle observation is one way of doing that, and it’s all about identifying opportunities to reduce waste and improve farm efficiency, which will translate to more money for the producer.

Learn more about Alltech E-CO₂ here.

Read on to learn more about two nutritional solutions that work to target the areas where there is room for improvement, as identified by Alltech E-CO₂.

TOOL TWO: Optigen^®

Optigen is a feed ingredient backed by years of robust research data that works to support production efficiency and sustainability. Optigen, a concentrated source of non-protein nitrogen, releases nitrogen into the rumen in a slow-release form. This provides a sustained release of ammonia in the rumen in sync with fermented carbohydrate digestion, thus allowing for efficient microbial protein synthesis in the rumen.  

In order to gather clear evidence that shows how we can use feed strategies to reduce our carbon footprint, the FAO developed a standard guideline for the environmental performance of feed additives in the livestock supply chain. These standards recommend the use of data from meta-analyses and life cycle analyses. Meta-analyses make it possible to combine data from years of multiple studies to arrive at an evidence-based conclusion by using comprehensive statistical procedures. Life-cycle analyses allow us to quantify the greenhouse gas emissions along the entire supply chain or in the production cycle of a particular product. Combining these two approaches demonstrates how feeding technologies can contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and/or better sustainability credentials.

Included here is an example of a meta-analysis of Optigen. The data from this meta-analysis indicate that, over the course of around two decades, research has shown that using Optigen is associated with a 23% reduction, on average, of plant protein sources in the diet. Soybean meal, specifically, can be reduced by about 21%, and an increase in feed efficiency of around 3% has also been documented. Additionally, diets that include Optigen and use reduced amounts of plant protein sources have been shown to improve nitrogen utilization efficiency by 4%, leading to a 14% reduction in the total carbon footprint of the diets of animals used in milk production.

 Read the full meta-analysis here.

TOOL 3: Yea-Sacc^®

There are some products on the market — like yeast cultures — that can help improve production efficiency while also reducing the carbon footprint of an operation. Yea-Sacc is a yeast culture based on the Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain of yeast. Yea-Sacc modifies rumen activity by supporting a consistent improvement in the growth and activity of lactic acid-utilizing bacteria, which helps stabilize the rumen pH. At the same time, it also works to improve the digestion and utilization of nutrients. Thanks to these types of improvements, cows can absorb more nutrients for higher milk production.

Utilizing a meta-analysis approach once again, a collection of 31 studies has shown that feeding Yea-Sacc to dairy cows can lead to an increased milk yield of 1 kg/head/day, on average, and can reduce the carbon footprint and nitrogen emission intensity by around 3% and 5.4%, respectively. These numbers demonstrate that it is possible for milk production efficiency to increase and for the carbon footprint and nitrogen excretion intensity to decrease simultaneously.

Explore the additional benefits of Yea-Sacc here.

At the beginning of this blog, we posed a question: Can we reduce the carbon footprint of milk while also improving our production and profitability? With proven tools like the ones outlined here, the answer to that question is yes: It is possible to reduce the carbon footprint of dairy production and to improve our economic returns and performance at the same time. Based on the data compiled in various meta-analyses, it is clear that there are feeding solutions on the market that farmers can use to reduce their emissions and increase their productivity and profitability in conjunction with nutritional strategies that will help improve production efficiency in dairy systems.

I want to learn more about nutrition for my dairy.

According to the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying. As the agriculture industry takes a leadership role in reducing its carbon footprint, are there additional opportunities within the report? David Butler, head of sustainability at Alltech, joins the Ag Future podcast to unpack the implications of the IPCC's findings, explain how it may be used to guide policies, and explore the key takeaways for the agri-food sector. 

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

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^TM.

                                 I’m Tom Martin, and I’m joined by David Butler, head of sustainability at Alltech. David helps set the company’s commitments and goals to be more sustainable across the more than 120 countries in which the company operates.

                                 A global business must be on top of global dynamics, and among them, of course, is climate change. And recently, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raised the alarm to a new and higher level with a report titled, “Climate Change: Widespread, Rapid and Intensifying”. And that’s our focus.

                                Welcome, David.

David Butler:           Thanks, Tom. It’s great to be here.

Tom Martin:            And so, basics first, David. What is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?

David Butler:            Well, it’s an international organization that was set up by the United Nations way back in 1988. And it’s made up of representatives from 195 nations. And it’s their job to keep policymakers up to date on the science related to climate change so they have the information they need to make effective policies.

                                And the IPCC does not conduct climate science; they — the representatives enlist hundreds of scientists in the field who volunteer their time to review all of the existing scientific papers and produce these assessments.

Tom Martin:            Well, if you would, bring us up to speed on those assessment reports. What do they cover?

David Butler:            Well, the reports are designed to provide, you know, the scientific basis for governments to develop their policies, as I mentioned. And they’re also the foundation for negotiations at the U.N. Climate Conference. So, this will be central to the next conference, which is coming up in Glasgow in the fall. And they provide the information that the policymakers need, but they don’t tell policymakers what policies they need to put in place to accomplish the goals.

                                 So, the assessments have three parts, and the report that just came out a couple of weeks ago is the first of those three parts. It’s focused on the current science of climate change, which has advanced quite a bit since the last report came out.

                                 And then, the next two reports will be out early next year. The second one will deal with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change. And the third report will deal with mitigation, or how to combat climate change.

Tom Martin:            This most recent report that we’re talking about now notes changes in the earth’s climate in every region and across the whole climate system. How does this report differ from others that have come before it?

David Butler:            Well, first, I want to mention how amazing it is to me that they’re even able to produce this report, because there are hundreds of scientists that work on it, and they have to come to an agreement on all of the language in the report. And then, they have to agree with 195 representatives from the member countries. And so, that — it’s amazing that they can, you know, agree on such a massive document and all of the statements that come out in the report.

And I think, in the past, you know, that — the fact that they, they all had to be in agreement meant that the language in the report was very, very cautious. And so, you know, if there was a 90% likelihood of something happening, they would use words like “likely” or, you know, “somewhat certain”. They would use very cautious language. But in this report, they used words like “unequivocal”; you know, it is an established fact. They say things like that.

So, the science is much more defined than it was, and there’s really no doubt anymore that climate change is here, it’s happening now, (and) it’s caused by humans, primarily from burning fossil fuels.

Tom Martin:            What does this report tell us about our climate situation now (and) where we’re headed in the short term?

David Butler:           Well, let me read you the very first point in the summary. It kind of says it all:

                               “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”

                                So, basically that’s saying there is no time left to wait, unless — and they go on to say, “unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5 degrees (Celsius) or even 2 degrees (Celsius) will be beyond reach.”

Tom Martin:            What, according to the scientists who’ve contributed to the IPCC report, needs to happen in agriculture to help put the brakes on these climate changes?

David Butler:            Well, certainly, agriculture, like every other industry, has its own environmental footprint. The thing about agriculture is that a lot of our footprint is related to methane emissions. And the report goes into great detail about the impact of methane. And that’s really the first time that one of these reports has taken such a close look at methane.

                                 Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂. And it’s also very short-lived in the atmosphere; it only lasts about ten years, as opposed to potentially thousands of years for CO₂. So, that means that, if we reduce it, then we can get a pretty quick impact on climate change. So, it’s a big problem, because it’s a very big greenhouse gas, but it’s also a part of the solution.

                                 And although the report doesn’t make specific recommendations and it doesn’t tell agriculture what to do, it does highlight the importance of dealing with methane as soon as possible.

Tom Martin:            Well, agriculture has been taking a lot of the blame as a significant source of methane. I think the IPCC report found that atmospheric concentrations of methane are at their highest level in 800,000 years and that lowering methane emissions is the best option to fight climate change. But how do you see that influencing ag policy?

David Butler:            That’s a great question, Tom. And right now, in Congress, they’re working on budget reconciliation, and in the proposal, there are a lot of climate policies. And there is possibly a methane polluter fee. And as far as I can tell, that is focused on leakage from the natural gas industry and should not affect agriculture.

But certainly, agriculture is a source of methane, and we need to think about what happens down the road at some point — if there are methane policies that impact agriculture, what would those be, how would that affect the industry, and would they work or not?

Tom Martin:            Speaking, David, of legislation before Congress, earlier this summer, the U.S. Senate passed the Growing Climate Solutions Act. And it’s now before the House, where it’s been since about June; (it) seems to be kind of stalled there at the moment. But the bill is supposed to make it easier for farmers, ranchers and other rural landowners to generate carbon credits by reducing their carbon footprint and, then, to sell those credits to companies interested in offsetting their emissions.

And this ag carbon credit market is kind of in its beginnings and is in its developmental stages, but as we await some clarity there, for things to shake out, for it to form fully, what are some of the ways that agriculture could reduce emissions and sequester carbon?

David Butler:            You know, like all industries, agriculture needs to start out by reducing our own emissions. And so, at the most basic level, that means that we need to switch over to renewable energy and get off of fossil fuels. And every industry needs to do that.

                                 But we also have an opportunity to reduce methane emissions from livestock, and we can go into more detail about the possible methods for doing that, but there is a lot of research going on there, there is a lot of potential for doing that. I think that’s very exciting.

                                 And then, some methane emissions come from manure, so we can put into place technologies to help with manure management. There are different ways to store manure, separate it and run it through anaerobic digestion, a big — sometimes they’re called biogas reactor methane digesters. And those allow you to produce as much methane as possible and then take that methane and use it as renewable natural gas or, in fact, burn it to generate electricity. So, that’s much better than releasing the methane into the atmosphere.

And then, we also need to explore agri-voltaics. And that’s simply just putting solar panels on agricultural land in such a way that it can still be useful farmlands. So, if you — if you put the panels on racks that are high enough, you can grow crops or graze animals underneath them, and they might be a little more spaced out than they would be if you have a solar farm, but you’re still getting the agricultural value out of that land instead of converting it into a solar farm. And I think that’s really important, especially as we need to feed more people.

Tom Martin:            So, this implies a lot of gearing up, a lot of retrofitting — changes that will have to be made to accommodate carbon sequestration and, as you say, renewable energy. All that costs money. What might be some sources of funding for all these changes?

David Butler:            Well, as you mentioned, you know, carbon markets are going to mature, probably over the next decade. And that could certainly be a big source of income, because there are industries — like the fossil fuel industry and the airline industry and some heavy-manufacturing industries — where it’s going to be really hard and take a very long time for them to come up with technologies to reduce their emissions. And in fact, the fossil fuel industry, they can never reduce the emissions of their products. You know, they’re going to have to reinvent themselves.

                                So, in the meantime, those industries will need to buy carbon offsets so that they can reduce the impact of what they’re doing. So, a lot of money will be flowing out of those industries, and hopefully, a lot of that money will go into agriculture to help farmers be part of the solution for climate change.

Tom Martin:            I don’t know that this is necessarily on the horizon in this country — maybe it is — but what, David, is likely to happen if governments take actions to reduce livestock numbers to reduce methane emissions?

David Butler:           That is an excellent question. I think it’s kind of, you know, that’s what’s on everybody’s minds: Will we come up with caps for livestock?

                                I don’t think that that would work. And the reason is that, you know, it would have to be on a country-by-country basis if there were limits on livestock. We don’t have a world government, so nobody can say, “This is how many livestock are going to be produced in the world.”

