The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin's interview with Dr. Kyle McKinney. Click below to hear the full interview. 

Tom:              The food industry has a four-quadrillion-dollar problem. You heard that right. This number represents the losses due to unused or misused nutrients in animals. With hundreds of thousands of acres being dedicated to farmland each year, agriculture is an important force that is continually shaping our world. But could a new enzyme begin to unlock this four-quadrillion-dollar opportunity? Is this the real key to creating a Planet of Plenty™?

                       As the global director of Alltech's Alternative Raw Materials and Feed Efficiency platform, Dr. Kyle McKinney is focused on feed efficiency. He earned a Ph.D. in agricultural biotechnology, focusing on the development of microbial fermentation systems to produce complex enzymes that improve feed and nutrition. Dr. McKinney joins us to talk about new opportunities for food and our future. Thanks for joining us, Kyle.

Kyle:              Thank you very much.

Tom:             Before we talk about the future, where are we today? Where is the state-of-the-art in feed efficiency right now?

Kyle:              When we talk about this opportunity, we consider the future of food and feeding the population. This whole concept and idea comes from the fact that, over the next 20 to 30 years, we're going to add two to three billion more people to the population. People say, during that timeframe over the next 30 years, we will have to produce more food in 30 years than we produced in the history of mankind.

                       When we read about the future of food, we see the positives and we see the challenges, the opportunities and some downright scary aspects, such as not having enough calories — not having enough food. So, we look at this as an opportunity — an opportunity to utilize technology, specifically an enzyme, to help the animal digest more available nutrients from our fields. I don't look at the doom and gloom. I believe that we will have plenty of food, and I believe that, when we look at our feedstuffs and you look at how much we lose in terms of nutrients and calories now when we're feeding our animals, it's an enormous opportunity — a four-quadrillion-dollar opportunity.

Tom:             We're tossing around some enormous numbers here. I mentioned that number: quadrillion. For perspective's sake, that's 1,000-trillion dollars. If you place one quadrillion British pound coins on top of each other, they reach beyond our solar system. That's how much we're talking about. We're talking about four quadrillion dollars in losses due to unused or misused feed in animals. So, the scope and the proportion of this is beyond imagination. When we hear about unused or misused feed, what does that mean, and how does this happen?

Kyle:               If you put some context behind that number, we produce about 3 billion tons of grains per year. Much of that goes into feedstuffs to feed our animals. The problem is that we lose about 25 percent, on average, of the available nutrients because of fibrous components in the feeds. I use the terminology of a bird nest that traps nutrients and the animal can't digest.

                        So, when we look at and consider 3 billion tons of feed, of grain, and we consider the 25-percent losses, and you look at the calorie levels of all those grains, that's really where we get to in terms of this four quadrillion, which is an enormous number to even consider.

Tom:              It is, it is. We hear that there's a new enzyme that could transform this problem into something of an opportunity. What is the new enzyme and how was it identified?

Kyle:               Our focus has always been on getting the most out of our diets. To do that, you have to consider that there are lots of components in a diet that trap nutrients — lots of variations of fiber, if we want to go that simple. To break all those fibrous components down, we believe it takes many enzymes.

                        We focused on a technology called solid state fermentation. Solid state fermentation is an ancient technology. What we are able to do is utilize a non-GMO organism, a fungus. We grow that fungus on a high-fiber feedstuff, and it produces a whole host of natural enzymes that are designed to break down grains and feedstuffs because we start with that.

                        So, our approach is utilizing solid state fermentation to produce an enzyme complex, many enzymes, to work on the many fiber substrates that we have in a diet. We don't focus on just one or two. We're focusing on a dozen or more of these substrates that are trapping nutrients. We can break those down. We see the most benefit in terms of nutrient availability for the animal.

Tom:              And is this technology being applied?

Kyle:               This technology is being applied. We've been pioneers in this solid state fermentation system. We have a facility in Serdan, Mexico, that produces for Alltech globally. We do research in terms of looking at how we can improve that system. We do research looking at new microorganisms that may give us even better enzyme complexes to focus on and get more and more out of the diet. That's the challenge the industry has, and that's the challenge we pose for ourselves: how do we continue improving the efficiency of those diets? Which means, as we feed more animals to feed the growing public, we've got more grain sources, because we're getting more efficient. That's one way we're approaching this Planet of Plenty^TM concept, using this solid state fermentation enzyme technology.

Tom:              And in this application, you're actually seeing those results.

Kyle:               Absolutely. We see it with our enzyme system. For example, we can improve the digestibility of this grain feedstuff 7 to 8 percent. So, if you take 7 to 8 percent of the amount of calories that we're losing in all of our grains in feedstuff, it's an enormous number. It's going to allow us to feed more animals in the future.

Tom:              I know that you spent some time working for Alltech in Costa Rica on a project focused on using the Alltech Crop Science portfolio to control disease and reduce chemical applications. It also allows your team to set up a fermentation lab to evaluate more sustainable microbial solutions for disease control. How has the knowledge gained from that work informed what you're doing now?

Kyle:               The tie between those two projects is simply our expertise in fermentation, in microbial fermentation. We learned a lot about producing microorganisms in our systems in Costa Rica that we were able to take to our facilities in Kentucky and our facilities in Mexico and others and be more efficient in how we produce our products. So, the tie there was simply the fact that we went to Costa Rica, we set up a fermentation system, we're very successful in utilizing this type of technology to reduce chemical input. What we gained is knowledge of how to become more efficient in our production models that allowed us to move to different locations that we have production locations in globally.

Tom:              Earlier, you referenced population growth in the world. I'm wondering how this new enzyme will factor in supporting a Planet of Plenty.

Kyle:               If you look at the numbers, in 2050, there's an expectation that we will require 70 percent more meat, more food — and that's something around 500 million tons more meat in 2050 than we're producing today. That's something around 1 billion more tons of milk than we're producing today.

                        In the last 60 years, we haven't had additional acres of land growing grains, so we've accomplished amazing feats in agriculture; with less land, we produced more meat. Moving into the next 30 years, who knows how much more additional land we'll free up for grain production to produce more protein? This SSF enzyme technology and enzyme complex is going to be critical for the simple fact that we don't know that we'll have more acres of land. We probably will find it somewhere. But we've got to get more efficient because we do know one thing: we're going to have to produce more meat and protein to feed the population.

Tom:              Kyle, what else are you keeping an eye on in terms of alternative raw materials? In a traditional industry like farming, why is it important to look for new ways of doing things?

Kyle:               The hot topics in alternative materials right now are insect proteins. In Kentucky, it's hemp. [Kentucky is] the number one hemp-producing state in the United States. How is that going to play into how we're feeding animals in the future is a key question, and it's our duty to keep an eye on and understand how some of these alternative materials will play a role as we feed animals. At the moment, we're still very traditional corn and soy. But the new technologies, specifically in terms of insect protein and insect meals, are going to be probably the fastest-growing segment in the next five to ten years.

Tom:              That's fascinating. I've been wondering if Alltech had an interest in hemp because it's so popular in Kentucky (where Alltech is headquartered) and it grows all over the state. Is there actual activity in this area?

Kyle:               Our activity began with Alltech Crop Science looking at some of our technologies for improving efficiency. That is a project that's ongoing. But in terms of animal feed and animal nutrition, our researchers are digging into how hemp will play a role. Right now, it's not going into diets, but we have to keep an eye on this and see how that changes and see how it fits into feeding strategies.

Tom:              Getting back to insects — also fascinating, and there certainly are plenty of them. But are there particular species that are of interest?

Kyle:               The number-one insect used right now is called the black soldier fly. Picking the right insect is all in determining the growth rate of the insect — how much protein is in that fly meal. So, black soldier fly is the number-one insect producer at the moment.

Tom:              What would you say are the trends that you're keeping your eye on right now?

Kyle:               I think the trends that we're looking at in Alltech really revolve around technology and agriculture. How are we getting more efficient in monitoring animals, feeding animals, observing the nutritional needs of the animals, and what new technologies are going to allow us to do that? So, I think we, internally, have some programs where we're looking at innovation for sensors, for example. But it all gets back to us focusing on how we are improving the nutritional component of that animal and improving profits for our farmers and our growers.

Tom:              Dr. Kyle McKinney, Alltech's Alternative Raw Materials and Feed Efficiency platform global director. Thank you so much for joining us.

Kyle:               Thank you.

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

Click here for more information about the Alltech Enzyme Management Program.

The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Dr. Oyvind Fylling-Jensen. Click below to hear the full audio. 

Nicole:          Can we provide the engineering solutions to meet the harsh environment of the open ocean? And can we realistically produce five-kilo salmon onshore in closed systems? I'm talking with Dr. Oyvind Fylling-Jensen, CEO of Nofima, the Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research. Thank you for joining us.

Oyvind:          Thank you.

Nicole:           Dr. Fylling-Jensen, when we talk about engineering solutions for the fish industry, particularly salmon, are we actually talking about breeding, or is this an all-encompassing effort, from tank technology to genetics?

Oyvind:          I think you have to look upon it as a value chain, where breeding and genetics are one of the input factors for producing good salmon. If your stocking materials are of high quality, your output material is more likely to be all high-quality as well. But, then, you have other input factors, like the feed, the rearing conditions and the whole way through the processing, which makes the end product, which is actually what the consumer meets. Unless that has a high quality, people won't buy it.

Nicole:           How far would you say the industry has come in breeding salmon, and what are some of the end goals in breeding for the species?

Oyvind:          I think, in breeding, we are starting to see some development. Historically, it has been traditional family breeding and family-line breeding. Then, over the last few years, with modern technology, you've been able to use SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) markers and QTL (quantitative trait locus) markers for disease so that you're able to breed for disease resistance — actually, then, reducing the chances of viral diseases, for instance. Then, in the future, if you look a little bit further on, you might see a new technology, like CRISPR-Cas9, that will be pushing us even further to a disease-free salmon. So, I think we are, in convergence and developmental technology, still at the early stages of what is achievable.

Nicole:           How many businesses in aquaculture would you say have access to that kind of technology right now?

Oyvind:          Hundred percent; all of them.

Nicole:           Oh, really?

Oyvind:          Yeah, but there are two major suppliers. One is AquaGen and the other one is SalmoBreed, which is owned by the Benchmark group, and the third one is in-house breeding programs. All companies of a certain size have access to modern technology, but the research is going on both inside the industry and in research institutes and in the universities. So, there's a flow of information between the players in the field.

Nicole:           How would this kind of technology increase the cost for consumers?

Oyvind:          There is a limit to how much you're able to produce, and that's actually more important in determining the price to consumers than the cost of input factors, such as breeding and genetics.

Nicole:           Is fast growth a challenge in breeding fish?

Oyvind:          Fast growth is a challenge if you're not doing it properly because, then, you might get deformities, which reduces the output of the fish in the production cycle. You have to have a growth rate that considers the fish welfare and the robustness of the fish throughout the whole cycle, from egg to harvest.

Nicole:           Is that when you know you've pushed the limit -  when you do see the deformities or when there are death rates within the fish?

Oyvind:          The mortality rate is still, in some farming, considered too high. Some of this is due to disease, some of it is due to environmental factors and some of the factors are still unknown. Management practices and stressing the fish, for instance, is one of the causes for mortalities, but it's not the enhanced and the forced growth that is causing the major problem. That's not the case.

Nicole:           It's more with sea lice and disease?

Oyvind:          Sea lice doesn't cause mortalities, per se; it causes the fish to eat less and develop stress factors that reduce the growth potential. That's one of the reasons why sea lice is considered a problem, because it also affects wild salmon and then puts pressure on wild salmon stock, and it reduces the production quality of farmed salmon.

Nicole:          The potential with genomics and quantitative genetics is almost baffling to me, that we have come so far. Can you explain the difference between quantitative genetics and genomics?

Oyvind:          That's slightly outside my field. The quantitative genetics uses traditional markers, like growth rate and fat and things like that. When you start looking at gene expressions and the way certain genes are causing and making susceptibility for disease, and if you were able to use genomic information to reduce that, that's when you start seeing paradigm shifts in the way breeding is done.

Nicole:           How would you say that this kind of technology is shaping the industry now?

Oyvind:          It's shaping the industry in the way that the speed at which new technologies and knowledge are being introduced. But then, a farmer is a farmer, and he or she will not just swap technologies or swap suppliers unless it's proven successful. So, there will be a lag phase between what is possible to do in the laboratory and what's possible to achieve on a farm site in a net pen system, for instance.

Nicole:           What are some of the benefits of growing salmon onshore, compared to offshore?

