The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Dr. T.G. Nagaraja. Click below to hear the full interview:

Nicole:         I'm talking with Dr. T.G. Nagaraja, University Distinguished Professor of Microbiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University. Dr. Nagaraja joins me to talk about a major issue in feedlot cattle: liver abscesses — a problem that can bear significant economic cost to the producer, packer and even the consumer. Dr. Nagaraja, thank you for joining us.

T.G.:            You're welcome.

Nicole:         Can you tell us a little bit about how you've come to specialize in the gut microbiology of cattle, specifically the rumen microbes? For those of us who understand that cows have a unique system for digestion but might not have the full capacity to appreciate it, what is it about rumen microbes that you've come to appreciate most?

T.G.:            I've been working in the area of rumen microbiology for the past 30 to 35 years. Rumen, as you know, is the first compartment of the four-compartment stomach in cattle. Rumen has a lot of microorganisms. In fact, when we feed cattle, we are feeding the microbes, not the animal. What microbes do is break down the feed into nutrients that the animal can then use. The microbial activity in the rumen provides both energy and protein to the animal.

                    My research interests have been in beef cattle, particularly cattle fed a high-grain diet. This would be what we call “feedlot cattle,” meant for beef production. When we feed a high-grain diet — because grain is starch, and starch is a highly degradable or digestible carbohydrate — therefore, microbes break it down rapidly and produce a lot of acid. Because of that rapid fermentation, there are a lot of digestive problems in cattle. That has been my area of research: how to minimize those digestive problems.

Nicole:         What happens when the microbial colonies get out of balance? Is there a way for producers to see physically or behaviorally that their cows aren't feeling well?

T.G.:            It's difficult to see unless the production of acid exceeds the capacity for the animal to absorb and utilize nutrients — in which case, the rumen acid concentration increases to a level that reduces animal feed intake. That's when producers will notice that cattle are not doing well, because they're eating less than what they are expected to eat. That condition is called acidosis, and that's a very common problem in grain-fed cattle. That increased acid production and increased accumulation of acid in the rumen causes a lot of digestive problems.

Nicole:         With feedlot cattle, are producers able to keep an eye on them as frequently as they would like? I mean, could this kind of go undetected?

T.G.:            In a feedlot, where you have hundreds of animals in a pen, it's very difficult to detect acidosis unless the animal is extremely sick, in which case you will see the animal standing by itself, away from the feed bunk. Usually, the pen riders who keep an eye on the cattle can spot those animals and maybe pull those animals out of the pen to treat them.

Nicole:         Can we determine rumen community composition by how we feed and raise the calf or heifer?

T.G.:            It's a lot more complicated to understand all the microbial changes that take place with different feedstuffs. One unique aspect of microbes in the rumen, in microbiology, are called anaerobic organisms, which means they live and grow without using oxygen. Therefore, if you want to study them, you have to have special techniques to grow them outside the rumen in the lab. These are what we call “anaerobic techniques.” Rumen is a very complex ecosystem — there are bacteria, there are protozoa, there are fungi — and it's not easy to understand all the changes that take place in the rumen when you, for example, change the diet of an animal.

Nicole:         The new veterinary feed directive has sent a message that traditional antibiotics approved for the prevention of liver abscesses should be a last resort instead of a preventive method. Because of that, we're hearing more about the use of ionophores, for instance. How are these safer than tylosin or other antibiotics used to prevent abscess?

T.G.:            Tylosin is the antibiotic of choice to prevent liver abscess. That seems to be the best one. Whenever we feed antibiotics to animals, there is always a chance that we may be creating some resistance in bacteria — which may end up in humans and could be a public health concern. Tylosin is not used in human medicine. This is a drug used only in animals, but it belongs to a class of antibiotic called macrolide. The same class includes another antibiotic that is commonly used in humans, and that is erythromycin. In fact, tylosin and erythromycin are very similar. So, if bacteria becomes resistant to tylosin, it could also be resistant to erythromycin. That is the reason why we are concerned about feeding tylosin.