                                So, let’s say that the U.S. put a limit on the number of cattle. Well, that’s not going to change the demand for beef or dairy, so you would have to import those animals, and they would most likely come from Brazil, which could involve further deforestation of the Amazon or conversion of other ecosystems in Brazil. And that, combined with the transportation, could actually create a bigger carbon footprint than you had before.

Tom Martin:            Lots of complications in this issue. Is there already evidence that the agriculture industry is taking on a leadership role on climate change?

David Butler:            Absolutely. The U.S. dairy industry has a net-zero initiative with the goal of achieving that, zero emissions, by 2050. And there are many companies that are signed up to support that.

                                 And the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association recently came out with the carbon neutrality announcement, also for 2050. So, more and more companies are working in this direction, and the industry, as a whole, is moving in that direction.

Tom Martin:            Well, David, as I mentioned in the introduction, you are the head of sustainability at Alltech, and so you must have a very large plate (of responsibilities), I would imagine. And I’m just wondering: What sorts of projects related to climate change are currently on that plate?

David Butler:            Well, I work with several teams across the company. So, I want to mention a couple of their projects first.

Alltech E-CO₂ is a subsidiary that Alltech has that works with farmers to help measure and reduce their carbon footprint. And so, they’re growing and getting projects all over the world. There’s more and more demand for that. And they help farmers, in a lot of different ways, identify how they can reduce that carbon footprint. So, that’s really important.

                                 And then, our research and technical teams are working on a lot of exciting projects right now to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts from livestock production in general, but especially from ruminants. And some of those other environmental impacts include nutrient pollution, like nitrogen and phosphorus runoff in water or mineral contamination in soil and water. And so, I think that’s really exciting.

                                 But my team’s main focus, right at the moment, is working on our transition to renewable energy. And we began installing solar at some of our facilities. The first facility to have a solar ray is our plant in Serdán, Mexico. And those panels will be operating very soon.

                                 And we’re looking at energy efficiency improvements in our facilities, and we’re looking at purchasing renewable energy from solar developers through power purchase agreements as well.

Tom Martin:           What are some various ways to reduce the carbon footprint of cattle?

David Butler:             As you probably know, the big problem with cattle is that they produce methane when they digest grass and other kinds of fiber. And that happens because in their rumen, there are a number of different types of microbes that help to break down the cellulose in that plant matter. And some of those microbes produce methane. And interestingly, the same thing happens when termites eat wood.

So, that methane, when it’s produced by cattle, that’s not a good thing for the farmer. It’s actually kind of a waste product; it’s lost energy. It would be better if the cow was not producing methane and if the rest of that energy from, from the carbon and hydrogen bonds went into helping the cow grow.

                                So, agriculture is working on a lot of different ways to try to combat this problem. And it can help farmers be more profitable at the same time that it reduces the amount of methane that we produce. So, one way to do that is (to) improve the efficiency of ruminants by making them — making them healthier and giving them better nutrition. And, you know, the more milk that they produce from the same number of cattle, or the more meat they produce, then you have less methane per gallon of milk or per pound of meat.

Many of our products do just that. They improve the performance and productivity of livestock, which means it takes fewer animals to produce the same amount of food. So, that reduces the overall environmental footprint of livestock, including greenhouse gas emissions.

And beyond that, there’s a lot of work being done on feed additives and ingredients that show promise for reducing methane emissions from cattle and other ruminants. And people are looking into breeding cattle that can produce less methane.

                                So, at Alltech, we’re doing all kinds of research in this area and making great progress on finding solutions. And I think that it’s probably comforting for people to know that this is a problem for agriculture, too, just from a productivity standpoint, and that we want to solve that, and there are a lot of people working on that.

Tom Martin:            You’ve touched on solutions that are in discussion, research and development, and in practice at Alltech. What else could agriculture do, in general, to combat climate change?

David Butler:            Well, you know, farmers have been recycling biomass for thousands of years, right? Nothing is wasted on the farm. Manure is used as fertilizer and, you know, crop waste, like corn stalks, (is) used as food for animals.

So, farmers are kind of like recyclers within the carbon cycle, right? They — everything they do revolves around the carbon cycle. I would like to see the agriculture industry take leadership of that and kind of help to transition us to a circular carbon economy.

And right now, an incredible amount of biomass goes into landfills or gets incinerated every year, and that’s a huge waste of nutrients and carbon. So, I’m talking about food waste, yard waste, wood waste and sewage sludge that all end up in landfills or are incinerated.

                                 And if you can imagine, we could take all of that organic matter, that biomass, and reuse it or recycle it in some way. Some things can become animal feed, some things can become compost, and other things can go into anaerobic digesters to produce natural gas or renewable electricity.

                                 And then, at the end of that cycle, everything else can go into biochar. And that’s a big topic, maybe for another day: What is biochar? We could talk about that for two hours.

Tom Martin:            Can you just give us a quick definition of that?

David Butler:            Yeah, sure. So, if you take organic matter — it could be wood chips, it could be straw, it could be manure — and you heat it without oxygen, you’re essentially baking it. It’s called paralysis. And (if) you drive off almost all the hydrogen and the oxygen, and you’re just left with this kind of crystalline carbon. And if you put that carbon in the soil, or if you use it in manufacturing of some other product, like roadways or plastics or concrete, then you’re pulling that carbon out of the carbon cycle, and so, you’re sequestering it. And it can last in the soil for hundreds and thousands of years. And that’s a great way to draw down carbon from the atmosphere.

Tom Martin:            It’s all so interesting, and we’ll revisit (this topic) over time. David Butler, head of sustainability at Alltech. We thank you so much, David.

David Butler:           Yeah. Thank you, Tom.

Tom Martin:            I’m Tom Martin. Thanks for listening. This has been Ag Future, presented by Alltech.

                                Thank you for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to Ag Future wherever you listen to podcasts.

Alltech and the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) are pleased to announce Kallee Buchanan of Australia and Craig Lester of Canada as the recipients of the 2021 IFAJ–Alltech International Award for Leadership in Agricultural Journalism. The award recognizes excellence and leadership by young agricultural journalists and was presented today during the Alltech ONE Ideas Conference.

“IFAJ shares our commitment to supporting journalists who give a voice to the farmers and producers, the innovators and change-makers, the scientists and scholars all working toward a Planet of Plenty,” said Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech. “On behalf of Alltech, I congratulate Kallee Buchanan and Craig Lester as the well-deserving recipients of the 2021 IFAJ–Alltech International Award for Leadership in Agricultural Journalism.”

This recognition honors Alltech’s late founder, Dr. Pearse Lyons, who was a passionate storyteller with a great respect for agricultural journalists. The award complements the Young Leader program that Alltech co-founded with IFAJ in 2005 in support of the mentorship and education of leaders who connect agriculture to a global audience. It’s also an endeavor that aligns with Alltech’s vision of Working Together for a Planet of Plenty^TM, in which a world of abundance is made possible through the adoption of new technologies, better farm management practices and human ingenuity within agriculture.

“As producers throughout the food supply chain are implementing more sustainable solutions, we are in the midst of a new era in agriculture led by science, data-driven decision-making and a passionate dedication to farming with the future in mind,” said Dr. Mark Lyons. “Agricultural journalists have the ability to share these stories, and through our continued partnership with the IFAJ, we are proud to support these future leaders, who are passionate about connecting our industry to a global audience.”

Kallee Buchanan started her career at a regional newspaper in 2008 before joining the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2009, where she has worked as a radio and digital journalist, presenter and producer, covering rural and regional issues. In 2010, she won a Queensland Media Award (Clarion) for Best Radio News Report, and in 2017 she won the radio and digital categories at the Queensland Rural Media Awards and was named the overall journalism winner. She went on to win both the Australian and the International Star Prize for Digital Media, and she won the Queensland radio category again in 2018. In 2019, she was highly commended in the Emergency Media and Public Affairs Awards for her coverage of the 2018 Central Queensland bushfires.

Buchanan joined the committee of the Rural Press Club of Queensland in 2016 and became its representative on the Australian Council of Agricultural Journalists (ACAJ) in 2018, eventually becoming the secretary of the ACAJ in 2019 and its president in 2020. She is passionate about elevating the issues and industries of regional and rural people and supporting agricultural media communicators in that work. She is committed to developing and retaining new voices that reflect the true diversity of communities outside of the major city centers, as well as the contributions they make to a productive world. 

Craig Lester loves connecting people, ideas and resources, and he believes that there is no better place to do that than in agriculture. As president of the Alberta Farm Writers’ Association, part of the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation, Lester serves in two key professional roles that are dedicated to sharing information and educating the community with local and industry information. He is a managing editor of 660 NEWS, an all-news radio station in Calgary, Alberta, and is the co-owner of Rural Roots Canada, an agriculture media production and distribution company. In his free time, he works on the family farm in Rolling Hills, Alberta.

Lester is also very active as a volunteer in the community, contributing his time to the Calgary Stampede, Alberta Young Speakers for Agriculture and Ronald McDonald House. He is also on the planning committee for the 2023 IFAJ World Congress, which will be held in Alberta.

With a passion for successful succession and empowering the next generation, Lester established an agricultural scholarship and travel bursary at his alma mater, Brooks Composite High School, to support a student pursuing either agricultural-related post-secondary education or an international in-person learning experience. He is an award-winning broadcast journalist and received a diploma in broadcast news from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

“In challenging times like these, reliable journalism and information is vital for farmers,” said IFAJ president Lena Johansson of Sweden. “Alltech’s commitment to professional development for agricultural journalists to promote eminent leaders within our organization is much-appreciated and contributes to enhancing the quality of agricultural journalism — which, in the long run, benefits the entire agricultural sector.”

For more information about the IFAJ-Alltech International Award for Leadership in Agricultural Journalism, contact press@alltech.com.

-Ends-

Contact: press@alltech.com

Jenn Norrie

Communications Manager, North America and Europe

jnorrie@alltech.com; (403) 863-8547

Video download: Kallee Buchanan, Australia https://bcove.video/2R77y8V

Image download: https://photos.alltech.com/pf.tlx/baJbmZbnmi1n

Image caption: Kallee Buchanan of Australia is a recipient of the 2021 IFAJ-Alltech International Award for Leadership in Agricultural Journalism.

Video download: Craig Lester, Canada https://bcove.video/3okZPQD

Image download: https://photos.alltech.com/pf.tlx/DZhDIiD4RGHM

Image Caption: Craig Lester of Canada is a recipient of the 2021 IFAJ-Alltech International Award for Leadership in Agricultural Journalism.

Image download: https://photos.alltech.com/pf.tlx/vwvZcvXIhnod

Image Caption: Alltech is proud to partner with the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) to recognize excellence and leadership by young journalists with the IFAJ-Alltech International Award for Leadership in Agricultural Journalism.

About Alltech:

Founded in 1980 by Irish entrepreneur and scientist Dr. Pearse Lyons, Alltech delivers smarter, more sustainable solutions for agriculture. Our products improve the health and performance of plants and animals, resulting in better nutrition for consumers and a decreased environmental impact.

We are a global leader in the animal health industry, producing additives, premix supplements, feed and complete feed. Strengthened by more than 40 years of scientific research, we carry forward a legacy of innovation and a unique culture that views challenges through an entrepreneurial lens.