Oyvind:          Well, you have to distinguish between offshore in fjords — in open containment systems — or offshore in the ocean. There are completely different requirements to the equipment and to the durability and the resistance against weather and external forces. In closed containment systems and recirculation systems, land-based systems are facing challenges related to water quality, bacterial growth and disease-free environment. In some instances, there is an off flavor in the taste of the end product. But there is a lot going on. There are currently more than 20 land-based major projects under development for large-scale production — several of them here in the U.S., actually.

Nicole:           Would you be able to pinpoint a couple that you think are really kind of cutting-edge?

Oyvind:          I think one who is cutting-edge is a company called Atlantic Sapphire, who has a large site under development in the Everglades with the aim of producing 90,000 tons on land. What they have done is develop a system for high-quality water supply and high retention of water, good water quality and, then, also be able to dispose of all the effluence in a proper way. Another probably is Nordic Aquaculture, which is planning a site in Maine — in Belfast, Maine. Both of these companies have the advantage and they have tried out in a smaller scale and have learned some of the pitfalls; maybe, in a way, that's very expensive, because experimenting in 2,000 tons to 3,000 tons is also quite costly — but that experience is essential, I think, for their expansion into large-scale facilities where you produce 10,000 tons and more.

Nicole:          Would you say that some of the benefits of producing onshore are that it allows you to control the water quality and some of those things?

Oyvind:         Yeah, you have a system, and one thing is to control the water quality, but you also have to control the effluence, like nitrogen or ammonia, and to take that out of the water to have high water quality. This is one of the challenges. But, also, when you produce on land, you have to deal with sludge treatment and how you dispose of the waste, what you do with that, and energy costs. So, even though you move it on land, in closed contained land-based systems, there are new challenges that you will meet going forward.

Nicole:         You had touched on parasitic sea lice a little bit before. How difficult is it managing this type of issue in salmon farming, and what are some of the control methods that you're seeing?

Oyvind:          Sea lice is considered as one of the strongest markers of high-intensity production. As a kind of welfare indicator, sea lice is very good. One of the challenges with sea lice is that it has become resistant to most of the traditional pharmaceutical methods that you are trying to do. Then, since it's considered as one of the major challenges in Norway for Norwegian salmon farming, the innovation around preventive methods, like sea-based closed contained systems or lice scourge or even using lasers to “shoot” off the lice from the fish, there's a lot of development going on. Management practice is also important. Some companies are starting to develop feed with anti-lice effects so that you will not have lice infestations on the fish, but that's all in early stages. The industry says this problem will be solved in a matter of time.

Nicole:          Well, how much do you actually think the nutritional diet of the fish plays into all of this, and what are they feeding to kind of control that?

Oyvind:         The specific ingredients, that's the black box; that's what they're not telling us. But there are indications from research that some components that you are able to introduce to the feed will increase both the mucosal layer on the fish, which is a part of the immune system, and also introduce anti-lice signals —  if I may use that kind of picture — so that lice will not jump on the fish and stay there.

Nicole:           Oh, like a pheromone or something.

Oyvind:          Yeah, that could be a pheromone, yes.

Nicole:          Kind of like with wine, there are certain words used to describe the quality and taste of a product, whether it's bold or round or balanced, that you would use for wine. In salmon, you're looking for its robustness — is that right?

Oyvind:          When you talk about robustness of salmon, it starts with the quality of the roe; it starts with the size of the smolt when you raise it in freshwater, and how strong it is, and at which size you put it into seawater. What research is now showing is that, if you are able to rear them for a longer time on land than previously done — they were put to sea around 60 to 80 grams, and now, they put them at sea around 500 to 600 grams — that you see stronger resistance toward the harsh environment that the sea really is. So that's a part of the robustness.

                     The other one is like genetic improvements on breeding, that you have bred disease resistance into it. The third part is quality of the feed — that, if you try to tweak the feed too much toward avoiding essential amino acids and essential minerals and things, you see a high susceptibility to disease. So, the whole picture and, also, the density of the production environment is important. So, all this is what you use, then, to describe the robust fish. Then, when you come to the wine analogy of what it looks like and tastes like, if it looks like a salmon and tastes like a salmon when you get it on the table.

Nicole:         That's always a good thing. As aquaculture is expanding into other fish breeds, where do you see salmon competing in the future?

Oyvind:         Salmon will remain a niche species if you look at the large volumes, in my opinion. Currently, production is around 2.2 million tons worldwide, whereas tilapia is already close to 5 million tons. If you look at all the species, like Pangasius or others, salmon will remain a fairly niche product. That's also one of the reasons why the demand for high-quality fish is exceeding the production possibility.

Nicole:          So, will you be looking to a technology like gene editing to be able to meet those demands in the future?

Oyvind:          I'm not quite sure if the genetic attack to it is the limitation factor. It's more about area — where to grow and how to grow — that will be the solution. That you aren't moving onshore is one solution to it. A second solution is to go offshore, into the ocean. A third solution is to use closed or semi-closed ocean- or fjord-based systems, but which are in a shape where you don't have the risk of contaminating or infecting the next laying farm, so you can actually put them much closer together than you can today. That's, in my opinion, one of the solutions to meeting increasing demand.

Nicole:          Dr. Fylling-Jensen is CEO of Nofima, the Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research. Thank you so much.

Oyvind:          Thank you. It's a pleasure.

I want to learn more about improving nutrition in fish production.

The below is an edited transcript of Tom Martin's interview with John Phillips of Darby Dan Farm. Click below to hear the full interview: 

Tom:              John Phillips is a third-generation horseman who owns and operates Darby Dan Farm, which was originally founded by his grandfather. Darby Dan is among the iconic Thoroughbred farms of Lexington, Kentucky, and the Bluegrass region. John also manages the family- owned Phillips Racing Partnership. Thank you for being with us, John.

John:              It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks, Tom.

Tom:              I'd like to get started with an interesting article I read about you that appears on the website of Vanderbilt Law School, your alma mater. It talks about your decision to leave the practice of law because of your distaste for and fatigue from the mad chase for billable hours that was accelerating at the time. So, you agreed to take on the leadership of the family farm with the mission of guiding this gentile country gentlemen's pastime into the world of global competition, high financial stakes and huge risks of business failure. It sounds like the challenge is a big law case — but on horseback. Do they differ in important ways, or are they quite the same?

John:              Well, they differ in some ways, and they're similar in some ways. They're different in the sense that, in law, you're worrying about somebody else's problem — you’re trying to resolve somebody else's problem. With horses and the horse farm, they're your own problem. That makes it really different.

                        Psychologically, for me, it's much more satisfying. I love the law, but it was much more satisfying to see tangible results of my efforts. That was fundamentally a difference — one that, to me, was just more fulfilling. Having said that, the legal education was absolutely valuable and is very much a part of my process day to day with how I define and analyze problems. I have to thank my legal education and my ten years of legal practice for allowing us to apply those skills in a day-to-day world on a horse farm and in racing and rearing horses of the magnitude that we do.

Tom:              I was wondering if that grounding in law informs what you do now. Can you give me an example, perhaps, of how you use what you learned about analysis or critical thinking?

John:              Well, in law, you start with facts, you find the issue and then you analyze that issue. It's no different for many other problems that you face. I'm sure economists would have their approach to a problem as well. It’s a global business now and, as you noted, we have constant challenges to apply law to what we produce. The fact of the matter is we have syndicate agreements. They have become very sophisticated. When my grandfather did a syndicate agreement on Hail to Reason literally decades ago, it was a two-and-a-half-page document.

                        Now, a syndicate agreement for a stallion is 30 pages. There are all kinds of nuances within that document, and that degree of sophistication within the industry has required the application of law, so much that it has been really helpful, not only in the stallion range, but in boarding contracts and sales relationships. There is a lot at stake now. It's not that gentile practice that it used to be in my grandfather's world; it's really intense global competition, and you better protect your backside and understand the legal ramifications of what you do, because there is a lot at stake.

Tom:              Not only does Darby Dan have an extensive record of racing successes — a couple of Kentucky Derby winners, several grade-one performers, a British Cup winner — the farm has also repeatedly proven its success in breeding and the continued care of retired race horses. We’ll get into aftercare in just a minute, but has a guiding philosophy evolved that has contributed to the success of Darby Dan Farm?

John:              I was reflecting back on the family's success — not only in Thoroughbred racing, but we have been very fortunate but in all of our sports activities. Upon reflecting on the opportunity to apply certain basic principles of life to the Thoroughbred horse racing — we owned the Pittsburgh Pirates for 35 years as well — and they basically distill down to three concepts. Those are being able to work with people — to respect people of any standing — and having a passion for what you do [and courage].  

                        If you really are passionate about something, that’s never work. It's not something you have to do or need to do; it's something you enjoy doing. So, you can work very hard and still think it's extremely enjoyable. That's one of the differences that I had in law because that was work to me. Even though it was satisfying, I wasn't thrilled to come through the door every morning. I certainly get that thrill when I come onto the farm.

                        I think you also need courage. That is, you need to not be afraid to fail and try things.

                        I think, if you apply those basic principles — which we use in horse racing and baseball, and there are some great anecdotes in each of those instances that I could give you — but if you apply those basic principles of life, then you'll be, I think, surprised that success can follow.

                        It's hard to explain why you could have successful business raising Thoroughbreds and the success in baseball that we had. We won three world championships. So, if you look at that, what are those basic themes? Really, there were the three principles of people, passion and courage.

Tom:              I'm tempted to ask you for one those anecdotes. Is there a nutshell-sized one that you've used?

John:              Well, yes. We talked about the respect for people. I think there are two really neat examples of that. Pittsburgh Pirates acquired the services of a young player from Puerto Rico who could barely speak English. He was really a talent, but he was struggling. The family embraced him, and he became a dear friend of the family. Ultimately, with that increased confidence and feeling of respect that he had from the organization and from the ownership, he flowered into one of the greatest baseball players of all time. That was Roberto Clemente.

                        This is the second anecdote: When the family sold the Pirates in 1984, a reporter asked him about the sale, and my uncle said, “Well, we've sold for just enough to pay for the debt on the team.” The reporter was a little incredulous, and he said, "You mean to tell me, after 30 years, you haven't really made any money?" Uncle Dan, in his classic way, said, "You have missed the point entirely. For 30 years, we've had the best seat in the house." That was kind of our attitude — you go for it and you enjoy the process, not necessarily the destination. If you like the process because you're passionate about the process, then good things will happen in the end.

                        Those are a couple of experiences that we have had in the family that, quite frankly, have just been very fortunate.

Tom:              That's a great story. [The experience] is the value, isn't it?

John:              It is.

Tom:              In an article I read by BloodHorse Magazine, you talked about your reasons for joining the Water, Hay, Oats Alliance. This is not an organization that we'd consider a household name. First of all, what is that, and then, if you could share those reasons with us.

John:              Thoroughbred horse racing is challenged right now. The society's values are different than they were in my parent's or grandparent's day. Their attitudes are different, and horse racing is not a sport to change quickly and easily — but it's a sport that, if we're going to survive, we have to change.

                        There are certain fundamental contexts that require the sport of horse racing to change. Integrity of racing has always been one of them. Of course, as with human sports, the issue of doping, of medicines that enhance performance, have always been an issue. It’s gotten so much more sophisticated and it is so much more complicated now. It is also so much more transparent than it ever has been before. The doping topic, from the Olympics to everyday basketball, has become a keynote. It's no different in horse racing.

                        The Hay, Oats, Water Alliance was essentially an idea to centralize the issue of drug standards within the industry through the federal government. Right now, it's very hard for the industry to do much of anything because it has 30-some jurisdictions that are all in control. They all have different penalties and different standards. While we've tried for the last 20 years to have uniform medication, if you will, we have not been very successful. This was an approach just to take that one issue and put it in the hands of an independent regulatory body. It’s the same body that oversees the Olympics.

                        We were asking the states to yield their control over that one particular issue for the purpose of uniformity of standards, testing and penalties. Doping is one of the underbellies of Thoroughbred racing. It has been for many years. The problem is that, now, I don't think we have the luxury that we used to have. Sports are changing radically — the competition and, quite frankly, now, sports betting. It's going to be intense. If you give the general public an excuse not to pursue their interest in your sport, they will take that, and they will exit from the game. So, that is one of them.  

Tom:              Has that been happening?

John:              Yes. The fact of the matter is that, in 2011, the U.S. Jockey Club did research with the McKenzie Group out of Atlanta, a nationally recognized research company. Unfortunately, we're losing about 5 percent of our fan base a year, and that's too much. That will lead us into obscurity if we let it.