                    With the new veterinary feed directive, the intent there is that we cannot use antibiotics for growth promotion. Tylosin is used to prevent infection in cattle. That's why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed tylosin to be used, as long as it is under veterinary supervision, until the industry comes up with a different method to control liver abscesses.

Nicole:         Other methods are also being explored, like the use of certain essential oils, yeast fermentation and product consumption. What are your thoughts on these as a method of prevention in treatment?

T.G.:            I will say we should be able to develop other methods that do not involve use of antibiotics. One of them is probiotics. Probiotics are beneficial bacteria, but some of them do produce substances that could kill other bacteria. For example, we know that probiotics can reduce Salmonella in chickens, swine and cattle, or reduce Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, which is a major food-borne pathogen. Similarly, there could be a probiotic that could be used to kill the bacterium that causes liver abscess, which is called Fusobacterium necrophorum. As of now, we don't have any probiotic identifier, but there are people, including in my lab, looking at those probiotics.

                    The one that has shown some promise is essential oil. These are products of plants. That means they are natural products. But many of the essential oils behave almost like antibiotics in the sense that they do kill bacteria. We have looked at a few essential oils and have shown in a lab, in a test tube, that some of the essential oils can kill bacteria that cause liver abscess. The question is if we can feed those to cattle and, thereby, reduce liver abscess prevalence. That work has not been done yet.

Nicole:         What kind of restrictions might there be in making those more available? Do you have to go through the FDA?

T.G.:            Essentials oil are considered what we call “generally recognized as safe products,” or GRAS status. This means they would not require FDA approval, because these are natural products, naturally safe. As long as the industry can show that the product is effective in reducing liver abscess, it should be commercialized. It would be a lot easier to commercialize essential oils than antibiotics, for example.

Nicole:         How would you provide the essential oils to the cattle? Would it be in a capsule? Would it be on the feed?

T.G.:            This would probably be mixed with the feed. It could either be a liquid product or it could be dry powder, because some of the essential oils are available as powder. It could be mixed with the feed, so it would be easy to administer to cattle.

Nicole:         Certain breeds of cattle seem to be affected by liver abscesses more than others. For example, I've read that Holsteins have the greatest incident rate, followed by dairy cows and then fed-beef steers. Why is that?

T.G.:            I think the reason why Holsteins have a higher prevalence of liver abscesses is simply because they are on a high-grain diet for extended periods of time. Typically, Holsteins used for beef production are Holstein calves. What producers do is start the calves on a grain diet right after they are weaned off of milk. Typically, a Holstein steer, before they go to slaughter, would have been on a grain diet for 300 to 350 days, as opposed to beef cattle meant for beef production. Those are typically on a grain-fed diet for 3 to 5 months, or 120 to 150 days. I think the duration of grain-feeding, we believe, is the major reason why Holsteins have higher liver abscess.

Nicole:         I think I saw a number around $64 million annually for the beef industry in the United States for losses associated with liver abscesses. How does abscess extensively affect an entire industry?

T.G.:            If you look at the average prevalence of liver abscess in feedlot cattle in this country, it would be anywhere from 10 percent to 20 or 25 percent, even with feeding tylosin. Tylosin is effective in reducing liver abscess but does not eliminate the problem. Liver abscesses could cost the producers as well as the packers. It affects producers because cattle with liver abscesses — particularly those that have what we call in the industry “A+ liver abscess,” which would be a liver with a large abscess or multiple small abscesses — when they have those A+ liver abscesses, the animals don't eat as much, they don't gain as much and they become less efficient in converting feed into gain. That costs money for the producer. Once the cattle go to the slaughterhouse, obviously even a minor liver abscess could be condemned. So that's a loss of liver for the packer.

                    Plus, many times when we see livers with abscesses, they adhere to the adjacent organs, like diaphragm and lungs. So that leads to a lot of trimming of the meat, so there is a reduction in carcass yield because of liver abscess, and that costs money for the packer. The cost of the retail price I was told is about $5-6 per liver, so that's the minimum loss. In terms of carcass yield reduction, that could be anywhere from $25 to $75, depending on the extent of trim they have to make.