Our more than 5,000 talented team members worldwide share our vision for a Planet of Plenty™. We believe agriculture has the greatest potential to shape the future of our planet, but it will take all of us working together, led by science, technology and a shared will to make a difference.

Alltech is a private, family-owned company, which allows us to adapt quickly to our customers’ needs and maintain focus on advanced innovation. Headquartered just outside of Lexington, Kentucky, USA, Alltech has a strong presence in all regions of the world. For more information, visit alltech.com, or join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

About the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists:

The International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, founded in 1956, is comprised of 5,000 members in 53 countries. It is the only organization in the world dedicated to global agricultural journalism. Its three pillars are professional development, youth development and global outreach. IFAJ members embrace freedom of the press. http://www.ifaj.org

The Alltech ONE Ideas Conference launched virtually today to unite thought-leaders and changemakers for an exploration of the power of science, sustainability and storytelling. Now in its 37th year, Alltech’s flagship event continues to be an invaluable industry resource, with unmatched content and innovative ideas, inspiration and motivation from world-class speakers. Registrants from 99 countries have access to a virtual platform that includes on-demand tracks, streaming keynote presentations, live workshops and an interactive networking experience, allowing attendees to connect around the world. 

“We are on the brink of a new beginning, and I don’t believe that is just a new beginning for Alltech. I think it’s a new beginning and a new golden era for agri-food, and it’s led by what we believe is a bold vision,” said Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech, in his opening remarks. “We want to deliver smarter, more sustainable solutions for our customers and for all of agri-food.”

Anna Rosling Rönnlund, vice president and head of design and user experience at Gapminder and co-author of “Factfulness,” was one of the opening keynote speakers on Tuesday, June 22. Rönnlund designed the user interface of the famous animated bubble-chart tool Trendalyzer, which helps people better understand global development trends. The tool was eventually acquired by Google and is now used by millions of students across the world. Along with her Gapminder co-founders, Rönnlund co-wrote the book “Factfulness,” sharing insights on the ten instincts that distort our perspective of the world and prevent us from seeing the truth.

“A lot of things are actually improving, but we’re very bad at seeing these slow trends on a global level,” said Rönnlund. “We need to have a fact-based worldview, and we need to remember that we need to keep upgrading our worldview, because the world changes, and so has our facts about it.”

As a professional photographer, filmmaker and former photojournalist for National Geographic, Dewitt Jones has made a career of storytelling through images and has traveled the world on a mission to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. Through his compelling stories and captivating photography, Jones shared how changing your lens can change your life.

“These are turbulent times, and the waves of change seem to threaten our very survival. So, what will your vision allow you to see?” Jones asked during his keynote presentation. “Will you look out at a dim, half-colored world where dreams disappear in the distance — a world where goals don't even seem worth striving for? Or will your vision allow you to see a world still full of beauty and joy and possibility?”

The Alltech ONE Ideas Conference keynote sessions, on-demand tracks and Planet of Plenty live workshops launching this week include:

Tuesday, June 22

8:30 a.m. ET: Keynote Session

• Dr. Mark Lyons, President and CEO, Alltech
• Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Vice President and Head of Design and User Experience, Gapminder; Co-Author, "Factfulness"
• Dewitt Jones, Professional Photographer, Filmmaker and Former Photojournalist for National Geographic

10:30 a.m. ET

• All tracks on-demand content available

11:00 a.m. ET: Planet of Plenty Live Workshops

• The Inaccuracy of “Seaspiracy”
• Awarding Sustainability
• Food for Thought
• Where’s the Beef?

Wednesday, June 23

9:00 a.m. ET: Keynote Session

• David McWilliams, Economist and Professor, Trinity College Dublin
• Dr. Ruth Oniang’o, Board Chair, Sasakawa Africa Association; Professor of Nutrition; Former Member of Parliament in Kenya

11:00 a.m. ET: Planet of Plenty Live Workshops

• Minding Your Cognitive Health
• Let’s Not Waste It
• Find Your Story

Thursday, June 24

9:00 a.m. ET: Keynote Session

• Shirzad Chamine, CEO, Positive Intelligence, Inc.
• Dr. Mark Lyons, President and CEO, Alltech

11:00 a.m. ET: Planet of Plenty Live Workshops

• Innovation from the Inside
• Farm-to-Fork Sustainability
• A Tale of Two Climate Policies

1:00 p.m. ET: Planet of Plenty Workshop with Shirzad Chamine

• Explore Your Positive Intelligence

Over the course of the Alltech ONE Ideas Conference, more than 70 on-demand presentations will explore challenges and opportunities in aquaculture, beef, business, crop science, dairy, equine, health and wellness, pet, pig, and poultry sectors. Registration for the Alltech ONE Ideas Conference will remain open, offering attendees 24/7 access to all on-demand content, including keynote presentations and tracks, until April 2022.  

Registrants can engage virtually in many ways during the Alltech ONE Ideas Conference, including the ONE FUNdraising Run, the Alltech Ideas Hub and expert-led mixology sessions. All are encouraged to share their experiences on social media with the hashtag #ONEbigidea. To learn more and to register for the Alltech ONE Ideas Conference, visit one.alltech.com.  

As a research scientist at Alltech, Dr. Anne Koontz lives out her passion for science communication, outreach and international collaboration by helping farmers become more sustainable and efficient. She joined the Ag Future podcast to discuss how to support farmers by effectively communicating to those outside of the agri-food industry the realities of the environmental impact of animal production and how farmers have worked for more sustainable operations through science and research.

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

Tom:                          I'm Tom Martin. Dr. Anne Koontz is a research scientist for Alltech with a strong interest in science communication, outreach, and international collaboration. We thank you for joining us, Dr. Koontz.

Dr. Koontz:                Thank you for having me, Tom.

Tom:                          So, do people today understand the realities of scientific inquiry? Can science kind of be boiled down to recognizing that the more we know, the more we know we don't know?

Dr. Koontz:                That is a fairly accurate statement. The important thing to remember about science and one of the things that's really hard for people who don't work in a scientific field is that science is constantly changing and updating itself whether we're finding new ways to ask a question, new ways to measure response. We're adding to that knowledge base constantly and reevaluating what we know. I have a very good friend who’s a brilliant scientist in her own right, Elizabeth Culprice, who wrote on Facebook not long ago. I have to quote this because it was just so perfect for this conversation. She said, “Perhaps the greatest utterance of the scientist is I don't know. Scientists never know. But upon seeing what we don't know, our next thought is how can I figure it out? How can I get closer to knowing? Formatting the known, creating a testable guess to what we think it could be and testing it, and moving closer to one step of knowing is what we do.” And I couldn't say it any better than she did of what scientists do and how important is to understand that science is all about not knowing and wanting to know what we don't know.

Tom:                          So, I guess we should filter through that: when we hear that there has been a scientific discovery or finding that, ‘yeah, that's true, but it could change in the future as more scientific inquiry is conducted.’

Dr. Koontz:                That's absolutely correct, Tom. And I think the other aspect of that that’s important when we have these kind of conversations and we talk about science communication and science outreach is the idea that we often have to simplify things. The way that I would explain gravity to, you know, my 8-year-old niece is very different than the way that I would discuss gravity with another scientist. So, it is a new onset of understanding that come as we increase things. I'm a big fan of— You’ll see probably through the rest of this conversation as well. But one of my favorite things comes out of The Science of Discworld by Terry Pratchett. And he said that these sorts of simplification are simply lies we tell children and they’re okay types of lies because it's the only way that people at that age can understand that concept, but we need to be— When we’re teaching those simplifications that are constantly reminding people that as you get older, as you have more knowledge and more understanding, those concepts become more and more complex.

Tom:                          Well, Anne, I know that you think a lot about science communication and I’d like to turn to that with regard to the farm and I’m wondering how have digital media, and broader connection, and social media changed the way farmers communicate what they're doing.

Dr. Koontz:                I think it has fundamentally changed the way farmers communicate with the greater audience around them. The ability to go direct to the world and say “look, this is my farm; this is what I'm doing today; here, let me walk you through my barn or take a ride on my tractor together” and show both the good and the bad of farming is really important. These farmers that are willing to do this, this type of communication, are really letting everyone into their everyday lives and showing the good, showing the bad, showing the frustrations and the excitement that come with farming, and making an industry that a very small percentage of our population work in— making that industry much more relatable to those who don't have access to a farm.

Tom:                          How can scientists like you in the agrifood industry support those narratives that farmers are sharing with consumers through TikTok or Instagram?

Dr. Koontz:                That’s a really great question, Tom. And I love this. The most important thing is to like what they're doing, share them with your platform, share them with your followers so you keep getting their message out there. And if you're willing to dive into the conversations— Now, sometimes they can get a bit heated and touchy when you get into the comments on a lot of those farmer’s pages. And I applaud every single one of the farmers who are willing to take that on and be on social media in that way, but the things that we can do as scientists especially is to backup what the farmers are saying. So, show that the farmers aren’t unique cases and link to other farmers who are saying and doing the same thing. And when people start asking, you know, why do they do it this way, why are you making this particular decision, to then link and discuss the science and the research that goes into those decisions that farmers are making and so that it's not just an arbitrary, we've always done it this way or I think this is right for me, but there is actually a huge knowledge base of science and research that is guiding all of these to allow farmers to be both sustainable and productive.

Tom:                          Climate change and the greenhouse gases contributing to it have never been under as much scrutiny as they are today. And agriculture is often singled out as a culprit, ruminants and cattle in particular. As one whose work focuses on understanding impacts of animal production on the environment, how do you respond to that?

Dr. Koontz:                My first answer is always going to be carefully. The most important thing to me is don’t deny and don’t get angry. Absolutely agriculture and cattle in particular contribute to greenhouse gases and global climate change. I like to start with whatever resource or citation the person that I'm talking to is pulling from. So, say someone has said, you know, cows are responsible for 14% of greenhouse gas emission. Let's work with that number. That number comes from the FAO. It's not wrong, but it’s actually the easy global figure for all of animal agriculture. So, if we put that in the context for most of the conversations lately have been in the U.S., so in the United States, the EPA gives the number of greenhouse gas emissions of 10% for all of agriculture with about 35% of that being animal agriculture and ruminant in particular. Now, that 34% sounds like a lot, but 34% of 10%, which means it’s 3.9% of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emission. Now, if we compare that back to other sectors, which I think is absolutely critical, the same EPA says that 29% of greenhouse gases come from transportation sector and 25% are related to energy production. When you put that 3.9% or 3.4% of emissions from ruminants in that context, the 29% for transportation and 25% for electricity, it doesn't seem quite important. But if all you see is that, you know, 34% of agriculture is ruminants or 14.5% of global greenhouse gases are agriculture, those numbers seem scary and big. So, it's really important to have the context and the comparisons for these conversations. And like I said, don’t deny. Do we contribute? Absolutely. Are we constantly working to contribute less? Yes.

Tom:                          Is it accurate to equate the climate impact of methane emissions with the impact of carbon dioxide? In other words, are there important differences in the nature of these emissions?