                        Now, there are a lot more reasons than the integrity issue. We have some things that are no longer acceptable to the public. One of them is the aftercare of Thoroughbred race horses. That is an extremely sensitive topic, particularly with millennials now, but it's always been a sensitive topic. There is also the relationship between men and horses, which is just different from what it was a century ago or 50 years ago.

                        At the end of the Thoroughbred racehorse's career, what happens to them next is a factor for people not following the sport, and it's a factor for people who exit the sport. It has to be addressed.

                        Then there are other things that come down to the use of a stick. That has just an adverse impression, and it's a little different than it was 100 years ago because-

Tom:              What does that mean?

John:              The whip. There are those kinds of issues. People don't ride horses like they used to, and they are not familiar with our relationship with the horse. Those kinds of sensitivities need to be addressed and need to be addressed directly if the sport is going to survive. I mean, there are a lot of good qualities there. It's an elegant sport. It's beautiful interaction between man and animal. I love it intensely. It has provided this environment around Lexington, Kentucky, that is breathtaking. But if we don't have the sport, the underpinnings of all of those activities — all of that employment, all of the things which, quite frankly, I'm able to enjoy and the 45 people that work on Darby Dan Farm are able to enjoy — they all rely on a viable sport. Those kinds of issues were a matter for my perspective protecting the sport.

Tom:              Let's come back to aftercare in just a minute, because I know that's really important to you. I just want to finish up on the search for a national, uniform medication policy. There is legislation that's been hanging out in the halls of Congress for a number of years now. It has not been successful so far, but it would establish a central authority that would create and implement a policy. Does it have a future? Do you think that, eventually, you will see a passage? 

John:              The operative word might be “eventually” there. It is a controversial piece of legislation, and it's known as the Horse Racing Integrity Act. The reason it's controversial is because, in part, because it's a turf war. It deals with the issue of Lasix, which is a highly controversial medication. It is a good medication in the sense that it's effective for its intended use. That intended use probably applies to about 16 percent of Thoroughbreds. It is a diuretic that inhibits pulmonary edemas. But 99 percent of the horses run on it. Because it’s a diuretic, the horse that's competing will lose somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to 16 pounds — I've heard different figures — but nobody wants to run without it because some of the horses run with it and, therefore, it's perceived as an advantage.

                        Unfortunately, the Horse Racing Integrity Act has gotten into that issue. Now, that issue of Lasix got pulled into it because of some political considerations. Whether or not the Horse Racing and Integrity Act has a future, I don't know. I mean, I'm pushing for it. I'm hoping for it. I know the U.S. Jockey Club is, but there are important groups that have problems with it because it's also handing over power and authority to an independent group that some people don't really want to yield to.

Tom:              That has expanded into standardbred and quarter horse racing as well, right? In its latest iteration?

John:              Well, it has had multiple iterations. Where it's going to land, I have no idea. I can tell you that the Thoroughbred industry has a lot of different considerations in, for example, the quarter horse industry. The quarter horse industry produces over three times the number of horses that the Thoroughbred industry does in the course of a year. Their approach to handling those kinds of issues is very different, and I suspect, at the end of the day, there will be no movement if it is expanded beyond the Thoroughbreds. We'll just have to see where it goes. I know our Congressman here, Andy Barr, has been working very hard at it, but interestingly enough, Churchill Downs is not; they're not very enthusiastic about it.

Tom:              Interesting.

John:              It's quite controversial, and it will take some work to get it passed.

Tom:              We're almost out of time and I want to be sure to come back to something that I know is near and dear to your heart, and that is aftercare. If we can wrap up on that subject, I would say that you're an advocate for this issue. Let's pick up where we left off before we got into the implementation of the Congressional act. What is the need and what's going on that drives it?

John:              Well, the 2011 study that I referred to indicates a real sensitivity in the public regarding what happens to the horse after his racing years are done. The Thoroughbred industry, unlike some other breeds, has been very aggressive about trying to address that. There are a lot of people who say that the horse is a companion animal and, therefore, has a higher standing than, say, livestock. That is really a discussion that we don't really need to have, because we do know that our current and future customer is very sensitive about what happens to the horse after his racing years are done.

                        We formulated, in 2011, the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance. The TAA was provided seed money by The Jockey Club, Keeneland and the Breeder's Cup to basically give accreditation to organizations and facilities that were caring for or retraining Thoroughbred race horses. It's not just retirement; it's the retraining process. In six years, we have done a fairly remarkable job bringing that point to the forefront, and the industry is no longer questioning the need for aftercare but, rather, how we can address and expand it, so that really conveys to the public that the Thoroughbred industry is serious about aftercare. 

                        We now have 64 accredited organizations and 165 facilities that either have retired or retraining services, and that has translated into literally thousands of retired horses and thousands more that had been retrained in secondary careers.

                        It's extremely important, and we're doing a lot of research. We're expanding our funding base. We can generate about $4 million annually through the TAA. There are millions more that the individual organizations raise themselves, and we have a number of initiatives. The Stronach Group has been very helpful. They've created, along with AmTote, a computer application in their betting machines that allows players to contribute to the TAA. We just finished an assessment of Santa Anita, and that plan is going to contribute about $10,000 every quarter to the TAA.

                        Interestingly enough, that particular application is being distributed to all Stronach race tracks, plus Delmar. The NYRA just announced that they're going to have that app as well. The Jockey Club has increased or created a fee for the Report of Mares Bred, which basically will require stud managers to pay $35 for every mare that is bred to their stallion. Well, that's about 30,000 horses. The bulk of that money will go to the TAA. I could probably talk for hours about it.

Tom:              Does it all boil down to these horses having a great retirement life?

John:              Well, two things on that: yes and no. The Australians were under tremendous pressure — I'm going to use them as an example of where I'd like the Thoroughbred industry to end up in the United States — they were under tremendous pressure from their public as well. They created a policy or strategy called the First Exit from Racing Strategy. It basically says that racing is responsible for that horse when he exits from the race track, but it doesn't say that racing is responsible for that horse for the rest of his life. It’s like the strategy of a local Humane Society: you go to adopt the dog, and you're going to pay for shots. You have to make sure that the cat is neutered. I mean, it's a fairly elaborate process — it's not just, “Here is your cat.”

                        Thoroughbred racing is going to do the same thing, and they do that in Australia. When a horse exits from racing in Australia, they can tell you where that horse is, when it exited and, importantly, who was responsible for that horse's welfare upon exit. They monitor and guarantee that soft landing for what is about a two-year window. That’s where we need to get to in the United States, because that is practical and that is fair.

                        Beyond that, if little Suzie leaves for college and decides that her Thoroughbred is 18 years old and arthritic, and that horse ends up in bad circumstances, that's not really racing's fault. That's not good on Suzie, from my perspective, but that's not really racing's responsibility. We've got to get to the point where, when that horse leaves racing, wherever that horse lives in the United States, that it is assured of what I call a soft landing. That's an important point, and I think that will allow the Thoroughbred industry to manage that issue of unwanted horses that are in retirement or being retired from the racetrack.

Tom:              John, we have about 30 seconds, and this is one of those think-fast questions, because I know you could probably go on for a long time answering it. What would you say, if you had to distill it down, that you most enjoy about this Thoroughbred business?

John:              I enjoy every day. I really do. I don't know; I love animals and I love horses. To me, it's a holistic thing. Let me just say this: to me, it's a living art, and I am passionate about it. And because I love it — whether it's the equine art or the landscape art — to me, it's art. That gives me a quality of life for which I'm very blessed, because I just love it.

Tom:              John Phillips of Darby Dan Farm and the Phillips Racing Partnership in Lexington. Thank you so much for joining us, John.

John:              Thank you, Tom. 

John Phillips spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference in 2018. To find out more about ONE, returning May 19, 2019, click here. 

The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin's interview with Dr. Richard Lally. Click below to hear the full audio:

Tom:              How can we communicate scientific discovery in such a way that we foster consumer understanding, excitement and even hope? Joining us to shed some light on these discussions is Dr. Richard Lally, a postdoctoral researcher currently working on a variety of Alltech Crop Science projects. Thank you for being with us, Dr. Lally.

Richard:         No problem. Thanks for having me.

Tom:              Let's dig in to the question. Talk to us a little bit about these emerging technologies in your field. Let's begin with CRISPR, an exciting one.

Richard:         Yes. There's a lot of excitement surrounding CRISPR at the moment. CRISPR is this, I suppose, emerging technology. The first paper was published describing the mechanism in 2012. Since then, there's been just an explosion in its use in all forms of gene modification, gene editing. It's really a revolutionary technology, and it's going to change the way we do medicine, it's going to change the way we do research, and it's going to change what we do in agriculture.

Tom:              I imagine many people are confused about CRISPR and GMO and what's the difference. Can you differentiate them for us?

Richard:         Yes. There are more applications for CRISPR than just the conventional genetic modification that we would traditionally associate with the GMO-produced genetic alterations. CRISPR can do a variety of things that the traditional methods couldn't achieve. Some of these things include directly editing a genome in a very precise way, down to the deletion of mutations that can cause diseases.

Tom:              For example, we have the case of citrus greening in Florida, which is a susceptibility, I suppose, that's built into the citrus. Is it possible to apply CRISPR to citrus in a way that would prevent that in the future?

Richard:         Absolutely. I think in terms of research, in particular, CRISPR is going to bring on a lot of knowledge surrounding disease and biochemical mechanisms within crops and plants. Citrus greening is a particularly problematic disease — probably the worst disease that has ever hit citrus. As a result, production is down about 70 percent in Florida. The ability to edit the genome by removing a gene or changing base pairs in a gene is going to really speed up how we investigate the disease. It's really going to bring us forward. It's going to advance us years in comparison to the traditional mechanism that we have been able to use.

Tom:              There's been a study for the National Institutes of Health that found that those who are more unfamiliar with GMOs tend to be more resistant to the technology, while those with higher scientific knowledge tend to have more positive attitudes about GMOs. Is there a disconnect between consumer GMO familiarity and scientific understanding, do you think?

Richard:         I think there is. My opinion of it is, I suppose, would be that I don't see any flaws in the use of GMOs. I think that, for a growing global population, it's definitely something we're going to have to incorporate into the food chain. Using CRISPR as well, we'll have to do that. But I think a lot of the initial disconnect between the actual technology and the fear surrounding it probably came from the commercial benefits that some of the larger producers of these technologies — that they were benefitting, and there was not necessarily a benefit being translated throughout the food chain. So, I think consumers are probably more opposed to these technologies as a result of, probably, miscommunication. GMOs have been used now for, say, 40 years plus. To date, there's been absolutely no association and no evidence that they're harmful in any way to humans and for consumption.

Tom:              Genetic engineering has faced regulatory limits and even sort of a Frankenfood reputation, even though there have not been any cases of any problems, because it introduces genes of one species into another. Do you anticipate that CRISPR might run into the same sort of backlash?

Richard:         I do, and I don't. I suppose CRISPR can do many things that we couldn't achieve in the past. With CRISPR technology, we actually have the ability to change a genome without adding in any foreign DNA — let's put it that way — from another species. You can replace a gene in a plant or in an organism, and you can also do single mutations of nucleotides within a genome. It's those applications that are going to really change how people perceive this technology because, in some cases, you're not actually going to be changing the genome of an organism; you're going to be maybe modifying it slightly.

Tom:              I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that there is enormous excitement around the development of CRISPR technology. Many experts in the field say that it is capable of saving the planet from starvation. Is that an overstatement, or do you agree?

Richard:         I don't think it's an overstatement. I think it's really going to bring on our knowledge of food production. If we can make changes in the genetics of plants by this gene-editing technique, really, your imagination is the limit to what you can do. If there is a trace in a plant that prevents it growing, say, two foot taller, if we could change one nucleotide in that trace or remove that trace, that could help us boost the production of certain crops. This will help us, in the future, provide more food to the world.

Tom:              Okay. Let's change the subject just a little bit, over to another field that I know you're interested in: nutrigenomics. This is also a big Alltech field, the study of how nutrition naturally influences gene expression. How does that play in public perception? Have you come up against public perceptions about nutrigenomics? Is it understood?

Richard:         Yes, nutrigenomics is essentially the study of the influence of nutrients on gene performance. Sometimes you get a question of, "Well, is this GMO? Is this editing?" et cetera, et cetera, and it's very quickly clarified that it's not. Nutrigenomics is literally transcriptomics; it's the study of gene expression. What we typically do is we take a material or a product and we look at how it influences a plant's response, or, in our animal science, we look at how it influences the genetic response of animal genetics. In our crop science, now, we're studying nutrigenomics as a way of helping alleviate diseases, helping boost the performance of crops and helping understand more about some of the problems that drought, flooding, various environmental stresses are putting on agronomic systems.