Dr. Koontz:                So, this is one of those questions where I have to refer back to the beginning of our conversation and say I'm not an expert in this particular thing. And this is a topic that is rapidly evolving in the science community. So, to hit on some of the high points, there's a difference between the carbon dioxide and methane in how they react within the atmosphere. So, carbon dioxide is considered a stock gas, which means it hangs around in the atmosphere once it's produced for a very long time. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 years. Methane on the other hand is considered a slow gas, which means that it only hangs out in the atmosphere for about 10 years and then it's broken down through a process called hydroxyl oxidation. So, putting that in the context of a big picture and why this has become a hot topic within agriculture in particular is that plants take up carbon dioxide and carbon sources from the environment. That's something we all learned in school generally. And those plants store that carbon and complex types of molecules. Carbohydrates, etc. So, when these plants then are consumed by animals in agriculture, those carbon-based molecules are broken down. And in a cow, some of that is converted to methane and release them again into the atmosphere. But if that methane is then broken down in 10 years into carbon dioxide, some portion of our carbon dioxide is taken up by plant. And this cycle just continues again and again. So, if we’re not significantly increasing the amount of methane we’re putting back into the atmosphere in comparison to the amount we're taking out, then perhaps we're a little more carbon neutral than we thought we were at least in that particular aspect of our carbon footprint. Now, there's a lot more to that discussion than in my very simplified overview right there. It is very much a current topic of debate and discussion within agriculture, within climate science. And it is one that I'll be keeping an eye on for sure for the next few years.

Tom:                          Well, you're right. I'm wondering if there's a danger that this increasing clamor for a reduction in livestock emissions might upstage the effort to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Dr. Koontz:                I think that's a very good conversation to have and it's a touchy topic, Tom. I mean in true scientific fashion, again, I'm going to say it depends. So, as I said before, does agriculture contribute?

                                    Absolutely. Do we need to reduce that contribution? If we can, yes. Do fossil fuels contribute? Again, absolutely. Do they need to reduce their contribution? Certainly. But when we start equating those things by simply saying they're both contributors, that’s where it gets difficult because, as I said before, the contribution coming from livestock and agriculture is significantly less than the contribution that’s coming from transportation and energy sectors that are largely fossil fuel based. But when you put that to someone as far as what they can do in their everyday life to reduce their personal impact, it's much easier to say “well, I'm just not going to eat meat one day a week” than it is to say “well, I’m gonna stop using my car one day a week.” Those are two very different lifestyle changes and one is going to be far more approachable to most people.

Tom:                          Pollution from the really large farm operations runs off into streams that feed into major waterways like the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico. And that contributes to algal blooms, dead zones that impact drinking water supplies, aquatic ecosystems, recreation, people's livelihoods. What's your perspective on these large scale operations?

Dr. Koontz:                I think this is another one of those areas, Tom, that is a touchy subject, but an incredibly important subject. There is no doubt that agricultural runoffs contribute to all of these dead zones and issues with our water quality throughout the world But it is one of those places where it is very important, again, to look at contribution. And unfortunately, I don’t have those numbers right in front of me because I’ve not seen them. This is not an area that I’ve spent a lot of time looking into as a scientist, but I do know that, well, agricultural runoff is significant. There is the more recent research coming out of especially Duke University in North Carolina that's looking at dead zones in urban streams and what they're finding is that those exist there as well. And so, we have to really start examining not only agriculture's contribution to these issues, but also our urban footprint, you know. One thing I paid attention to for years and tried to look at on my own property is the use of salt and ice melt ‘cause I could use salt as a weed killer. But when I use salt as an ice melt in the winter, that salt is staying in the environment, contributing to my grass not growing or contamination of my soil around my own property. And when we think about that scaled up to a global issue of how much salt and other ice melt type products we put on to roadways and where does that ultimately end up and what is it affecting as far as the environmental around us, again, I don’t wanna downplay agricultural contribution because we absolutely do have an agricultural contribution. But there are other factors that come into this issue of dead zones, water quality, and soil loss. And I know that within agriculture, farmers are constantly looking at adding buffer zones, changing the way they plant, changing the way they kill, using precision farming to really only get the nutrients where they need to be when they need to be there so that we are minimizing that loss or leaching. And I think they’re doing everything they can as the information and technology becomes available. And that’s really all we can ask.

Tom:                          Well, how do you think agriculture can improve not just the perception, but the reality of its environmental sustainability?

Dr. Koontz:                Those are two very different questions. I think the reality about environmental sustainability is very much already there. I've never met a farmer who didn't absolutely love the land they worked with and care about it and want it be there for multiple generations down the road. And because of that, they're generally very aware of what they're doing and how it affects the world around them. Now, whether or not that's been accurately communicated, that's an issue, but I think as we mentioned before, getting access directly to consumers and the rest of the world, your social media and other interaction capabilities is really changing. The ability to know that a farmer is person and not just someone who is, you know, essentially looking at the land like it’s a factory floor and trying to get more and more out of it as best they can, but genuinely cares and wants to do the best they can to produce safe healthy food while also taking care of the land they work with is really critical. And so, I think it's a balance. I think the reality is already there and we are continuing to push that reality forward with the science that’s done by researchers like myself and then the implementation of that science by the farmers and ranchers around the world. It's really a focus on that perception through communications that is critical.

Tom:                          Okay. Big change of subject here, but this is a question I’ve been looking forward to asking. Are doors opening to women in the agrisciences?

Dr. Koontz:                You know, Tom, that's not a terrible question. But at the same time, I want to rephrase it and look at it— You know, I'm a woman who's been in agriscience in some way, shape, or form my entire life. I grew up with access to farm through my grandparents, knew I wanted to be in agriculture fairly early on in my life, knew I wanted to be a scientist fairly early on in life. And I honestly personally never had a lot of pushback to being a woman in science. You always run into the odd person that proves you wrong. But you know, they're manageable. And so, I think not only are doors opening, but they are open. And I see that because more and more of the scientists I collaborate with around the world are women. And more and more of the farmers I talk to are women. And women are no doubt a driving force in agriscience. And we're going to hear more and more of us out there talking, and communicating, and showing you what our lives are like, and why you should also be in agriscience.

Tom:                          Okay. Let's talk about Alltech’s Planet of Plenty mission, and tell me how science informs or plays a role in that mission.

Dr. Koontz:                Absolutely. So, the three leaves that are in the Planet of Plenty logo are really critical. And we’ve given meaning to each of those 3 leaves. Science, sustainability, and storytelling. So, from that, you obviously can see that science is very much at the core of Planet of Plenty. Science is guiding the development of sustainability solutions. The science is guiding the changes we’re making and supporting farmers in farming options and ranching management. And science underpins all of the stories that are being showcased in the Planet of Plenty ongoing activities. And so, it’s really all about making that science applicable and communicating it very well to the world.

Tom:                          Why would you say it's important not just to the ag industry, but to consumers as well, that events such as the ONE Ideas Conference are held annually?

Dr. Koontz:                And here, we're right back to the beginning, aren’t we, Tom? Knowledge is constantly growing and everything else is changing. And honestly, I don't think the speed of change is going to slow down. If anything, it's just going to continue to increase. Because that change has been so rapidly, there's so much technology, and knowledge, and ideas that are generated every year, and so having these kinds of ability to get together, and talk, and discuss, and see what's new around the world on an annual basis really just gives you that one-stop shop for new ideas and new concepts. The other aspect that is absolutely one of my favorite things about Alltech’s One Conference is the international diversity. Well, in non-COVID times, I get to travel a fair bit for my job and see how things are done in a lot of different places and that gives me so many connections because, you know, someone encounters a problem— the same problem in different places. But because of their available resources, and cultural differences, and climate, and everything else, they solve that problem in a different way. And so, when you can start bringing those different solutions to the same problem and in discussing those things on an international level, you really start to find some of the key things that tie together and you can make those solutions stronger in each different location.

Tom:                          You know, it's been several years now, but I remember when we discussed CRISPR technology at the ONE Ideas Conference. And at that time, it seemed novel. It seemed exotic, but here we are today with evidently a breakthrough in CRISPR technology that might lead to restoring the vision of the blind.

Dr. Koontz:                It is absolutely amazing. I have so many stunning scientist friends who work in cutting-edge technology. And if I could just communicate what they're doing to the public on a daily basis, I would be overwhelmed. Science is moving so fast. We're seeing new things every day. And there's no doubt that Alltech has made it and absolutely key point to be on the forefront of that change in technology and knowledge and make sure that we're presenting the best of those changes and knowledge update to the people that come to our conferences and that’s just fun.

Tom:                          I tend to agree with you. That’s Alltech research scientist, Anne Koontz. Thanks for talking with us, Dr. Koontz.

Dr. Koontz:                Thank you for having me.

Tom:                          And I'm Tom Martin. Thanks for listening.

David Butler, head of sustainability at Alltech, believes that being a sustainable business means taking care of people, the planet and your profit. He joined Ag Future to discuss Alltech’s vision of Working Together for a Planet of Plenty™, how companies can begin to take action toward sustainability and why he believes in a future where farmers are more profitable and productive because of sustainable agricultural practices.

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

Tom:                        I’m Tom Martin, and with me is David Butler, head of sustainability at Alltech. The brainstorming behind the company’s sustainability commitments and goals takes shape and form in David's office, and it's his job to ensure that Alltech is continually finding innovative ways to be more sustainable in the more than 120 countries where the company operates. Welcome, David.

David:                      Thank you, Tom. It’s great to be here.

Tom:                       That term, “sustainability,” it's a big one. It gets a lot of use these days. So, in your context, how do you define it?

David:                      Yeah. Well, I look at it as a balance of social, environmental and economic factors. So, anything you're doing — whether you're running a business or running a country — you can't neglect any one of those things. You have to look at the whole picture. So, sometimes, it's described as people, planet and profit. And you have to make sure you're not neglecting any of those areas. So, if your company is making a lot of money but you're exploiting people and damaging the environment, then you won't be able to do that forever. And so, you have to think about the long term and not just the next quarter's revenue.

Tom:                        So, how does that definition of sustainability figure into Alltech’s Planet of Plenty mission?

David:                      Well, our sustainability work is an essential foundation for (our) modern business strategy. And it's about doing the right thing, reducing risk, maximizing opportunities and looking at the long term of the company. So, it's just good business sense, really. A Planet of Plenty is something bigger than that. That's our vision statement. It’s Dr. Mark Lyons’ vision for the future of the company and the future of the agriculture industry and, in fact, the world. And it's about building partnerships and trying to do our part to work toward that long-term vision.

Tom:                        Agriculture is often cited as a source of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. How is the industry working to reverse its contribution to increasingly frequent extreme weather events and the overall warming of the planet?

David:                      Yeah. Well, certainly, agriculture is a giant industry. You know, there are over 7 billion people on the planet that we have to feed, and agriculture also produces fiber and all sorts of other products. So, it's not very surprising that we have a big footprint, you know, with greenhouse gases. And the benefit of agriculture — or kind of the good side of things — is that we’re one of the very few industries that also has (the) opportunity to capture carbon and pull it out of the atmosphere and put it into soil. And so, there are a lot of people that are working on different ways to do that through regenerative agriculture methods. There are also a lot of people that are working on ways to reduce the emissions that we produce with machinery or the production of fertilizer and, in fact, emissions from livestock.

Tom:                        In 2019, Alltech committed to the United Nations Global Compact and to work toward nine Sustainable Development Goals. Tell us about those goals.