Tom:              So, by using this tool, the producer can fine-tune feeds or fertilizer, whatever it is, being given to the plant or the animal to have a desired result?

Richard:         Absolutely. I suppose the way we usually summarize it is that we look at the genetic potential of a particular organism. Let's say we're looking at carrots. The carrot, in its normal agronomic environment, is going to be subjected to many stresses. Some of these stresses include drought; it could be overload of fertilizer; it could be disease. What we aim to do with our technology, with our transcriptomic capabilities, is assess the genetic performance of that carrot, in this case, and see what we can do to help bring optimal performance to those genetic mechanisms that help bring it back up, to help recover that yield for a producer.

Tom:              Okay. Earlier, we talked on citrus greening, which has hit Florida pretty hard. Another one that I know that you have touched on is black sigatoka, which has been plaguing banana producers in Costa Rica. If you could first describe what that disease is and the implications for producers.

Richard:         Yes. Black sigatoka is a problematic fungal disease. Because bananas are monocultures as well, they're farmed using asexual means. They tend to be genetically bottlenecked. They don't have a diverse kind of crossbred genetic repertoire to help them adapt very quickly to diseases. Diseases like black sigatoka are particularly problematic for banana-producing regions. So, black sigatoka, as I mentioned, is a fungal disease. It infects the leaf tissue of bananas and eventually makes its way to the rest of the plant. If it's untreated or uncontrolled, essentially, what happens is it can wipe out hectares of bananas, in a severe instance of that particular disease pressure.

Tom:              The approach to fighting it has been to apply lots of chemicals, perhaps several times each month, at a pretty high cost to producers. Are you investigating natural alternatives to chemicals?

Richard:         We have a team currently working in Costa Rica: Patrick Becker and Kyle Mckinney. They’ve been introducing a program using some of our agri-solutions. They've been swapping out fungal pesticides with one of our products.

                        What they have found is that they're able to maintain plant growth with reduced pesticide application. In some cases, this can be reported to be up to a 20–30 percent reduction. We're currently working on pushing it past that. So, I started working with Kyle and Patrick in the last six months or so, and what we are attempting to do now is to look at what underlying mechanisms the plant is utilizing to help it battle back against the black sigatoka. We were tasked, as well, last year by Dr. Pearse Lyons to build a banana [gene] chip, which we've done within our research department. This gene chip can help us assess the activity of the banana genome under the treatment of our applications.

Tom:              As a scientist, how can we communicate scientific discovery in a way that fosters consumer understanding? We talked about that disconnect earlier and, again, even excitement and hope.

Richard:         It's such an exciting area. These technologies, whether we like to admit it or not, are already here; they're already being produced. Gene-edited crops are going to be rolled out across the world. Some of the other technologies, they're going to do incredible things for agriculture and for food production.

                        We think probably the biggest downfall for scientists is they're very insulated — they're stuck in their own bubble, in their own worlds — and how should I say it? We tend to dissect all of our own information and share it amongst ourselves. When we do share it, we probably make the mistake of overcomplicating the information.

                        So, I think the main thing scientists could do to try and bring further knowledge to the public surrounding these applications is address them in a friendly manner, in a non-technical manner, and break it down in the simplest form. That's not to say people are stupid or anything; it's just that the technical understanding might not be there. But to slowly break down the different aspects of these technologies and just show them that there is no real risk to these things — and any of the risks that people have, we can assess them, and we can show that they're not true issues to worry about.

Tom:              Before we close, I'd like to touch on something interesting about you, Dr. Lally. I understand that you joined Alltech through the Alltech Young Scientist program after winning the event's global prize in 2016. Correct? Two questions for you: What was your work that was recognized by the award of this prize, and what's your message to next crop of Alltech Young Scientists?

Richard:         Thanks very much, Tom, for those questions. I joined Alltech following the Young Scientist competition. It was my first time in the United States. Actually, I came to Kentucky as a finalist for the global competition. At the time, I was studying in the Institute of Technology Carlow. I was looking at a group of microorganisms called plant growth promoting bacteria. The particular isolates I was working with were Pseudomonas fluorescens. These organisms, they exist naturally in nature. They co-evolved with plants over millennia. The organisms have the ability to do wonderful things to help benefit plants the same way that the human growth or the animal growth organisms would symbiotically benefit from one another.

                        So, my project was looking at the application of these microorganisms in agronomic settings. We did some work with comparative genomics, and we looked to some of the traits that these microorganisms used to help promote plant growth. I suppose, fundamentally, these organisms in these applications have the ability — or definitely have the potential — to reduce the agricultural import of synthetic chemical fertilizers, which we would hope would help reduce the environmental impact of crop agriculture.

Tom:              And your message to young scientists?

Richard:         I suppose, to the young scientists this year — I had the pleasure of meeting them all just yesterday — be clear, present the data, back up the data with further evidence and tell some kind of story. Make your message interesting. Again, it's all about that communication to the wider audience, how can you get that technical information across without confusing everybody in the room.

Tom:              Dr. Richard Lally, thank you so much for your time.

Richard:         Thank you very much. It's a pleasure.

The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Kathryn Britton. Click below to hear to the full audio. 

Nicole:         I'm talking with Kathryn Britton, senior director of operations and marketing for Where Food Comes From, an independent third-party food verification company. Kathryn joins me to talk about value-added programs and how beef cattle operations can qualify for them, leading to larger profit margins. Kathryn, thank you for joining us.

Kathryn:        Absolutely. I'm very happy to be here.

Nicole:         We've all heard about the explosion of natural, antibiotic-free beef programs in Europe, but where would you say this effort turns into real profit for producers?

Kathryn:        I think the key for producers is really identifying what that market means for them. Each of the markets, whether you're talking about antibiotic restrictions or hormone restrictions — for example, the Non-Hormone Treated Cattle program (NHTC) for the EU — are driven by something, and they have parameters that come along with them. Generally speaking, if you're looking for value in those marketplaces, you need to look for a third-party verification system that qualifies you as meeting those program requirements. Without a certificate in hand — without an approval process that you've gone through to validate those claims — there really isn't a lot of value for producers. So, third-party verification and auditing systems are going to get you access to markets like that.

Nicole:         So, this all seems to really hinder on traceability. Where do producers start in their path toward this kind of transparency?

Kathryn:        Traceability is everything. We can't tell any story about beef production without first being able to track an animal through the system. That's where we gather all of the information that we need to tell the story about how that animal was produced.

                    It’s best to start small. These systems don't need to be overwhelming for a beef producer. You start with your own records. Are you maintaining calving records? Do you know when your first calf hit the ground? Do you know when every calf hits the ground? You don't need to know it to that detail, but at least having an understanding of when your calving season starts and when it ends and having those records available is your first step to success.

                    The second step is identifying the animals. Use a unique EID (electronic identification) tag that helps you electronically tie those records of calving information to that individual animal so you can pass that along to the buyer. That's where you start having value opportunities tied to traceability.

Nicole:         Where is this happening right now? Where is this kind of system being used, and who can we mimic?

Kathryn:        Well, if you look domestically in the U.S., source and age is our longest-standing verification system. When we lost access to our export market partners in 2003 with "the cow that stole Christmas" — our BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) case — we couldn't export a single pound of meat. The only way we got back into the export market was by developing a source- and age-verification system through the process-verified programs, which allowed third-party verifiers to validate the source — so, traceability — and the age of those animals. The restriction was 20 months. That's related to BSE; the younger the animal, the less likely they're going to carry that disease.

                    So, we've been well-versed as a domestic industry in the source and age system for some time. When we look at our international trading partners and competitors, it's a little bit of a different landscape. We're the last developed country to not have a national ID system. That's something that our international competitors try to use against us when they're trying to get beef into the markets we’re in. We've been able to combat that with progressive producers who are participating in third-party verification systems. They’re making claims on their animals and validating them to meet the requirements of those markets without, at this point, having a national ID system.

Nicole:         To say that we're the last to adopt this system doesn't seem like something that Americans would like to hear. What challenges do producers face when they get started with verification, and why is this taking so long?

Kathryn:        Well, the beef industry in the U.S. is diverse. It's very independent. I think, for our beef producers, that's a point of pride for all of us as cattlemen and cattlewomen in the U.S. We also need that model in some ways just because of how diverse our production system is. Every region is different. Every breed type is different. What you do to manage your cattle in Florida is a lot different than what you do to manage your cattle in Montana.

                    The reality is that, for a producer to engage, they really have to take a step back and look at their operation. What are they having success with? What have they focused on? What kind of animal are they raising and why? And then, what market opportunities are out there and available to them? Everyone can capitalize on a source and age verification model. It's the things above and beyond that — the NHTC (non-hormone treated cattle program) that you mentioned, the verified natural program, many of these other kinds of value-added systems — that's where they really need to start looking. They should ask, “Is that the right fit for me and my operation?”

Nicole:         What do you see producers investing the most when implementing value-added programs? Is it time, money or updating technology? When do you see the return for some of these investments?

Kathryn:        I think the surprising part is that the investment from a time perspective can seem overwhelming. They’re thinking through the records they have to maintain — or, if they're using antibiotics, what animal that antibiotic went into or didn't go into. What we see time and time again is that, for the most part, they're already doing all of those things; in their operation, they're already tracking and they're maintaining records that are unbelievably detailed because that's what they use to manage their operation.

                    I think, at face value, oftentimes, it can be intimidating because they think they need to do so much more. It ends up not being that much more work than what they are already doing, or it’s just a matter of validating the pieces that they already have in place.

                    There is a cost to participating in third-party verification, but the programs are built to get a return. If you can't get value out of participating, then it's not working. For us as a third-party verifier, it's got to be able to pay for itself and more in order to work for you. So, there is a cost, but I wouldn't say that the investment is overwhelming.

Nicole:         China has recently opened its beef market to U.S. producers. How do verification programs vary in value in a market like China compared to here in the U.S.?

Kathryn:        China has been big for the U.S. beef market. It's the biggest opportunity our beef industry has ever seen. Just from a per-capita consumption of beef standpoint, the amount of people who are looking to consume beef in China — the growing middle-class population that they bring to the table — that's the type of person who eats a lot of beef. U.S.-produced, grain-fed, high-quality beef is in very high demand in that region. Just from an opportunity perspective, it's tremendous.

                    When we're looking at the requirements of the program, the agreement that we have with China today is source and age verification at a base level. The animal has to be traceable to the ranch of origin. An EID tag needs to be in an animal at the ranch of origin before it leaves, and age needs to be documented. That will carry with that animal all the way through the supply chain. Inevitably, we're going to process that product and send it over.

                    The one unique aspect to the Chinese market in our agreement with them is that they have a zero-tolerance policy for hormones. It is illegal in China to use hormones in beef production. Although it's not a written part of our EV (export verification) agreement with them, it's an absolute and understood requirement. And because of that, the industry has been very focused on the type of product that we're sending right now — verified natural beef or NHTC, at the least — just to make sure that we're not violating that part of the understanding and that we can maintain access to that market. As long as we can maintain access to it, we have the opportunity to continue to grow it.

Nicole:         It's my understanding that roughly 3 percent of U.S. beef producers are hormone-free. Do you feel like these groups are the early adopters of programs like this?

Kathryn:        Yes, we tend to see the progressive cattlemen be the first to engage. It's the individual exploring new market opportunities. For the most part, today — in comparison to maybe 10 or 15 years ago — there aren’t a huge number of cow-calf producers implanting cows. We might see that happening once cows are shipped off the ranch and received at different locations. There are some who are implanting, but the cow-calf producer is looking for a value-add. They may not have the ability or the desire to implant every single animal. What is the other market opportunity for them? Well, if they are not using hormones and they have no hormones on-site, then it's very easy for them to engage in a program like NHTC.

                    It's a similar case when we look at antibiotics in the industry. If a producer is pairing the verified natural program with the NHTC program, it just gives them marketability. On a year when they do well — maybe they don't have a bad case of pink eye come through, for example — they haven't had to treat much illness and they can market those calves as verified natural.

                    On a year where they've had [illness] come through and they've had to doctor quite a few calves, for whatever reason, then they can still market them as an NHTC. So, it's the flexibility the programs give in those market avenues that add value. That’s why we're starting to see more and more producers engage.

Nicole:         How do you get this kind of information out to the producers? Is it through extension offices? Is it through what we're doing now? You talked earlier about how a lot of producers are already documenting, they just don't realize how to implement it in a verification program. So how do you get that information out there?

Kathryn:        That's a great question. Honestly, the market helps tell the story, specifically the video sale. What's unique about the video sale platform that we see with Superior Livestock, Western Video or Northern Video is you have a public format in which cattle are selling. The audience is very big on those platforms, which is great for a seller because they tend to have a very diverse buyer base that can bid on those cattle.