David:                      Yeah. Well, the goals themselves are pretty amazing, I think — just the fact that they exist, because, in 2015, the United Nations came together, and they launched something called the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. So, it's a blueprint for creating a better world by the year 2030. So, 192 countries joined together on this agreement, on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. And they also agreed on how to measure progress toward them. I think that's amazing, that 192 countries could come together and do that. And the goals are really designed for countries to enact, but companies can help to advance those goals, and companies should focus on the goals that are most closely aligned with their core business. So, we looked at zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, climate change, life below water, life on land, and partnerships for the goals. And those are the nine that we chose to focus on.

Tom:                        Those are some big ones. Each one of those is pretty enormous.

David:                       Yes.

Tom:                        So, making such a commitment is quite a bold step that I would have to believe must be pretty difficult for a global company that's operating in an ever-changing world of different cultures and different economies and so forth. Why was it decided to make such a commitment?

David:                      Well, actually, Mark Lyons’ vision of a Planet of Plenty came first. We had already kind of mapped that out and decided, you know, “This is a new vision for the company going forward.” So, we started looking at actions that we could take to move that vision along and movements that we should join with other businesses. And the Sustainable Development Goals is one of the best ones around, because it provides a direction for companies and countries to work with each other, and, you know, it provides metrics for measuring progress. And the United Nations Global Compact is the organization that kind of helps companies come together and work toward the SDGs. So, we joined that.

Tom:                        If you think about this as a nine-burner stove, are you cooking on all nine burners? Are there some things that are kind of up on the front and others on the back burner?

David:                      Well, I don't know if anything's on the back burner, but yeah, they're not all on a full boil yet. We've got some work to do, of course. The ones where I see the most progress right now are the environmentally focused ones — and, of course, that's kind of closest to my heart. Climate change is such a big issue, and it's going to impact every single other Sustainable Development Goal, you know. If we can't address climate change, we're not going to succeed in any of these other areas. So, we committed to something called the Science-Based Targets Initiative, which means that a company will figure out what their greenhouse gas emissions are, and then they determine, scientifically, what they have to reduce them to by 2030 to properly address climate change. So, that means that it’s not just a PR exercise, where you wave a magic wand and say, “We're going to reduce our emissions by 10%” or whatever you think it should be. It’s based on calculations by the intergovernmental panel on climate change that say, “Your emissions are going to have to come down by X percent by 2030.”

Tom:                        What advice, David, do you have for companies that are interested in making this move to more sustainable practices and operations but may be feeling tentative about it?

David:                      Well, I think, whether you’re tentative or not, I think the best place to start — the most sensible, business-focused place to start — is by saving money. And if you can reduce your energy use, then you're also reducing your greenhouse gas footprint. And if you can reduce your water use, you're helping the environment. If you can reduce the amount of waste that you output, you're helping the environment. All of those things are very important, and they have to be done across the globe and by all companies. So, why not start there, and then, take a little time and track the amount of money that you save, and then, take that money and reinvest it in some other, more ambitious things? And you know, don't just randomly pick something that you think sounds nice. Look at what your company does — like, what are the areas where you can come up with a benefit that's really closely aligned to your core business, you know? And maybe you can get your customers or your suppliers involved, and you can build partnerships around that and find ways that you can make your business stronger and more resilient and even more profitable while you're making an improvement in the world.

Tom:                        For generations, it seemed as though sustainability on the one hand and profitability on the other hand were working at cross purposes, but do they have to be mutually exclusive?

David:                      Well, I think that perception is based on the fact that a lot of people don't know that sustainability has that economic aspect. So, if you’re running a company and you’re putting so many resources into environmentally beneficial programs or social programs that your company is not profitable, then, by definition, you're not sustainable. And if your business goes belly-up, then you're not going to be making much of an impact in the world, and all the people that depend on your company are going to get left behind. So, you really have to balance all three. So, by definition, they are not mutually exclusive. They depend on each other.

Tom:                        There’s a lot of concern about population growth in coming decades, and I’m wondering: Is it possible to feed a growing number of people without contributing further to climate change and other environmental issues? Can this be done sustainably?

David:                      Well, it can't be done doing the exact same thing that we've been doing over the past many decades, because while agriculture has gotten more and more efficient in many parts of the world, there are other parts of the world where we're still clearing forests for new agricultural land. And you know, if you look at the Amazon rainforest or other rainforests, those are actually really poor soils, once you cut the trees down. So, a farmer might go in and clear land in the Amazon rainforest only to have to clear more land again in two years, because the soils are depleted once they cut the trees.

                                So, we've got to look for ways to produce more food without, you know, damaging the environment further. And there are lots of innovative ways we can do that. I think one of the most important things is to look at all the waste we have in the system. We waste an amazing amount of food; it’s somewhere between 30–40%, depending on whether you're looking at the developed world or the developing world, and that's insane. I mean, all of the resources that went into all that food are wasted. And in addition to that, a lot of that food ends up in a landfill, where it turns into methane. And so, it's like you've shot yourself in both feet there. And we've really got to get a handle on the food waste. And we just waste a lot of organic matter in general, you know, into landfills — material that should be composted and put back into the soil, and instead, it's burned or it's put in a landfill or, maybe, it's dumped at sea.

Tom:                        You know, I had not heard that about the Amazon, about the condition of the soil on the forest floor. And meantime, we have experienced deforestation in this country, in places like Appalachia, due to surface mining and so forth that was on lands that were rich in soil, and we lost that as a result of the clear-cutting. A lot of irony at work here. But looking into the future, how do you see agriculture adapting to more sustainable practices?

David:                      Enthusiastically. And I might not have said that a year ago, but I really think the conversation has changed. You know, there are so many online conferences now where people are talking about real solutions to climate change — how can we start to put carbon into the soil, how can we change some of the practices that we have that are so dependent on too many chemicals, too much chemical fertilizer? You know, how can we protect our water? And I think we’re starting to approach a tipping point where people are realizing, “Hey, we can start to do things differently here. It doesn't have to be the way we've always done it for the last many decades.” And in fact, when you look at a lot of regenerative agriculture practices, they are actually very similar to practices that were done 100 years ago. But when you combine that with science and innovation and a really precise use of technology and modern automation and mechanization, then you can see do those things at scale.

Tom:                        Yeah. I guess the journey to this realization about climate change and about sustainability and so forth has been very halting over the years, but it seems as though — are you sensing that we're “getting it” now?

David:                      Yeah. I really do think we are. I mean, I’ve been on a lot of video conferences and calls with organizations like the USDA and Farm Bureau and pretty conservative legislators, and nobody is saying, “This is not happening.” They're saying, “What's the best way forward? How can we make the changes that we need to make, and how can we do it in a way that doesn't put it on the backs of the farmers?” The farmers can't afford to change everything they're doing out of their own pocket, you know. And the whole world is going to benefit when we start to put carbon back into the soil. So, the farmer should benefit from that as well.

Tom:                        What are some of the more important changes that you’ve been observing in recent times that have to do with that?

David:                      Well, I think there is a lot more talk now about complex multiple crop rotations, about cover crops keeping the soil covered year-round. Soil health is a big, big topic — much bigger than it used to be. And rotational grazing is also very, very important. So, that means that you're taking grazing animals — whether they’re cattle or sheep or even possibly bison — and you're moving them through small paddocks and moving them, maybe, as much as every day. And so, you mimic, kind of, the behavior of a natural herd that is chased by predators and is constantly moving through the environment. And that means that instead of turning them loose on 100 acres and just letting them mow that all year long, you're moving them around these small paddocks and (into) every paddock. It's a very long rest time, and the animals are bunched together, and they trample the grass into the ground, and they fertilize it. And that's how the soils in our grasslands were created, you know: in that symbiotic kind of relationship with herd animals. And those grasslands are some of the most rich — they were some of the most rich carbon sinks on the planet.

Tom:                        Wow. That's really fascinating, and the whole thing is. So, I have to believe that when you get up in the morning, you get ready to go to work, you're pretty excited about it. What excites you most about your work in agricultural sustainability?

David:                      Well, I think the thing that is most exciting to me is that agriculture does have this amazing opportunity to kind of help us rebalance the carbon cycle, pull all the excess carbon back out of the atmosphere. And in the process, we can make farmers more productive, more profitable; make the soil healthier; make our food healthier and our water healthier. And if I can have some little, small part of that, some area where I can help with that, then that's exciting to me.

Tom:                        That’s David Butler. He leads the sustainability team at Alltech. Thank you, David.

David:                      Thank you, Tom.

[DUNBOYNE, Ireland] – Agriculture has the greatest potential to shape the future of our planet, and by embracing innovation and improving farm management, our agriculture sector can lead the way in enhancing agri-food sustainability. The Alltech Ireland Environmental Forum was held yesterday as a virtual gathering of international and domestic thought leaders to discuss carbon and climate challenges and inform and equip Ireland’s dairy industry to move forward to achieve its sustainability goals and Ireland’s 2030 targets.

“Never before have we needed to come together as an industry to solve the environmental challenges we face, and is not up to one organisation to solve this issue,” said Cathal McCormack, country manager at Alltech Ireland. “We need to collaborate with the industry by working together with farmers, industry bodies, dairy processors and the government. Action is what will make it happen, we need to make a start.”

Global industry experts joined the virtual event to explain how industry stakeholders can lead the way in enhancing both agri-food and national sustainability. The speakers and discussion topics included:

• Timothy P. Robinson, senior livestock policy officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization with the United Nations, was the opening plenary session speaker with his presentation, “Raising ambitions on climate action in dairy systems.”
• Dr. Frank Mitloehner, professor and air quality specialist in cooperative extension in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis, California, presented on “Key actions to reduce livestock’s contribution to climate change.”
• Emma Swan, InTouch Feeding Specialist, Alltech Ireland and Dr. Stephen Ross, Alltech E-CO2, shared their thoughts about “Alltech’s Vision for a Sustainable Irish Dairy Industry.”   
• Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech, provided closing remarks to the morning session.
• The afternoon session consisted of a panel discussion, “Digging deeper on sustainability: What needs to happen?”, with industry experts:
  • Thomas Hubert, The Currency
  • Matthew Smith, vice president, Alltech  
  • Prof. Frank O’Mara, director of research, Teagasc
  • Dr. Elizabeth Magowan, director of sustainable agri-food sciences division, AFBI
  • Tom Arnold, chair of the Irish 2030 Agri-Food Strategy Committee

To view the recording and for more information about the event, speakers and topics, visit https://go.alltech.com/ireland/environmental-forum.

Alltech has announced the keynote speaker line-up to be featured at the Alltech ONE Ideas Conference (ONE), a virtual event that will be held on May 25–27, 2021. Streaming keynote and on-demand presentations will be released during the global conference and will focus on the power of science, sustainability and storytelling.

Shirzad Chamine, author of the New York Times bestseller "Positive Intelligence," has served as the CEO of the largest coach-training organization in the world and has used his expertise to train the faculty at the business schools at Stanford and Yale. Chamine lectures on the concept of mental fitness at Stanford, where he also works with the university’s student athletes. A preeminent C-suite advisor, Chamine has coached hundreds of CEOs and their executive teams.

A man of many talents, Dewitt Jones is one of America's top professional photographers, as well as a motion-picture director, an author and a former photojournalist for National Geographic. He has also been at the forefront of corporate creative marketing by photographing national advertising campaigns for major brands. Jones is recognized as a world-class lecturer. His knowledge of the creative process, his relaxed and genuine style, and his ability to communicate make his presentations truly outstanding.

Economist, bestselling author, journalist, documentary filmmaker and broadcaster David McWilliams is ranked as one of the top ten most influential economists in the world. He has devoted his entire professional life to the objective of making economics as widely available and easily understandable as possible.

Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech, represents the second generation of the global business founded by his father Dr. Pearse Lyons. Based on Alltech’s belief that agriculture has the greatest potential to positively impact the future of the planet, he launched the company’s vision of Working Together for a Planet of Plenty™ in 2019.  Alltech is driving science-led sustainability within agriculture and calling for collaboration to improve nutrition, human and animal well-being, and the preservation of natural resources.

“This past year has changed the world, and now, more than ever, we need to come together to share insights, inspiration and innovations,” said Lyons. “The Alltech ONE Ideas Conference connects changemakers for conversations that can shape the future of agri-food and our planet.”

A new keynote presentation will be streamed on the Alltech ONE Ideas Conference virtual platform each day. Registrants who miss the scheduled streaming can access the presentations on demand.

More than 40 on-demand presentations will also be released on May 25. These presentations will uncover the challenges and opportunities in the aqua, beef, business, crop science, dairy, equine, health and wellness, pet, pig, and poultry sectors. The Alltech ONE Ideas Conference virtual platform will also host live workshops and an interactive networking experience.

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

Carol Cone believes that having a profound purpose that employees buy into is integral for businesses to fulfill their full potential. She discusses her work as the CEO of Carol Cone On Purpose, where she helps build partnerships between companies, brands and social issues for deep business and societal impact.

 Tom:                                   I’m Tom Martin, and joining us for this latest conversation in our purpose-driven business series is Carol Cone, founder of the firm Carol Cone On Purpose.

                                    She is regarded the mother of social purpose, working for 25 years to build partnerships between companies, brands and social issues for deep business and societal impact.

                                    Welcome, Carol.

Carol Cone:              Thank you for having me to the show, and I’m thrilled to be talking about my favorite topic.

Tom:                          Well, let me ask you about that. What is a purpose-driven business? Isn’t the purpose to serve the bottom line, the shareholder? Is there something beyond that?

Carol Cone:              Oh, actually, I’m so glad that you asked that, because it was Milton Friedman, in the late ‘70s, who said, “The purpose of the corporation is just to serve the shareholders.” But that — in a world where we have total transparency, and we have so much choice, and we also recognize that we have climate challenges and social challenges and, you know, economic challenges, that — companies today who are going to win in the marketplace, whether they are B-to-C or B-to-B, they stand for something beyond the bottom line that’s based in humanity.

                                    And simply put, the companies today are recognizing, “What’s our core competency, and how can we take that competency and apply it either (to) society or the environment?” And when they do that, they have a profound purpose, a reason for being, that lights up their employees, their customer relationships, their community relationships, their consumer relationships. It really allows them to fulfill their full potential.

Tom:                          The Unilever CEO, Paul Polman, has said that what people think, say and do should be aligned. And that might be obvious, but is this the essence of a business that has worked to develop and express its purpose?

Carol Cone:              Well, let me first say that I had the joyous opportunity to work with Unilever. I got to meet Paul Polman a number of times. And he actually — in all the thousands of encounters he’s had with people, he sent people my way, so he does recognize that I do have this expertise in purpose.

                                    And (with) this alignment of what the company stands for, you can’t just say, “We stand for it.” You have to act. And so, when he said that people should think, say and do and have this alignment, and when you have a purpose that is beyond making a profit, that’s where you truly, again, ignite your stakeholders — not just shareholders, your stakeholders — to truly perform to, you know, the wildest levels beyond their wildest dreams.

Tom:                          Carol, I wonder: How many of us know whether our company stands for something?

Carol Cone:              It’s a great question. And I believe that — you know, I’m a third-generation entrepreneur. And you know, I always — when I started my company — and you were very kind; you mentioned 25 years. I started my company in 1980. (But) it’s still young, and I didn’t know what I stood for, but about three years into it, I recognized that I wanted — I love branding, I love marketing and I love the social challenges of the day.

                                    I grew up in the ‘60s and the ‘70s, and we had the Vietnam War in our face, and we had the Civil Rights movement, and I just felt that companies could take their assets and make them work harder for society. And so, my purpose, (which) I found when I was very young, was to help elevate the purpose of companies and brands, as well as professionals, students and such.

                                    So, a company must understand what it, you know — (you must) stand for something, because you talk about it as that North Star. Like, “Why are we doing what we’re doing?”

Tom:                          Mm-hmm.

Carol Cone:              And, when you do that, and then you add dimensionality to it, it just becomes this ignition for just performance and possibility.

Tom:                          Well, let’s say that we want to build a purpose-driven organization from the ground up. What building blocks, what kinds of tools do we need to make that happen?

Carol Cone:              Well, it’s important — and usually, if you’re going to build up from the ground up, you’re probably a small company or you found the company — I’ll tell you a great story. It’s a very — it’s fascinating. It’s about a company called Charlotte Pipe.

                                    And Charlotte Pipe makes pipes. They make clay pipes and metal pipes for water and for, you know, basically, mostly water municipalities and for people who have farms and things like that. And you know, you think, “How can a company that makes pipes have a purpose?” But, you know, it was about — it was a family-owned firm (that) decided one day to say, “You know what? We’re going to make the best pipes ever in the world. And not only are we going to make them so that they are just the top-quality and all the parts and bits, you know, they integrate with each other and they perform; we’re going to give great warranties, and we’re also going to have great, great policies for our employees. So, our employees not only get a fair wage, and they get, you know, health benefits and such, but they know, at the end of the day, that they can stand behind (us) no matter where they are in the process of making these pipes, because we’re going to make the best pipes in the world.”

And so, sometimes, your purpose can be something as simple as just terrific quality, and then, making sure that your employees — because employees are the number-one stakeholder to support and to build companies that truly over-perform.

So they just did that, and they had these great values, and they live the values, they live their integrity daily, and it was an amazing company, and they made pipes. You know, that’s a lot different than when we think about Unilever, Unilever and Dove.

You know, Dove was basically soap. It was a white bar of soap. It really didn’t have many attributes that differentiated it. But one day, some of the marketers at Dove, they made a major piece of research around the globe. And, they have like, oh, I don’t know, hundreds and hundreds of pages from this research, and they were asking about women and beauty and how they (use) soap, about themselves, (and there) was this one little, little, teeny, tiny fact, and the fact was that it was something like only 4% of women worldwide feel beautiful. And so, some really, really smart person at Unilever said, “You know what? We’re going to take that fact — because we’re selling to women, right? And we want women to feel good.” And they started the campaign for Real Beauty, and it’s been around now for over, oh, like, 15 or 18 years now. And they supported all sorts of ways, in a realistic way, to help women feel confident and good about their selves, and that beauty was on the inside; it wasn’t just on the outside.

And that became one of the first purpose-driven brands at Unilever. And now, Unilever is certainly the gold-standard company that anybody will study to truly understand (purpose-driven businesses). They have brands that have super-human powers, and they have brands that have — that take on qualities that might be one step remote, but their purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace. And they touch 2.5 billion — with a “b” — people a day with their products, whether it’s Knorr soups or whether it’s Dirt Is Good laundry detergent or whether it’s Ben & Jerry’s ice cream or whether it’s Lifebuoy soap.

And each one of those brands — they have about 30 brands that are now purposeful, (and) those brands grow about 70% faster than their non-purpose brands, and they return over 75% of the profit to the company, because they stand for something more than just features and benefits.

Tom:                          I’m guessing that it takes a lot of thought, discussion and debate to work through this process, and there may be some impatience involved in the meantime.

Carol Cone:              Absolutely. Yeah.

Tom:                          How much time, reasonably, should we give ourselves to allow for the development of a clear statement of purpose?

Carol Cone:              Well, first of all, I love that you said “debate,” because a purpose is only as good if it’s authentic to the organization, its values and the people within that organization.

                                    So, we’ve had — we’ve worked with companies to develop their purpose, and we’ve also helped companies evolve their purpose, so we can study them. And it takes anywhere from — to do it well — six months to years. It could be couple of years.            

                                    And what’s really important — because you asked about, like, “What building blocks and tools do you need?” You need to ask some really good questions, and it needs to be not just the C-suite — not just the CEO, the CMO, the chief human resources person, the CFO, etc. It also needs the guy and the gal on the factory floor. And it’s harder to get them, because they may not have computers. 

                                    But, you know, we have worked with a company that has 47,000 people around the globe; they have over 100 different locations. And we did everything, from — we did phone interviews with their entire leadership team around the globe (for) an hour each, and that was 200 (people). So, that was a lot (of) time. But I will tell you, I had set — that company was so authentic, and it had such ethos and soul. I only had — out of a few hundred, because I did most of those calls, I only had five (dodge), five that were really boring.

                                    Now, in addition to that, we went around the globe, and we travelled to eight different locations, from China to Malaysia to Costa Rica and Brazil and the United States and Ireland and such, and we did workshops and focus groups. And so, we have, like, the, you know, the leadership interviews; we had the focus groups. And the focus groups have people from the factory floor.

So, we got conversations going about, you know, “What do we stand for? What’s our core expertise? What’s it like when, on a daily basis, when we’re at our best? What are some of the challenges that (manifest) when we don’t do well? Who do we admire, maybe in our industry or outside of our industry, who truly knows what they stand for and has fabulous cultures and really accelerated sales but who, also, is helping the local community, or who’s got great environmental programs?”

So, there’s more questions than that, but those are some of the core questions you ask. And then you need to debate, and then you need to say, you know, “How, let’s say, boldly, (do) we want to take on the world with our purpose?” Then, we want to take on something that’s more conservative. That’s another part of the tools that we utilize.

We have a process that I developed probably about 25 years ago that, you know, it’s no longer guessing; there’s truly a way that you can be a guide. And so, anybody who’s listening, there are ways to follow so that you’re not just guessing, because you don’t want to guess at this. It’s too important.

Tom:                          I visited your blog, Carol, and I saw that you’ve written that authentic purpose equals thoughtful, real and sustained actions that impact the business internally and externally, while also having that positive impact on society that you talked about earlier. Does this boil down to nurturing a culture of transparency, accountability, honesty and integrity, those kinds of things?

Carol Cone:              Well, when we talk authentic purpose — we did a piece of research. I’ve done about 30 pieces of research over the last 30 years, because I, when I started doing this work, I made the joke that I could have had a conversation about purpose at a table for four or six. And American Express was doing this work early on where they had a promotion where, if you use the American Express card, they would donate a penny or two to the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. And that was kind of the first big “cause program.”

So, in the early days, no one was talking about this. Today, because of the internet, because anybody can check off the reputation of the company — you know, what are the customers saying? What are people, you know — why are they getting three stars or zero stars? Do they, you know, like, do they stand behind their products and services?

                                    So, I — this last summer, I got really, really angry, because there was a lot of, can I say, “purpose washing,” “green washing,” “pink washing.” And part of that also came from this research that we did called the B-to-B Purpose Paradox, and it’s on our website, (at) Carol Cone On Purpose. And we asked businesses in the B-to-B realm — they were financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, technology, etc. — and we said, “Do you have a purpose?” And 86% said, “Yes. We have a purpose. We know what we stand for.”