                    What happens is, as you watch the sale progress, say, in an hour or in a day, the program cattle consistently bring premium prices above and beyond the commodity cattle. Producers start asking questions — when their neighbor is getting a price that they're not getting, why is that? They start exploring. It's an educational opportunity. We try to do everything that we can: attending events, speaking at every single cattleman show in the country; we have reps in the field who are our “boots on the ground” at the ranches. To be honest, though, cattle sales in a public forum like a video sale are the fastest way to build curiosity in why program cattle make a difference.

Nicole:         Kansas State University completed a study recently that looked at the return on investment for source- and age-verified cattle and saw that, most of the time, producers receive a premium for their product. Sometimes, the premium was less than the amount necessary for enrollment in the USDA Process Verified Program. What's going on here, do you think?

Kathryn:        Honestly, I think it depends on how you run your numbers and the factors that you carry over into evaluating that value. As we mentioned before, the cattle industry is diverse, and every set of cattle it sells is different. So, we try to take out all of the factors. What we want to see is like-cattle — so, say, steers to steers, heifers to heifers, weight categories — and that's it. Then, let's see what the commodity cattle in the same sex and same weight categories bring compared to the program cattle in that same sex category and same weight category.

                    When you take out everything else, you're truly able to look at a commodity average versus a program average. Today, we're seeing on the video sale an average of $6 a hundredweight value just for source- and age-verified cattle. Now, does that mean every producer gets $6 a hundredweight premium on their calves? No. But what we're able to see is an average trend of value across the entire herd in the U.S. When you look at value-added versus non-value-added, that's where you really start to tell a story.

Nicole:         Is the end goal for source-verified cattle to have a QR code? Is that kind of the future for most producers?

Kathryn:        A QR code is an interesting tool that the industry can use primarily on finished products. What's challenging, when you think about the complexity of the supply chain, is tying an individual animal to an individual finished product. So, typically, what we see today are claims being made on a package that are verified and validated back through an approved supply chain. The QR code that might show on a package would be tied to that operation — or maybe a set of operations —that are meeting the certain requirements for that claim.

                    I think the end goal is telling the story and having transparency in the story, whether that's through a QR code or a URL or a label on a package. It's being authentic in the way that we're producing animals today and trying to shine a light on the work that's being done on the ranch. It’s reconnecting all of us to what's happening day-in and day-out in beef production and how we're getting beef from the ranch to the consumers' table.

Nicole:         It's really interesting to me that the story is becoming so important, besides just being able to verify that there aren't hormones within the meat product. Why would someone in China care about the story behind Kentucky beef cattle, for example?

Kathryn:        It's unbelievable, the enthusiasm that we see from consumers, domestically and internationally, when you start talking about ranching families. What's funny is the animal starts to be removed from the equation and the story becomes about the people. I think, if you look throughout history and every industry that you can imagine in consumerism, the things that resonate with people are the values that they can connect with, and that starts with the people. When you start to take out these barriers and the questions and really show that there's a face and a name and, oftentimes, a family behind the product that you're eating, it just becomes more comfortable. That's really where we're seeing people get behind these kinds of stories.

Nicole:         Kathryn Britton is senior director of operations and marketing for Where Food Comes From. Thank you so much.

Kathryn:        Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

I want to learn more about improving profitability in beef production. 

Below is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Frank Wooten, CEO of Vence. Click below to hear the full interview:

Nicole:           I'm talking with Frank Wooten, CEO of Vence, a virtual fencing company that hopes to reinvent livestock management. Thanks for joining us.

Frank:             Thank you very much for having me.

Nicole:           Frank, this technology is exciting on so many levels, from land and soil management, to nutrition and conditioning, cost reductions, and time and labor. Admittedly, all I have done is actually watch your promotional video. But all you had to do was say “Savory Institute,” and I got it. It's rotational grazing for the most part. Was this the impetus for this technology in finding a way to get more farmers into this type of management?

Frank:             Our co-founder [Jasper Holdsworth] is a Kiwi — he's from the northern island of New Zealand — and his family was intensifying their property that they've run for three generations. As part of that intensification, they were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in fencing on an annual basis, and they were looking for alternatives.

                        They don't really label it as Savory or holistic — they were just basically trying to increase their productivity. The reality is, as we've really searched around the world, a lot of people resonate with what Allan Savory is doing in holistic management. But it started, really, from a need at a grassroots level.

Nicole:           What is your connection to marrying this kind of technology with the farm? Were you raised on a farm?

Frank:             I'm the son of an engineer, but my background is in finance. For me, it was immediately this understanding — this sense of optimization — when I looked at what Jasper was describing when we started to talk about the problem. It became clear that we could put something together with technology and artificial intelligence, as well as communications network. I brought the business background to create a business model, and we've done some financial engineering as well to make sure that our customers receive a return in year one — day one.

Nicole:           Even though it didn't start out as kind of a holistic approach, it's developed into that. Can you talk a little bit about the financial side as well as whole management and how that kind of works together?

Frank:             Yeah. I think that holistic management as people are finding out is more profitable as well. We always attacked it from the customer point of view, which was how do we increase productivity and profitability. The other side of the customer is that they had been using fencing for thousands of years. This is a practice that people's parents and grandparents have used and has worked over generations. In order to get somebody to try something new and different in that scenario, you need to have a high bar of return for them and it can't be something that takes for years for them to see.

                        What we've done cost-wise is we've created a service rather than just selling a hardware. We charge our customers $15 a year for this basic service and we assume all the responsibility of the hardware. If the hardware broke or something failed, we need to replace it, we need to go out and fix it. That gives the customers a lot more comfort rather than spending a couple hundred dollars on a piece of hardware to replace something they've used for hundreds of years.

Nicole:           My understanding with rotational grazing and that type of livestock management, it can take many years to understand all the components of that. How does your technology speed that up?

Frank:             What we speed up is a lot of times, it's a huge capital investment for putting in the fencing and then you have to train your labor force in order to do it. We've enabled people to point click basically to create fences. Then we're going to be able to move animals from one place to another without the need for labor.

                        What we enable people to do is test this out without that huge financial barrier. There's obviously needs the ground and the grass itself generates returns over time, and that's not something that we can speed up. But what we can speed up is what the adoption and testing rate is and reduce the barriers for that.

Nicole:           You are mentioning the pointing and clicking. I was wondering, do you kind of bank off a kind of Pavlovian style of conditioning with this technology?

Frank:             Absolutely. Most people view it in the same way as the invisible fence for dogs. The difference is being that with an invisible fence for dogs, you have to put a wire into the ground, and when a dog approaches the wire, a sound is emitted. They learn that if they don't change direction, they will receive a shock.

                        We use the same training, except we have vibration involved as well. There's an intermediate step — a sort of sound vibration — and then a small shock. It's much less electricity than what you get it in a traditional electric fence. They learn within 48 hours that the sound is correlated to shock, and the response is very effective.

Nicole:           I've been to parts of New Zealand, and having Wi-Fi isn't always an option. How important is having rural broadband connections for this type of technology?

Frank:             We'll use whatever version of backhaul, as it were, to take the information up to The Cloud. The way that the device works is that you set up a tower on your farm — generally, we will set it up on a high point on your farm. From those high points, we can either get satellite connectivity or we can get cellular connectivity.

                        Even in places where people don't normally get service on their handsets, if we put up posts 40 feet in the air, you can get some version of cellular connectivity. If they do happen to have rural broadband, it's even better for us. But our device actually creates another network over the farm, which is the equivalent of an AM radio station. One pole can cover 10 plus kilometers — or six miles of land — in either direction.

Nicole:           How is it powered? What's the energy source? Can you solar or—?

Frank:             Yes, we'll use solar — I assume we're talking at the post level, right?

Nicole:           I guess all of it.

Frank:             We looked at solar on the individual device level. We found some challenges — there are always edge cases, as we call them. In the middle of the winter in Wyoming, there is really not much solar “juice” to get, and so we're looking at having the device on the animal powered by a battery. The reasoning for that is reliability — it's so crucial for our customers. On the backhaul — or the tower side — of things, we do have a solar component and we just adjust that for the region in which it’s located. We have solar and a battery.

Nicole:           The first question I could see with equipment like this is that it is exposed to the elements. What is it made of, and what have you done with the design to withstand wind, rain, mud — all the “fun” things?

Frank:             We have industrial designers who basically take devices and put them through the ringer, whether it's urine from the animals — which is actually one of the more difficult challenges. For the sun, wind and water, there are a lot of different products that protect against those elements. It's the animal elements that add an extra degree of complexity. We've been testing against those and have a team that actually tests those in the field to make sure that it's going to continue to work.

Nicole:           Okay. My experience with this type of livestock management is that it's not really talked about in school that much. Why do you think that is?

Frank:             That's a good question. I don't know why that is. I think that, from what we see in the U.S., these farms are largely a family-run business. Livestock management is something that's been handed down from one generation to the next. Some people don't view it as the most glamorous profession when you're doing really hard physical labor, but it has an amazing return. You're providing food for the country. But I don't know necessarily why it's not discussed more in schools or viewed as a profession that people would desire. I'd like to spend more time in the hills of Montana managing cattle.

Nicole:           Do you feel like you have to educate a bit though, if we're looking at who your target market would be with this? Already established farms would have X number of miles of fencing. How do you convince them to get rid of all that —what they've already invested in?

Frank:             Just to be clear, the farmer doesn't have to get rid of their fencing.

Nicole:           Okay.

Frank:             A lot of times, what we're looking at is the intensification. We don't think that people will ever take away their external fences. We think it's largely something that's part of the psyche of owning a piece of property — you know where your land is demarcated.

                        Secondly, we're creating a fence which an animal can run through. If a bear is chasing a cow, it's going to run through that fence and it's going to get a couple of different shocks, which gives the cow a reprieve. We’re not a hard barrier fence. We do think that there is an element of physical fencing that is still necessary.

                        We allow somebody who has a 10,000-acre farm or a 20,000-acre piece of property to subdivide that land without any additional infrastructure. The sales process for that person is about understanding what his land could do and could produce for him if it was intensified with this fencing.

                        A lot of times, that's a really big uptake. We have customers in Wyoming who have 500 head and they could be carrying 1,500 if they had additional labor and additional fencing. Instead of spending a couple hundred thousand dollars in fencing, they spend $15,000 and have it done in one day. It's really about educating them along those lines.

Nicole:           Say that maybe a cow does run off because it's been chased by a coyote or something — do you have the GPS technology to track it?

Frank:             Yes. That's a part and parcel with what we're providing our customers. It's not simply fencing, but it's real-time analytics. You have the ability to see a “heat map,” as we call it. Your animal is grazing on your land over a period of time. You can see where that animal is now, but you can also see where they've been over the last month. You could see that your whole herd is avoiding some part of your land. You could put them in that part of your land to have it grazed. You could force them into it without the need for additional fencing.

Nicole:           How did you find your way to The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, and what was it like pitching to the audience [at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference]?

Frank:             I spend a decent amount of time looking at different companies in the accelerator space and understanding what people are doing. I had seen a Pearse Lyons Accelerator — I had done a Google search on something — two years ago when we first started. We just weren't at a point then where we were even close to commercialization, so it just didn't make sense for us at that point in time. Luckily enough, we were accepted this year, and it’s been a really wonderful experience.

                        To anybody out there listening, as ag-tech startup, I would highly suggest applying. These guys are amazing. In terms of pitching to the audience, it's pretty nerve-wracking. These guys at Alltech have really helped us a lot in terms of understanding the way to construct a pitch and the way to construct a go-to-market strategy. With that knowledge, it becomes a bit easier, you just get a lot more comfortable with what it is that you're selling versus where we were a year ago.

Nicole:           How do you see the relationship with Alltech taking Vence to the next level and what is that exactly?

Frank:             The next level [for Vence] is tags on hundreds of thousands and millions of animals. We have products which co-exist right now. They have a nutritional product for animals, or they have hardware that they sell to help with silage and other items. We are trying to enhance the way that farms are managed. Their products will always be necessary in our use cases.

                        At some point, in the future, the way that I would love to see it evolve is that we can make a recommendation to our customers for Alltech products.

Nicole:           Frank Wooten, CEO of Vence. Thank you so much.

Frank:             Thank you.

The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin's interview with Crystal Mackay. Click below to hear the full audio:

Tom:              Crystal Mackay is president of the Canadian Center for Food Integrity, and she joins us to talk about what's driving consumer demand for transparency in the food chain — and how that demand is being addressed — as well as the risks and rewards of high-tech agriculture. Thank you for being with us, Crystal.

Crystal:           Thank you.

Tom:              If you could first talk to us about social license: what is that? How is it defined?

 Crystal:          Sure. Social license is defined as the freedom to operate without restrictions — or minimal restrictions. It's a term the oil industry coined back in the '90s, which is something they felt they should aspire toward. So, we've been studying it in agriculture and food for some time, and we actually measured it in some public trust research in both the U.S. and Canada in the last few years. We found that, basically, it’s not a good, attainable goal.

Tom:              So how does social license apply to the farm-to-table food supply chain?

Crystal:           Well, the concept is, “Can you have freedom to operate, grow and innovate everything — from the farm through food processing, right through to grocery and restaurants, with minimal restrictions?” While that's an admirable goal, when we actually measured and studied it, we decided that the real goal should be public trust. What we really need to work toward is public trust in the food system, and the outcome of that may be social license, but social license on its own is not the right goal for us.

Tom:              You mentioned measurement. A lot of these items are intangible, so how do you ensure that your activities remain aligned with what may sometimes be fluid community expectations?

Crystal:           Great question. We've been working with a lot of researchers from across North America to help us learn how to measure these things. For example, there is a peer-reviewed and published model on how to earn trust in food and how to measure it. This past year, we worked on a model on transparency: “What are the seven elements of transparency and what does it take to achieve it?” So, just like everything that's getting better at segmentation and measuring data, we can do the same thing on the public trust side, but it is absolutely a new territory for us.

Tom:              What kinds of expectations have driven consumer demand for transparency in farming and food?

Crystal:          The expectation for transparency and food right now is for anybody to be able to pick up their phone at any minute and ask and find the answer to any question on any ingredient on any food product that's on their plate. The demand for transparency in the food chain is unprecedented. We've never seen demand like this before.

Tom:              What are the risks of falling short of those expectations? Do you have any anecdotal examples?

Crystal:           Absolutely. Whenever there's lack of transparency or perceived lack of transparency, it's most obvious when something goes wrong. I always say that your investment in public trust should be like putting credits in the public trust bank — knowing that, when you're dealing with food, Mother Nature, people, animals and equipment, something is going to go wrong at some point. So, whenever something goes wrong, that's when the spotlight gets shone on your company, your sector or your product, and then the questions start coming. "What is your custody of command? What's in place to make sure that didn't happen?" I look at our efforts in transparency as an investment in public trust. We should be doing it proactively, knowing that it will become acutely obvious and at an extreme cost to your business when there's a problem if transparency is not there.

Tom:              Would you say it's a public relations issue, a communications issue or even something bigger — a movement?

Crystal:           I used to view this as a communications [endeavor] — I don't think we could advertise our way to public trust. I've worked in this field a long time — I worked in communications, I communicated with the public — but in the last few years, I’ve definitely shifted to viewing it as a business risk that needs to be managed. It really needs to be viewed across the company, organization and food system as a business risk that needs to be managed — an investment that everybody needs to make first, when then allows you to do your work in innovation, efficiency, et cetera. 

Tom:              I guess it's fair to say that public trust is something of a “holy grail.” What are the challenges to sustaining it?

Crystal:           Well, it's absolutely something that needs to be earned every single day. For every animal that's cared for, every food product moving through a food company, every item that's on your tray at the fast food restaurant, trust can be eroded at any place along the food system. Our motto is, "We're helping the food system earn trust." The verb "earn" is really important; it's not something that can be taken for granted.

Tom:              Do you have a specific strategy for sustaining — actually, for building — public trust and, then, keeping it?

Crystal:           Well, our job is to help the food system earn trust by providing research, which provides an understanding of how to do it better. We have a resource called Best Food Facts, which is an online resource center of experts [who] answer questions. There are forums for dialogue, bringing the food system together at places like this to have the conversation about what we can do better together — B2B, to start — and then moving through the chain to the consumer. So that's the base, I would say, for what it takes for a successful game plan.

                        The next big play needs to be in engaging with consumers. There are lots of great efforts in that space. But, I really feel, when we look at our research on where the public trust is in our food system, we definitely need some improvement.

Tom:              There have been significant — and that's an understatement —advances in agricultural technologies in recent years. Which developments impressed you the most?

Crystal:           Well, we learned a little bit about CRISPR this morning [at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference]. Of course, I've heard a bit about it, but the explanation we were given here was really excellent, and I definitely see the most exciting uses in technology there. The other aspect, I would say, is just in the ability to capture big data and learn from it — try to aggregate it and learn best management practices right through the segmentation of consumers, which is what I do. There are a lot of exciting things to be done there.

Tom:              I guess it could be said [that] there's a data deluge out there right now, and consuming that information and making sense of it is a challenge in and of itself, isn't it?

Crystal:           Well, I heard a statistic a couple of weeks ago that there's officially, now, more content being generated every second than there are human hours to consume it. So, our next challenge is not the volume of data but, to your point, how to synthesize it, gather the insights we need and, then, put it to work.

Tom:              Among these recent advances in farm automation — data analysis and artificial intelligence — which of these things do you think holds the real potential for addressing and maybe even solving big problems, like food shortages?

Crystal:           Well, if we think about something like food and security and then tie it back to things like food loss and waste — if we think about what percentage of that good food that we grow ends up in the garbage somewhere — there are absolutely huge opportunities, through data collection, to figure out where all the food loss spots are and the distribution that's needed, which is absolutely key to getting it to the people that need it most. So, I think those big dots are out there; they just haven't been connected.

Tom:              So, what risks presented by modern agriculture concern you the most?

Crystal:           Well, there’s definitely a shift in our society. We've grown up in an age where progress is inevitable and embraced because that's just what makes everything bigger and faster and better. We're now getting a spot — at least in the developed world and here in North America — where progress is just possible but not inevitable, and that's a shift.

                        The other piece is that science can say if we can — it doesn't answer if we should. So, it’s this concept of making sure that we have sustainable practices that are ethically grounded first, then scientifically verified and economically viable. I think, in the agri-food space, we've spent a lot of time on “scientifically verified” and “economically viable” and not enough time on “ethically grounded.” There is the importance of having good engagement with the public and understanding their concerns in the ethically grounded piece early on in technology — not waiting until just before you launch it.

Tom:              What are the issues that are driving large food companies to adopt new methods of production?

Crystal:           This is obviously a complex topic in terms of what drives new methods of production. There are global shifts in standards and requirements — things like global sustainability requirements would be one example. If global buyers and retail and food services are putting in global standards, we see that going through to food companies right back to the farm and saying, “This is the expectation for food safety,” for example. The move to global standards, I would say, is a big driver.

                        Then, of course, there's always the chase for the competitive advantage. What can our company do to have a competitive advantage? If we look at the public trust space right now, we would see there's a lot of absence labeling: “What can we take out of our product?” We call it absence labeling — marketing "GMO-free," "gluten-free," "raised without” something. This would be a reverse trend — from the movement toward a faster, bigger, better technology to moving back to what would be considered older, natural — “If my grandparents couldn't pronounce it, I don't want it on the label.” We see a lot of companies trying to get the competitive marketing advantage there.

Tom:              Is it realistic to look for coordination or collaboration among agricultural and food production competitors, and are there any examples of that?

Crystal:           Well, our whole business model relies on collaboration. We are in a new economy — a shared economy — where people share cars and houses, and [there are now] different models that didn't exist even ten years ago. The challenge is that the value chain was developed for competition, not collaboration. We're being asked to put values into the value chain when we've got fierce competitors across, up and down the supply chain.

                        With the Center for Food Integrity, we have individual farmers who produce all different types of crops, animals and commodities, and food companies that are fierce competitors right through the retail and food service, all putting their money toward the same common vision. I call that pre-competitive thinking and collaborative thinking, and it goes back to your earlier question about the big pressure. No company is equipped to deal with the demands for transparency on their own; every ingredient in every food product on every grocery shelf is huge. A shift in thinking is going to be required to say, "What can the food system do to meet that demand?" An individual company will still have to answer questions.

Tom:              Okay. Shifting gears just a tad, if you could tell us about your organization's interest in the issues of food loss and waste.

Crystal:           We just started a new program that I'm very excited about. It really demonstrates our organization's values around what it takes to earn trust, which is doing the right thing, providing a trusted assurance system and, then, communications.

                        Food loss and waste has been identified as a bit of an Achilles' heel for the food system and a legitimate issue that needs some improvement. We just secured major funding — together with a partner group called Provision Coalition — through the Walmart Foundation to do exactly what I described with the three pillars of food loss and waste.

                        Starting with 50 food companies, we'll do food loss and waste audits for a very meaningful assessment on how they can reduce food loss and waste. When we multiply that times 50 food companies, we expect some big results to say we really put a big dent in food loss and waste.

                        Our piece is [that] we will be studying the public and gaining a better understanding of consumers. We understand the stats show that consumers are a big piece in this food loss and waste equation. We don't think the public has good awareness or the tools to improve it. We’ll be studying the public piece.

                        The third part is the communications. We'll be populating that resource I mentioned called "Best Food Facts" with university experts that will give public consumer information — consumer-friendly information — about what you could do to better buy food, store food and reduce food loss and waste in your own home.

                        I'm very excited about the program because it's a very meaningful demonstration of how to earn trust with a program to reduce food loss and waste, and [the] third-party auditors will ensure that it has integrity and has the communications aspect to understanding consumer concerns and giving them credible information to actually help them change their behavior.

Tom:              Speaking of information, it's your organization's goal to provide information without advocating for a particular brand. I'm curious — how is your information structured so that you avoid the perception that it's sponsored content?

Crystal:           Oh, yeah, great question. Credibility is so important in this space. I mean, if you don't have credibility, you might as well just light your money on fire and not bother to show up. When we were bringing the Center for Food Integrity to Canada and the U.S., we spent a lot of time thinking about developing the model to be the most credible.

                        The first piece that's really important is that the breadth of our funding is really broad. We have 36 member companies and associations, about 200 funding partners, and we have about 800 individual donors. People like you and I can chip in toward the same cause. By nature, you're not advocating for a specific outcome or profit or a specific company. We're very transparent about who funds us, so that's really important. You can look at our annual report on our website anytime.

                        When it comes to the content piece — “Best Food Facts,” the resource I mentioned — it's only provided by third-party experts. There are university experts, government experts and independent dieticians that can answer any question about what's on your plate. The content has nothing to do with the funding. There's a very big divide there.

Tom:              Do you find yourself in a position of having to fight or combat this distrust and pessimism that is so prevalent in today's world? And if you do, what tools do you rely on to accomplish that?

Crystal:           I embrace skepticism, first of all, because I think that's a good base. I encourage critical thinking. I think that the biggest tool I use is to embrace choice and to encourage that skepticism — to say, “Thank you for being curious about your food. Thank you for asking questions; that means you care and you're interested.” That mindset is a lot easier to engage than someone who’s disinterested.

                        I also think a big part of it is listening to people. This is a two-way conversation, not a lecture or a monologue. Part of our work in the research is to really try to understand the silent majority, what's really concerning the public, or what do they really have questions about. I think that translates into more authentic communications, so it's not viewed as PR and advertising. We really want to understand your concerns and have a conversation. It also includes acknowledging areas that need improvement, to say, “You know what? It's not all a sunny day with butterflies. There are things that aren't great, and we need to be part of that solution and acknowledge those things.”

Tom:              Crystal Mackay is president of the Canadian Center for Food Integrity. Thanks for being with us, Crystal.

Crystal:           Thanks for having me.

Crystal Mackay spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Click here to learn more about the industry topics up for discussion at ONE19.  

The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Dr. David Magana. Click below to hear the full audio:

Nicole:           They’re among the biggest issues facing fruit and vegetable production in the 21^st century — how are the most innovative producers tackling challenges like disease and consumer demand? We have those questions and more for Dr. David Magaña, vice president and senior analyst with the Rabobank RaboResearch Food and Agribusiness Group. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Magaña.

David:             Thank you for having me.

Nicole:           The good news for fruit and vegetable producers is that the rise in global income — and the growing middle class in developing countries — is leading to increased produce consumption. However, you have identified a complex convergence of challenges with sustaining year-round growing demand. Can you elaborate on those challenges?

David:             Yes. As many people know, one of the main challenges for the global food system is to feed the world — which has a growing population. By 2050, we're going to be above nine billion people. What’s more important is that the global middle class is growing; recent projections by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that, by 2030, more than five billion people are going to be classified as middle-class. That has an even bigger impact on the food system, as food perception and food purchases are to be modified not only by increasing population, but also by increasing price. We are faced with a challenge to be a better fit in the world. We also need to take care of the largest resources, such as water. People are asked to allocate perhaps less water to agriculture in some regions. They also want producers to deliver perfect quality in food but, at the same time, use less chemicals and less pesticides.