                                    I was like, “What? There’s no way, because B-to-B world trails B-to-C world.” But when we asked deeper questions and peeled back the onion and we asked, “Do you activate — do you have an authentic purpose that you bring into your employees and your innovation and your operations?” Only 24% truly had activated it.

                                    So, getting back to this essay that I wrote last year about authentic purpose, it does boil down to walking the talk, living your values, integrating why you exist. Like, if you’re going to be Unilever and make sustainable living commonplace, what are your sustainability practices internally? What are your sustainability practices with your supply chain? How do you treat the farmers in Madagascar who are harvesting vanilla beans? You know, do you — is there a fair wage, etc.?

                                    So, you need to walk the talk, and yes, you need a culture that is transparent, that has high integrity, and that there’s honesty. And you know what? You’re not going to be perfect. That’s the other thing I really want to share with anybody listening who’s on a purpose journey. It is a journey. You know, Unilever had — they had a wonderful Dove campaign for Real Beauty, but they also had some missteps with Dove, some big, bad missteps. And — but you know what? Most of the time, their integrity is there, so a consumer or even an employee gives them the benefit of the doubt.

Tom:                          I’m going to dig further into that in just a few minutes. But I want to ask you, first: Has this coronavirus pandemic served to underscore the value and even, maybe, the necessity of engaging in those thoughtful, real and sustained actions that you were talking about?

Carol Cone:              Well, first of all, companies — the first thing that companies had to do during COVID is that they had to address the safety of their employees. And thank God that most companies did. Even if they didn’t have the world’s deepest purpose or greatest community relationships, they recognized that they had to, if they let people work from home — and you saw companies with 50,000, 100,000 employees pivot, almost, on a dime to let people work from home. The greater challenges were companies that had to keep people in their plants, and they had to manufacture and, you know, could they get PPE, and could they socially distance and such.

                                    So, COVID accelerated companies that were values-driven. And, I would say it also accelerated decision-making, which was really, really, really interesting because, you know, companies, per se, the larger they get, the slower they get in decision-making; they get more people involved, (and) they get very conservative. And COVID really pushed companies forward quickly.

                                    So, for example, you had AB InBev that, you know, all of a sudden, they took their manufacturing from beer, and they were making hand sanitizer. Same thing with P&G. They had over 200 different NGOs around the globe they are working with, and they immediately pivoted to help them not only survive but then make, again, PPE, hand sanitizer, things like that.

                                    So, COVID has really brought to the fore (the question), “Why does a business exist?” And companies that truly, truly rose to the occasion and helped their employees and then helped the community and then started helping small businesses survive and really, you know, helped all of us, you know, with mental health problems, or donating a lot of food — I mean, you know, there are so many families going hungry, and then (there were) tons and tons and tons of food drops and such.

COVID did, I believe, show the humanity of companies. And I don’t think that companies can go backwards once they’ve done that, and I think the smartest companies will build on that.

Tom:                          Yeah. We thought we knew what a game-changer was before COVID, didn’t we?

Carol Cone:              Right.

Tom:                          So, Carol, in those discussions and the debate that we talked about earlier, is it ever asked, “How do we address the needs of our customers, quality-wise and price-wise, while also remaining nimble enough,” in this ever-changing world that you just talked about, “to sustain our relevance?”

Carol Cone:              I use the word “innovation” because for a company’s customers to be at the top of their game, to have quality — and if you think about Alltech in the ingredients, what — Alltech is research-based, and it’s constantly looking at what are the elements in its products that will help to create natural, appropriate, faster growth of, whether it’s poultry or whether it’s beef or such, in a way that is nutrient-dense that, again, is natural.

And so, that company must focus on innovation. And you’re seeing, today, that purpose-led companies have incubators, that they’re funding innovation incubators. And again, you can go to — I know the Mars company has one. I know that AB InBev, I know that Unilever, P&G, the big — General Mills — the big companies have these incubators on the side, because they’re really looking for that next new idea to keep them relevant and to benefit their customers.

Tom:                          You referenced, earlier, the C-suite and bringing folks from the factory floor into the conversation. And so, I’m wondering: In terms of employee engagement, why is purpose important to everybody, from top to bottom?

Carol Cone:              You know, I would like to say (that it’s) what gets you up in the morning to go to work. Do you get up in the morning (because) “I’m going to make money for XYZ CEO”? Or, you know, do you get up in the morning because you’re going to make the best darn leather boots that anybody’s ever made, and those leather boots are going to be, you know — they’re made of all-natural ingredients, per se, and they give you tremendous support, and they allow you — they don’t have a thread that marks the path, so you’re going to leave no thread behind?

Now, of course, I’m making this up, per se. But the point is (that) having this greater reason for being just allows an individual at any level to — and it’s really funny, when you talk to CFOs, and I’ve seen CFOs that love the purpose of their company. They are just lit, and it’s really, really funny, in addition to the person on the factory floor. And so, it just gives you that energy and that North Star. You’re looking up to the stars to say, “I’m doing something to better my neighborhood, my community, my city, my country or the world.”

And so, to be inside of a purpose driven company — I’ll give you, I’ll give you another great example that’s one of my proudest moments, that, early on, I worked with the company called the Rockport Shoe Company. And their CEO, he came to me and he said, “I really want to build my company on something different.” He didn’t have a lot of money, but he had these really, really unique shoes, and they (had) Nike inners. So, they have, like, these athletic inners, but they had street shoe outers. And nobody has ever done that before. And so, they were ahead of their time; they’re a little bulky-looking, but, you know, for a year — it took me a year to find some gem, some reasons that these shoes were just more than shoes. And the CEO gave me a little clue.

                                    We would go to the trade shows and would have these beautiful pictures of people walking in his shoes, walking in a field, walking down the city street, walking in the neighborhood. And he didn’t, say, want to become the walking shoe company, but he did have these pictures. And so, one day, I realized — I did some research, and I realized (that) there’s no walking shoes for fitness and for health.

And so, long story short, we had a fellow who walked around the country. He talked to kids. He said, “Eat properly, don’t smoke, and walk.” He walked 11,208 miles in every state. We then flew him back to Massachusetts, to the University of Massachusetts. They had a health and fitness facility to study his health, because he was going to be the world’s first (and) longest walking experiment. And when he finished, not only was he wicked healthier, but we had a book, we had a movie, and we had a lot of data that said walking for health and fitness was really good for you.

                                    And we continue to create a walking institute and walking tests and all sorts of walking information. Rockport renamed itself “the walking shoe company.” Walking became the nation’s newest fitness activity. It became a billion-dollar category at retail, and Rockport grew eight times (its size) in four years. They were wildly successful, and then Reebok bought them.

                                    But it was giving — and I’ll tell you, they had this thing about (their company) feeling really different. One day, I was out in the loading dock area, and I happen to, like, listen in to a guy that was taking boxes off of a UPS truck. And the UPS truck (driver) asked this employee — this was, like, a guy that was like, you know, 24 years old — “What’s this company, Rockport? What do you do here?” And this young man, he stopped, he just kind puffed off, and he said, “I work for Rockport. We’re the walking shoe company.”

                                    And, you know, the company not only made walking shoes, but they gave their employees a free pair of shoes; they gave them a walking book, (and) they gave them time to walk during the day. And it just gave that young man and, then, the entire company a reason for being, far beyond just selling a shoe. And it just made me — and that was, that was kicking off my purpose career.

And then, we did Reebok and human rights and Avon and breast cancer and PNC Financial Services and early childhood education, and we reinvented the Aflac duck. You know, the big Aflac duck that says, “Aflac!”

Well, (they) donated $125 million to pediatric cancer and — but the two did not meet. But we knew the kids who went through pediatric cancer had a thousand days of treatments. They were lonely, and they were sick, and they were scared. And so, we invented a social robot that helped those children. It was a companion for children that they could interact with, and they could put emoji cards on it, and the duck would quack with their feelings. So, those kids wouldn’t be alone. And Aflac was reborn in terms of its purpose and its engagement with society. And it helped also grow their sales tens of millions of dollars, because they created something called My Special Aflac Duck, a social work that help kids going through a really hard time with cancer.

So, purpose. And when you find that purpose — and it’s just an extraordinary accelerant to alignment between all your stakeholders and, then, growth.

Tom:                          Let’s stay in the C-suite for just a moment, and if you would, describe for us the traits of that successful leadership team that’s authentic and credible in the way that it models purpose in an organization and creates what you were just talking about: employee buy-in.

Carol Cone:              And you know, I’m going to say that — how do they model it? Because a company that has a purpose must walk the talk.

                                    So, people. If you’re going to sell to a diverse consumer base, you need to have diversity of people working to get better ideas, to get better energy. So, it’s walking the talk, so that when you talk about your value of being innovative or listening to everyone’s ideas, you need to activate them, and you need to model the behaviors, day in and day out. And it’s coaching. It’s mentoring. It’s innovating. And it’s also taking what you stand for down to your supply chain.

So, it could be such as what Alltech does. You know, they have this amazing commitment to Haiti, to the poorest of the poor in Haiti, where they’re sourcing coffee. Because they want to help, you know, individuals, farmers, the coffee farmers, have a better life. And then, they go sell that at retail, and they put the money back into it. It’s cause-related marketing and such.

                                    But they’re these virtuous circles that companies are recognizing that they have to be. And today, especially with the millennials and Gen Z, (they know) that there’s a choice about where you work, and people don’t want to park their values at the door. They want to work for a values-based company that’s not only going to help with their training but also, at the end of the day, when you leave the office or you go home to your family or to, like, you know, the local fact or game or something, you talk about — like, I remember, again, going back to Rockport, (and people would be proud to say), “I work at Rockport. I work at the walking shoe company.” And in it, there’s a pride. You can’t put a dollar amount on that pride.

And companies today, it is now becoming — it used to be just the early adopters, the Ben & Jerry’s and the Body Shops and such, (but) it is now the mainstream that companies recognize that they want to attract the best and brightest.

And the best — I’ll give you another example: Tata Consultancy Services. They’re the world’s largest information technology company. They have more than 50,000 employees. They’re based in India, but they’re all over the world. They are larger than Accenture and IBM. And when they bring in employees, they spend three months going through training and learning about the culture. And then, their first customer — it’s a not-for-profit, and so, they allow their new employees to really feel their integrity and their values and action. It’s extraordinary. And their turning rate is barely anything. Their retention is 87–89%.

Tom:                          Wow!

Carol Cone:              (That’s) unheard of in companies. It’s because they live their values from the very (start), from recruiting to retention, from the highest senior level to the factory. Well, they don’t really have factories, because they are software.

Tom:                          Well, Carol, I made a mental note to return to something that you brought up earlier in our conversation and, also, going back to your blog.

                                    You note there that there’s recent research that finds that 65% of consumers want businesses to take a stand on issues that are important to them, and that rate goes up to 74% among 18-to-39-year-olds. How does a policy of purpose inform how an organization responds to these forces, what it stands for, and does this include making clear what it opposes?