                        They want us to have perfect quality year-round. At the same time, they want more local product, and that is difficult to offer in some regions. We need trade to diversify the growing regions and to have year-round supplies. They want convenient products, but they want also less packaging, less garbage and less plastic in the oceans. They want to keep prices reasonable in the face of increasing labor costs and increasing regulations. That is one of the main challenges for the food system: to have more to offer the world but, at the same time, meet all these expectations.

Nicole:           There’s this really interesting, ironic twist going on here; that rising middle class in the developing world would seem like a great thing — and it is — but at the same time, it's applying pressure to the ability to meet rising demand.

David:             Yes, it is. We see this increase in [the] middle class particularly in Asia. By 2030, it’s projected that the two-thirds of the global middle class will live in the Asia-Pacific region. An interesting number is that, every year, more than 100 million people leave poverty to become middle-class. That will have a huge impact on food choices and on food perception. They normally demand inexpensive carbohydrates, but they're shifting to more animal protein, dairy and fresh products and even more organic products and functional foods.

Nicole:           People like you understand this, but do you think that the world grasps this change, that's coming fairly quickly?

David:             Well, that's a challenge because, as people increasingly live in more urban settings, many people don't understand where food is coming from. That is also a challenge — just to educate older people to know where that food is coming from and what that represents for the environment, for example.

Nicole:           Dr. Magaña, you have quite a bit of experience in understanding agricultural market integration under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). What does your past research in fresh fruit, vegetable markets and food security tell you about how the global markets respond to free trade?

David:             When we have free trade, we are allowed to better face the year-round demand. For example, in the U.S., a few decades ago, we could only consume fresh strawberries or avocados a few weeks out of the year or, perhaps, only during the summer months. But now, given this advance in trade and logistics, we have year-round supplies because we can rely on supplies from Mexico, for example.

As a matter of fact, Mexico has become the biggest exporter of fresh vegetables in the world. The main market is obviously the U.S. So, trade is an important trend in fresh fruits and vegetables, and proximity is key, since we are dealing with perishable products.

Nicole:           What could be the consequences to agriculture of the U.S. pulling out of NAFTA?

David:             Well, that's an interesting question. We just released a piece of research in the RaboResearch group that addresses that question. NAFTA has been in place for the last 24 years, and they have been trying to reach a new agreement for the last eight months. Just remember that one of the objectives of renegotiating NAFTA was to have a more equilibrated trade between the U.S. and, especially, with Mexico. If the U.S. will settle NAFTA, we could see fewer imports from Mexico, especially in durable goods. That decrease in the level of trade would have a significant economic impact in the Mexican economy. Our macroeconomic research team expects that, if the U.S. pulls out of NAFTA, the Mexican peso could depreciate up to 20 percent.

Nicole:           Wow.

David:             With that depreciation rate, the U.S. would be charging a Most Favored Nation tariff — or MFN — that is quite low for fruits and vegetables. The U.S. market for fresh fruits and vegetables relies heavily on supplies from Mexico. The U.S. has a low MFN — just one digit.

                        Just to give an example, avocados are about 4 percent the MFN tariff that the U.S. would be imposing if NAFTA is no longer in place. For strawberries and blackberries, the tariff is close to zero. Tomatoes and peppers, cucumbers, are around 5 percent. So, we could see that the expected Mexican peso depreciation could more than compensate for that MFN tariff. In that scenario, we could actually see higher U.S. imports of fresh produce from Mexico.

                        On the other hand, U.S. exports to Mexico and Canada would be facing a double hurdle: one is the stronger dollar, since a Canadian dollar depreciation is also expected, and two, Mexican MFNs are quite high. Mexican charges to countries without a free trade agreement would be two digits. For example, for apples and pears, the MFN is 20 percent; for potatoes, up to 75 percent.

                        In the case of a NAFTA breakup, we could see an increased level of U.S. imports from Mexico and Canada — and a decreased level of exports, which would lead to even more imbalanced trade. This is kind of counterintuitive, due to the currency depreciation. Contrary to what many people expect under this scenario, we could see that big winners of this could be U.S. consumers of fresh fruits and vegetables and, also, packers and shippers that rely heavily on supplies from Mexico. Among the losers would be U.S. producers that compete seasonally with Mexico and Canada, as well as packers and shippers that rely solely on domestic supplies.

Nicole:           Jobs could be lost.

David:             Probably.

Nicole:           The U.S. has had a history of ups and downs in immigration and labor. We won’t go into the political issues, but is technology stepping in to alleviate this challenge in some ways? We hear a lot about robotics on the farm, that kind of thing.

David:             That is an increasingly challenging aspect of production, especially in the produce subsector, since they’re more labor-intensive than other crops — corn or soy beans, for example. As some players in the industry say they have made some progress in mechanizing harvesting, others say that there is still a long way to go. When we meet with our clients in Mexico, they say that one of the biggest constraints they have is with labor. If that happens in Mexico, imagine what that means in the U.S. Remember that Mexico is still a developing country. As more opportunities arise, we will see less labor availability.

                        The growth rate of the population of Mexico is expected to decrease in the next few years. For example, a few decades ago, families [there] had six or eight children; now, they have just two, similar to families in the U.S. So, we certainly expect that labor is going to continue to be an important constraint for the produce sector, and mechanization is a necessity.

Nicole:           Regarding per-capita consumption, data shows that Americans are eating more fresh produce in the fresh-cut sector of the produce industry — now the fastest-growing segment. It's not unusual to hear of outbreaks of food-borne illness associated with the consumption of fresh produce. As this market continues to grow, our processors face increased challenges of meeting demand for variety and volume while also holding to the expectation that their produce is safe to consume.

David:             Yes. That's an important challenge. One way to solve this issue is to diversify the growing regions. For example, the recent outbreak in romaine lettuce in Yuma, Arizona, had a significant impact on the consumer perception of [the] food safety of fresh products. Another important factor is where that lettuce is produced. For example, this outbreak occurred when Yuma production was already in the final stage and production was moved to the coast — to the Salinas and Watsonville area. One way to meet the challenge is to diversify the growing regions and communicate the information of where the food was produced. Also, we obviously need to have better control and make improvements in technical aspects as well as food safety.

Nicole:           It becomes a communications issue, as you mentioned. In the case of, for example, Panera Bread Company, they had to make sure their consumers understood that the romaine lettuce in their Caesar salads, for example, came from Salinas.

David:             Yes.

Nicole:           That was a big communications undertaking. I don't know how successful it was, because I imagine a lot of people just said, “Okay, I'm going to have a different kind of salad right now.” What are the most innovative producers out there doing to tackle these kinds of challenges?

David:             Well, one way to do this is to continually improve barriers that they are using and also improve all kinds of technical aspects to make sure that we have proper food security.

Nicole:           Dr. David Magaña, vice president and senior analyst with Rabobank RaboResearch Food and Agribusiness Group. Thank you so much for joining us.

David:             Thank you for the opportunity.

I would like to learn more about improving sustainability and efficiency in my crop production!

The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin's interview with Dr. Karl Dawson. Click below to hear the full interview:

Tom:              Have we finally found ways to improve the well-being of our pets by understanding how nutrients interact with their genes? Here to discuss that question is Dr. Karl Dawson, vice president and chief scientific officer at Alltech. Dr. Dawson directs activities at the company's bioscience centers around the world, including Alltech’s Center for Nutrigenomics and Applied Animal Nutrition, where he is the co-director. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Dawson.

                        The science of nutrigenomics has been your focus for many years, and you've applied that body of knowledge to agriculture. But, here, we're talking about something that's near and dear to everyone who shares living space with an animal of one species or another, whether they live on a farm or in a big city. Let's go to that question. Can nutrigenomics be used to improve the well-being of our pets?

Karl:                Nutrigenomics has been used a lot to understand health, digestion, the way nutrients influence an animal's growth. In the last several years, we've begun to focus a little bit more on not only the animal's genes — the composition and gene expression — but we’ve also started to look at the microorganisms that live in the gastrointestinal tract. This is a population that has a whole different set of genes to work with, and we have some new tools today that allow us to look at this. It's very important because, in many respects, we're starting to believe that this microbial population in the gut is almost like a separate organ in the animal. It has its own genetic makeup, and it is contributing a lot to the way those animals develop and respond to nutrients and their resistance to disease.

Tom:              You're thinking of the microbial presence as kind of an organ of its own?

Karl:                In and of itself.

Tom:              Interesting.

Karl:                That’s the concept that's really developing. If you look at human medicine or human physiology, we're starting to learn that, in fact, the microbial population in the gut and the way you influence it by eating is influencing such things as brain development, cardiovascular development and even the way your hormones are distributed throughout the body.

Tom:              Now, if the genetics influence how certain dietary components are associated with disease, is it possible to know how to adjust a pet's food to avoid disease?

Karl:                There's a lot of work that's been going on in this particular area. We’re looking to see what you can do to change the microbiota in particular, or this population of bacteria that live in the intestinal tract. We know quite a few things that are important. For example, we know what the distribution of microorganisms is in an animal that has acute diarrhea. We know that if we feed certain things, such as fiber, we can change the way that microbial population develops.

                        Now, it may not sound very exciting to everyone, but I've been a microbiologist for 35 years now, and this stuff really gets me excited. I could never really describe what microorganisms were there before. We could culture some and see them, but now we have new tools with high throughput sequencing techniques to allow us to separate out those microorganisms and see things we've never seen in the past.

Tom:              What sort of research related to pet nutrition has been happening in your laboratory lately?

Karl:                Well, we've been focusing a lot on what we can do to the microbial population. This is something that comes from the work we've done in livestock. We know that we can influence the way the microbial population develops. We have a line of feed supplements — whether you call them prebiotics or probiotics, both of those will influence the way the population develops. We've been interested to see what happens to the distribution or the profile in this microbial population when we change management as well as nutrition.

Tom:              When we talk about pets, we're talking about a wide variety of creatures — everything from dogs and cats to birds and fish, from snakes to pigs — you name it. How can it be determined among these different species which additives or ingredients best align with each species' diet and health? Can that be done?

Karl:                Well, I don't think we're quite there yet. We cannot tell you what the optimal beneficial microbial population looks like. That's probably a little bit of a disappointment for me because we've been doing all the detailed work on what profile of microorganisms is in the intestinal tract and what it's doing. We know we can change things, and we know that that's reflected in the health of the animal, its immune response and disease resistance. But we don't really know what the optimal way to do that is.

                        There is a new science that's coming up today, which is the idea of metabolomics. This is a little bit of a different area to look at. Not only does it look at the microbial population but, in this situation, we're also looking at metabolites — the compounds that these bacteria are producing. These compounds are very important because they do enter the bloodstream. You can measure them in plasma, for example. We know that these have significant influences on hormonal response — neurotransmitters. So, we're controlling such things as the way the animal eats; we can influence immunity in things like that. This is a different area that we're starting to delve into right now, and it's really bringing together the animal a little bit more with this microbial population that you find in the intestinal tract.

                        Metabolomics is still in its infancy, but that is where the answer is going to come from when it comes to understanding what microbes and nutrients do in the animal, because we’re influencing the way the metabolism of that animal is changing through their genetics — or their gene expressions — so we can understand that today.

Tom:              Metabolomics. Now you've given us yet another reason to be standing outside your door, tapping our toes, waiting for another interview in the future. This is going to be interesting. Are new foods on the horizon that will improve health — new foods that are based on this science?

Karl:                I think so. One of the exciting things that we've had the opportunity to do in the last couple of years is see the effects of such things as a probiotic, a bacterial supplement or a prebiotic. We can see what they're doing today. We know there are considerable differences in the prebiotics. For example, one of our products is a biomass product, a mannan-based product. There is such a thing as inulin. The two things act completely separately, so now that we can see what they're doing to the microbial population, we have the ability to start customizing products with very specific types of prebiotics, and maybe even probiotics, as we move forward. This is something that's revolutionary. We don't think that much about it, but never before have we been able to go in and say that a particular probiotic in the animal's food is changing what goes on in the gut and actually measuring what those changes look like. That's the whole area that's got the excitement in the scientific community: we're now able to see the changes.

Tom:              Tell us about developing a pet food that's intended to support heart health, brain function, joint health and overall well-being. Can those goals be achieved in a single feed, or are there other conflicting characteristics that have to be overcome?

Karl:                I think there's going to be some interaction there between nutrients. We're not going to be able to address everything. I think you can go after some of the ideal situations. We're a couple of years away from actually doing that sort of thing at this point in time, but it's very important to remember that we now have the tool to actually measure some of those issues. We're getting an idea of what we need to measure in the animal — for example, to overcome obesity in dogs. This is an area that plagues nearly everyone who is a dog owner. But we do know that there are certain surprising areas that allow us to change that. For example, some of the prebiotics we're looking at today change the structure of the intestinal tract, change the way nutrients are introduced into that animal, and actually address the hormonal imbalances that are associated with obesity. We're getting to the point where we know what to look for now, so it's going to be a relatively small step to say, “Here is, nutritionally, what we can do to change that.”

Tom:              What are the environmental implications of developing more efficiently- digested pet foods?

Karl:                I carry my little plastic bag around my dog every day, so there's an environmental impact that I think about a lot. There are a lot of things that can be done, but I think the overall approach to shifting the microbial population will change the digestion efficiency without changing the overall health status of the animal. Those two things have to go together. For example, there has been work done with fiber sources like beet pulp. Beet pulp is something that considerably changes the microbial population. It is somewhat indigestible, but it has a tremendous impact on the health of the animal. It actually improves digestion overall. There is a way to decrease fecal excretion — what we think about after we have to clean up after our dogs on our walk every evening.

Tom:              Is beet pulp being used in pet feeds?

Karl:                It is, to some extent, but it is not a standard addition. The other thing about beet pulp is you have to use it at very high concentrations in the diet to bring about these types of changes.

Tom:              As you explore the science of nutrigenomics and its application to pets, do you foresee a day when we will be extending the lifespans of these beloved animals?

Karl:                Oh, absolutely. I'm sure we're going to see that happen. Longevity is an issue for us all. A lot of that comes down to the overall health of the animal. As we look at such things as insulin resistance — which is seen in a lot of aging animals — those are things that can become controlled, and we have a pretty good idea of how to do that by using specific supplements today. Some of those will be mineral supplements as much as anything, but we do see ways of controlling that. They'll never live forever, but we will be able to enhance the health of those animals so that they are living longer. Not only that, we’ll improve the quality of life they have in their older years.

Tom:              Dr. Karl Dawson is vice president and chief scientific officer at Alltech. Thank you very much for being with us.

Karl:                Thank you.

The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Jorge Cordova. Click below to hear the full audio:

Nicole:           I'm talking with Jorge Cordova, production manager for shrimp farms at Naturisa in Ecuador. Jorge, tell me, how much does the world love shrimp?

Jorge:             I can tell you a little bit about the world of shrimp in Ecuador to begin with.

Nicole:           Okay.

Jorge:             This is an industry which has been around for almost 50 years now. It all began back in '68, around '68–'69, when they built a huge pond, which was naturally filled with water, and then tiny animals would grow. People noticed — these first entrepreneurs noticed — that they could harvest shrimp out of that pond.

                        Then the '70s came and the first efforts to put some serious money into it appeared. The '80s were the boom of the industry. A lot of people were going into the business. The '90s were the disease decade — a lot of disease and problems. And after 1999, when we got hit by a very strong disease named white spot — which is a virus, basically — the whole industry started to mature. And it's been 18 years now since we got hit by white spot, and the production has been increasing.

                        Now, that's Ecuador, but the world of shrimp is growing. There are a lot of people growing shrimp all over the world these days. Asia is one of the big guys; India is growing. Even in the U.S., you have people growing shrimp in small facilities, indoor facilities. So, it's pretty exciting. Shrimp is one of the commodities that has been representing aquaculture all over the place, and it's probably one of the species that's going to be serving the purpose of feeding the world in the years to come. So, it's exciting. Every day in shrimp farming is a new learning experience. You never know everything.

Nicole:           Are there parts of the world where shrimp farming is more accessible — where the infrastructure is available for people to get into it from the beginning?

Jorge:             Yes, yes, especially today. For example, in Ecuador, there is a growing number of investors who are getting into low-salinity shrimp culture. This activity doesn't have a lot of entry barriers. It's not that hard, money-wise, to get into it. So, yes, there are definitely different ways to grow shrimp, and that means you can put big money into it — but you can also be a small investor and put some of your savings into it. So, yeah, there are quite a few ways to get into it. You can be a big investor or a small one. It's only a matter of being willing to take the risk to farm shrimp. It's not an easy task, but it’s a lot of fun.

Nicole:           What kind of environment is needed to farm shrimp?

Jorge:             It all began in what they call a “euryhaline environment,” which is basically aquatic systems that can change salinity from low to high. But these days, they're growing shrimp in low-salinity, almost freshwater conditions, mid-salinity and even ocean salinity. So, there are quite a lot of foundations that you can use to grow shrimp.

Nicole:           Like most areas of aquaculture, disease management is always an issue. You mentioned white spot syndrome.

Jorge:             If you do the right thing, in terms of providing the animals with the right conditions — in terms of nutrition, health, environmental health — then you can avoid disease. You can grow shrimp without diseases. There are ways around it.

Nicole:           Well, in regard to prevention, how much does the overall health of the shrimp, [with help] from [a] nutritional diet, provide its own sort of natural defenses against disease?

Jorge:             That's a basic point. For example, these days, we're learning, and we're trying to work through nutrition and we're trying to change the microbiome — the whole micro-structure that these animals have in their guts and in their environment. By doing that, we've been able to help these animals stay healthier in the pond conditions. So, nutrition is a key factor, as a matter of fact, and it has to do with the microbes: the bacteria and all these microbial ecosystems these animals have in the gut and in the surrounding environment. So, yeah, nutrition and health, they go hand in hand.

Nicole:           Are probiotics being used in shrimp?

Jorge:             Of course. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be presenting some of the working hypotheses we use in our daily farm operation in which we try to combine prebiotics and probiotics in search of some type of synergistic effects, and they call it synbiotics. We believe that synbiotics is a key future element for the development and the increase [of] healthy shrimp production.

Nicole:           What is the industry using as feed mostly now, from your experience?

Jorge:             Well, there's a lot of research that's been done in shrimp nutrition for the last 40 years, at least. So, now, what they're doing is they are manufacturing pellet feed. A pellet is a piece of feed, so to speak, where they have put all the science and all the technology and all the development that has been achieved after many years of research in terms of what kind of protein they need, what percentage of protein they need, what kind of energy these animals need. There's a lot of science in the feed, so it's basically a pellet that we're using to feed the animals.

Nicole:           How often do shrimp need to be fed?

Jorge:             That's another good one. In the last five years, we've learned so much about it. Just to give you an idea, six or seven years ago, when we were feeding a pond — — basically a huge lake, a pond where you have your animals — so, we were feeding these animals once, twice a day, maybe three times a day. We were throwing pellets out of a boat. We were very happy doing this. I would say in around 2013, this company in Australia came out with a brand-new device that is a software that lets you listen to shrimp feeding in the pond. It happens that the mouthpieces of these animals make a noise that can be detected. Imagine one animal, ten animals, a million animals feeding — so you have a lot of noise. These people are able to capture the noise, and they can tell by the noise intensity how much to feed. This device is able to feed the animals 200 times a day, 150 times, [in] small amounts, and they love it. You get improved efficiencies, in terms of feed conversion rate and growth and survival, by feeding the animals whenever they want to be fed. Before, we were feeding them early in the morning, and now, we found that they don't want to eat early in the morning; they are night feeders. By using technology, we can understand better how to feed these animals. So, to answer your question of how many times we have to feed the animals: as many times as they want.

Nicole:           How accessible is that technology?

Jorge:             It's out there. I mean, you can go and pay for it, and it pays for itself. As a matter of fact, when we first used this technology, we didn't know if it was going to work or not. I mean, we were supposed to feed these animals that were spread out in a huge pond. We were going to throw the feed in just a small area of the pond. Would they come get the feed? Leave from the feeding area without fighting each other for feed? But we learned that these animals are able to come and get their feed.

                        This technology is available. When you look at the numbers after you harvest and all the gains that you get in terms of efficiency, feed conversion, survival and so on, it pays [for] itself. So, it's out there and anyone can use it.

Nicole:           Back to regulating healthy environments, a company in 2016 was awarded grant funding for research using genome-editing technology, CRISPR-Cas, to target the genome of the host organism. The study argued that success would allow for a more rapid response to viral outbreaks, more rapid introduction of wild shrimp that can be certified virus-free, and provide a needed tool for the industry to improve biosecurity. What do you think about genome editing as a method of control?

Jorge:             You got it right there. But we're just at the beginning. The learning curve of genome studies is just beginning. There are probably a few groups in the world putting money into this. They're going to grow in the future. But, definitely, that's the way we want to go. This is going to happen in the years to come. It's just beginning.

Nicole:           How economically feasible would it be to apply this kind of technology in research and development?

Jorge:             Again, I believe strongly that this kind of technology would pay for itself. It would demand some initial economical effort. Money has got to be put in place for the development of all this genome research, but over time, I'm pretty sure this will bring back benefits to initial investors. This is just beginning.

Nicole:           Well, as it does develop, let's say that you can create disease-resistant shrimp.

Jorge:             You can, for example, select animals by using some sort of genomic traits that are resistant to a particular environment, condition, disease. So, now, we got a light, a ball of light, that is telling us, "This is the animal you want to reproduce." Before, we didn't have it. So that's kind of an empirical way to explain what's going to happen. So, yeah, there's going to be a lot of economic implications in the future by using this new technology.

Nicole:           As it develops, do you think that it would require a new label for consumers?

Jorge:             No, I don't think so, because there's no gene transferred from one species to the next. This is just a way to select animals that are more fit to a particular environment — animals that may grow faster, that may survive better under the tough environmental or pond conditions. So, I don't think so, no. I don't think we should tell the consumer this is a different product. This is not new; it's the same shrimp. We're only taking those most ready for the environment.

Nicole:           I see. Are viruses like white spot too strong for more natural approaches toward prevention? I mean, what are some best management practices that you've seen work?

Jorge:             This is funny. When we got hit by white spot back in 1999 — and I'm talking about in Ecuador — the academia and a lot researchers were saying, "Well, guys, you are not going to be able to make it back from this,” because we were using what they call “SPF,” [or] specific pathogen-free animals. Then, you have to select those animals that are completely free of viruses, those animals that are very healthy, and those are the ones that you want to use. But the way the infrastructure and the way the industry is built in Ecuador doesn't let you do that. We're talking about huge outdoor ponds. There is no way we can maintain biosecurity in these kinds of ponds, and you need biosecurity to grow SPF animals.

                        So, the only chance that we had at that time was by taking the shrimp that were surviving the environment, bringing them back to reproduction and bringing the babies back to the pond. So, we did that time and again.

                        Five or six years down the road, we were having animals that were surviving. We saw an improved survival. There's a lot of hypotheses surrounding how that happened. Quite a few researchers have their own ideas. I don't have a clear picture of exactly what happened; either the animals gained resistance or the virus lost the pathogenicity. It can be any one of those. The fact of the matter is, these animals we have in Ecuador now are surviving better than before and growing better than before.

                        I'm going to be showing, in the [ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference] on Tuesday, some of the statistic production data from Ecuador. You're going to be able to see how production has been increasing year after year. So, when talking about shrimp, it's kind of hard to tell. But, probably, the kind of animals you use for your system should depend on the type of system you're using. That’s probably the best way to put it.

Nicole:           How curious are consumers about shrimp farming, and how will their interest drive the industry in the future in feeding and maintaining pond health?

Jorge:             I would love them to be a lot more curious, so they can differentiate and tell where the shrimp they are consuming comes from. The industry in Ecuador has an initiative, which began this year, I believe, to let the world know that we are growing shrimp under sustainable conditions using synbiotics — using all kind of natural products to grow our shrimp in the most natural way.

Nicole:           Just to expand on that a bit, where do you see environmental controls headed in order to meet future consumer demands?

Jorge:             Synbiotics. We were talking at the beginning about prebiotics, probiotics — there's a lot of learning to be done in this area. Trying to use probiotics and prebiotics to create this synergic effect that would benefit the animals in terms of health, immunological status and capacity to assimilate with the feed. If you have a healthy animal, whatever feed you're giving to them, they are going to assimilate with it in an improved way. Any diseased animal is not going to use feed, no matter what — even if you have the best feed quality. If the animals are diseased, they are not going to make it. So, I think that's one of the things to look for in the future. The more environmental control, or the more naturally we can grow shrimp, the better off we're going to be. It's possible. I mean, we can produce a lot of shrimp and grow them in a most sustainable way. This is possible.

Nicole:           Jorge Cordova is the production manager for shrimp farms at Naturisa in Ecuador. Thank you so much.

Jorge:             Thank you.

I want to learn more about supporting health and efficiency in my aquaculture production!