Carol Cone:              This is a — okay, so activism and advocacy is very hard for companies today. It’s really hard, because no matter what side you’re going to pick, you’re always going to have your detractors. So, what — the first thing we say to any of our clients is, “Don’t just jump in” — that you need to look at, “What do you stand for at the core?” And then, you need to decide whether you’re going to be bold and you’re going to stick your neck out, as Nike did with Colin Kaepernick.

                                    But, you know, I knew, when Nike did that — Nike is a “bad boy” company. Now, there are also about one of these days too. But, you know, that, doing what they did with Colin Kaepernick — you know, everybody said, “Oh, they’re losing all this money and their stock price,” etc., etc. Yeah, their stock price took a hit, but then it went, then it went right back up, through the roof, because they walk their talk; they live on their values. And, you know, they’re not perfect; (they’ve) had a lot of issues with women, and now, they’re trying to be much more equitable with women.

                                    But a company has got to look at its core, and it is, it’s a tough decision to make. It truly is, in terms (of) standing out. And I think DE&I — diversity, equity and inclusion — that’s where, you know, companies today, they know they have to act, but they also have to understand. They have to start with their policies internally. And do they have equitable pay? Do they have equitable advancement, you know? And they have to start there, and a lot of companies just are looking at, you know, the terms or the words they use and the way that they advance people, (but) they’ve got to start, really, at home.

                                    So, corporate activism, regarding (that), you know, you’ve got to be really, really careful, and there’s no one roadmap to follow. You know, you also want to look at: do you want to be left behind? So, again, there’s no easy answer to this, but you certainly need to look at your history and how you’ve acted and what your internal policies are before you take a stand at all.

Tom:                          But is any success in recruiting the best new generation of talent going to depend on a company’s willingness to respond to these social, political and environmental dynamics?

Carol Cone:              Well, I think we have to — you don’t have to respond to them all, because if you respond to all things, you will stand for nothing. That’s the first thing.

                                    Climate and the environment, I think it’s fairly indisputable that you’ve got companies today, and their ESG — their environmental, their social and their governance approaches — that, environmentally, they have to cut their carbon footprint. They have to be more environmentally, you know, sensitive. And there’s lots of innovation that comes out of that, which is great.

                                    And we are turning to an electric economy, which is exciting. And, you know, I’m going to give a shout-out to Mary Barra assigned with this podcast, this interview. But Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, they are going to stop making combustion engines by 2035. They’re not going to make them anymore for regular cars and light-duty vehicles — like, oh, my God, they are going to go all-electric. That’s so exciting.

                                    So, you know, I think that companies, they have (questions about) DE&I, (and) you’re going to have to respond. But how will you respond? And the level and the goals that, the goals that you set and how you measure and report back, you know, that’s (just) as important. You don’t have to go from zero to 60 instantly, but you need to make steady progress. The level of your boldness depends on, again, your culture.

                                    I also think that there’s going to be — a lot of my colleagues who are in the C-suite, and they say that there’s going to be this next generation of leadership, the next gen, the Mary Barras, who’s very (much) on the cutting edge. You know, she started out as an engineer at General Motors, you know, (and now she’s) a woman running a car company. How — my God! And she’s fabulous, and she’s really, really great. And Indra Nooyi, who ran Pepsi-Co, and she really helped them. You know, she had a philosophy (of) performance with purpose, and that, you know, (she) decided to make better-for-you drinks and (add) less sugar and salt in the snacks and things like that. And they’re on a wonderful journey too.

                                    So, there’s going to be a new generation of leadership that recognizes that you cannot be successful in a society that’s unhealthy. And so, you will see dramatic changes happening again and again and again.

Tom:                          The Unilever chief, Paul Polman, has said that leaders need to have the courage to show that they’re vulnerable, that they’re willing to ask for help, which would seem to counter the historical notion of leadership, where just the opposite has been expected.

                                    Has the world become more receptive to a more down-to-earth, more accessible servant-leadership style?

Carol Cone:              I love that you talk about servant leadership, because in the earliest days when I started doing this work, there was a guy named Jack Stack. And if anybody knows (or) reads his book, it was about (being an) open book with management and leadership. And it was pretty much about servant leadership.

                                    And there’s a company that I have (on) one of my podcasts called Lineage Logistics. And nobody knows them; they’re about a $3-billion B-to-B. They are cold-storage refrigeration warehouses. And they handle, from field to store, about one-third of the food in the United States and about one-tenth of the food around the globe.

                                    And their leader knew that, you know, “I’ve got people in heavy coats in cold-storage facilities that are wearing boots, and this is not glamorous.” But he recognized that he needed to have a purpose, and their purpose is, basically — the shorthand is to feed the world. It’s also to stop food waste, but to feed the world. And he’s applying — it’s really interesting, when you talk to him, because he is applying, he wants to be the greatest technological cold-storage facility, you know, around the globe. And they have all sorts of innovations, but he treats his employees — he’s got a great CHRL.

                                    And I interviewed him on my show and talked about servant leadership and talked about — if you think about your traditional pyramid, you’ve got the C-suite at the top, and you’ve got all the, you know, the worker bees at the bottom. Servant leadership flips that. It has the workers at the top and it has the C-suite at the bottom. And that’s what Lineage does. They are there to serve their employees, to give them great benefits, to give them opportunities to grow, to give them an understanding that they are helping to feed the world. And, actually, during COVID, what they did — they did this wonderful thing about collaborating with all of their customers. And they created this goal to feed a hundred million meals to people during COVID through Feeding America.

Tom:                          Wow!

Carol Cone:              And, you know — and again, they’re cold storage of food that, you know — they’ve got all these, you know, like, forklifts that are driving around. It is not glamorous, but their people feel (like), “My God, I get up in the morning because I am, I am helping with food waste, and I’m feeding the world.” And, Greg Lehmkuhl, who’s the CEO, he gets that, that their purpose is at their core, (that) it’s the soul of their company, and that he is there to serve him employees.

                                    So, you are spot-on. And I love that Paul Polman, you know, he’s gone on from Unilever, and he’s doing wonderful, really collaborative work with big industry groups. Like, I think that’s he’s got, like, I don’t know, 25 companies in apparel, and they’re trying to totally reinvent the apparel industry — dyes and things like that.

                                    And courage is really important. You’ve got to have courage to do this. But, when you do it, this is how you reinvent: it’s called stakeholder-based capitalism. And it’s truly, you know, taking Milton Friedman and turning him on his head — (it’s) saying it’s not about “when you do all these other things right to your stakeholders, then you make the profits, and then you serve your shareholders,” but you serve all your other constituents.

Tom:                          It sounds like it’s a matter of being comfortable in your own skin and developing a really powerful sense of confidence.

Carol Cone:              It is a powerful sense of confidence. And then, you also need to — the other thing (is) that you can’t go for the short term. So, one of the things that Paul Polman did is that he said, you know, he’s not going to report quarterly earnings, which was shocking. And he basically said, “If you don’t like my — if you don’t like the way I’m reporting, then don’t buy my stock.”

                                    And it’s hard for companies who are public who, you know, you have to give guidance, you have to report quarterly. But this is a game, a purpose game, and the stakeholder-based capitalist approach and strategy — it’s not a “game” game, but I’m using that as, you know, a euphemism — is that you got to have a long view, because innovations — you’ve got to bring the, you know, how you’re going to serve the climate and society. You’ve got to take a longer view. You just can’t — you know, (with) purpose, you can’t flip a switch on purpose. You can’t turn it on and off.

Tom:                          Going back to something else that you raised earlier in our conversation, Carol — and apologies for this cliché — but they say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Do you think it’s possible for a purpose-driven organization to influence the cultures and the behaviors and achieve alignment among the companies within its supply chain?

Carol Cone:              Well, you know who did that incredibly well? Oh boy, you know, take a page from the book of Walmart.

I mean, Walmart decided — and I was at one of these meetings, at, I think, it was business with social responsibility. And they said — and Walmart is doing this in a number of ways. They are saying that you have to report on your environmental footprint, per se, and you’re going to get, you know — there are all there reports you have to do, and based on how you come out, you will get, uh, your position on the shelf. And everybody wants that, you know — “I’d love a position,” etc., etc., etc.

                                    That was a game-changer. That was a game-changer. And so, you’ve got these, we call them, market makers. You’ve got these big organizations who say — like General Motors — “We’re not” — you know, it’s their own product, but “we are not going to sell combustion engines.” Well, think how the downstream is on that. Think about, “Oh, God, we’re going to have to have all these charging stations. We’re going to have to have all these new battery companies.” That’s cool, but think about the other stuff that’s going to be antiquated.

But there’s amazing things that are happening, where companies are really utilizing their — you know, Starbucks. And Starbucks changed the entire coffee farmer industry by, you know, determining that they were going to pay them a fair wage. And then, they communicated the heck out it. Starbucks is my favorite company (in terms of their) views of their employees. Their employees are their number-one stakeholder — one, two, three, four and five. (They’re) just brilliant, brilliant things they do.

Tom:                          When it starts at the top of the chain, at Walmart or Amazon or wherever, does it — do you see it rippling through the supply chain and influencing the policies of those companies that are within the chain?

Carol Cone:              Well, I don’t know about the policy. I think, certainly, it influences the products. And if — indeed, companies that wanted to sell at Walmart, they had to report on their carbon footprint. So, of course, it changed the policies, or they couldn’t sell there, or they got bad position on the shelf.

Tom:                          Back to the pandemic. This has been an overwhelming thing in our lives for more than a year now, and we’re really not out of the woods yet. And some are now saying — in fact, the New York Times has proclaimed on its front page — that remote work is here to stay. So, I’m just wondering: What kinds of challenges does this present to purpose-driven organizations?

Carol Cone:              I think it’s a tremendous opportunity, because (it’s about) standing for something besides just making widgets or being on a Zoom call all day.

For example, there’s virtual volunteering. And a major piece of research just came out of CECP, which (is the) Chief Executive for Corporate Purpose, called Value Volunteering. It’s going to be one of my podcasts; it’s going to air in about a month. And basically, volunteering is helping individuals stay connected to the company, even if it’s just, you know, on a Zoom screen, or we’ll eventually be able to do volunteering in our communities with, you know, with masks and then, ultimately, you know, without masks, in micro volunteering and large volunteering.

                                    So, purpose is going to be that golden thread that ties people to the company, I think, (and it) is more important than ever.

Tom:                          Carol, final question for you: What sort of world exists in the future in which purpose-driven businesses become the norm?

Carol Cone:              Hopefully, it’s not nirvana. Hopefully, it’s not a dream. Because companies will have their — they will be more efficient; they will more human; they will be more environmentally sensitive. They will make wicked-cool innovations that are going to be, you know, responding to social issues and environmental issues. And we will have greater solutions to the problems that confront us on a daily basis. And work will be more joyous. That is for sure.

Tom:                          So, do you think there’s a good chance we could be happier people?

Carol Cone:              I think we will be more fulfilled. I don’t think we’re going to be happy all the time, but I think that being satisfied and having greater fulfillment, I think that that’s going to be a great result from having a lot more purpose in all of our companies, both big and small, B-to-B, B-to-C, local, national and global.

Tom:                          I’ll take it. Carol Cone, founder of the consultancy, Carol Cone ON PURPOSE. Thank you so much, Carol. We appreciate your time.

Carol Cone:              I, it was joyful, it was great. And thank you so much.

Tom:                          I’m Tom Martin, and thank you for listening.