Nicole:         You mentioned that there is still a lot to learn about the essential oils and probiotics. How far do you think we are from getting probiotic strains to persist in the rumen and in the industry?

T.G.:            We still have not identified the probiotic product that does affect the bacterium that causes liver abscess. We know some essential oils do. The question is whether the effect it shows in the lab — does that translate in the field? That's where we need to do more studies. There is always the question of whether the bacteria may get adapted to essential oils. So, if you feed it for three to five months, they may lose the efficacy. Those are the types of studies we need to do.

                    If I could mention, one other way we could control liver abscess would be to have a vaccine against the bacteria. Just like there are a number of vaccines to treat bacterial diseases, liver abscess is a bacterial infection, and we know which bacterium causes liver abscess. One of the approaches we have taken in my lab is: could we develop a vaccine? We are targeting two different structures or products for the bacteria. One is a protein that's on the surface of the bacteria, and we have evidence to believe that the protein is the one that attaches the bacteria to the cells in the animal. That attachment is a prerequisite for infection. If it prevents that attachment, we may be able to prevent the infection. That's one approach.

                    The other approach that we have been working on is when the bacterium goes to the liver — the liver is a very well-defended organ — there are a lot of mechanisms to combat foreign bacteria. So, when Fusobacterium necrophorum — the one that causes liver abscess — goes to the liver, the reason why it can survive is because it produces a toxin that kills white blood cells. Normally, white blood cells would be the first line of defense in the animal. When bacteria go into the organ, white blood cells engulf the bacteria and destroy them. This organism (Fusobacterium necrophorum) produces a toxin that kills those white blood cells.

                    What we're trying to do is have a vaccine containing the leukotoxin as well as a protein that mediates attachment, to see if the animal has antibodies against those. Then, a vaccinated animal may be able to prevent attachment, then prevent the survival of the bacteria in the liver. We think this may be the way to prevent the infection.

Nicole:         Well, which one do you think would come first: the vaccination as a solution, or probiotics? Where are you furthest in your research?

T.G.:            I think, with vaccines, we are working on it. Again, a vaccine has to go through a lot of regulatory approval. That may be at least another 2 to 3 years in the making, whereas probiotics or essential oils would be a lot faster to bring to the market. In fact, there could be probiotics already being used that could have an effect, but nobody has tested those.

Nicole:         Dr. Nagaraja is a distinguished professor of microbiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University. Thanks for joining us.

T.G.:            Thank you.

I want to learn more about improving the rumen health of my beef cattle. 

The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Torben Ancker, product manager at Hornsyld feed mill in Denmark. Click below to hear the full audio:

Nicole:         New zinc oxide regulations are expected to shake up the global pig industry. I'm talking with Torben Anker, product manager at Hornsyld, a privately-owned feed mill in Denmark, where he is responsible for developing pig and broiler feed for Danish farmers. Welcome.

Torben:         Thank you very much.

Nicole:         Torben, European pig farmers have been given around five years to phase out the use of zinc oxide in pig feed, per the European Commission’s directive in 2017. Since the announcement, what has the response been from feed producers like yourself?

Torben:         We knew that the ban would come, and we have tried to find solutions. We started a few years ago, actually. We also know that there is no single product that can replace zinc oxide immediately. Where we stand now is that we are trying to find a good combination of feed components and feed additives, so that we are ready when the ban comes.

Nicole:         Why zinc oxide? Why is it so prevalent in pig feed and why is it a problem?

Torben:         Zinc oxide is used in Denmark as 2500 parts per million (ppm) when we're weaning the piglets. It works well to reduce diarrhea and E. coli bacteria and so on, and it also reduces the amount of antibiotics necessary when you are weaning. It’s a nice product. The problem with zinc oxide is that when you are feeding the pigs and you put the slurry in the fields, you will have an extra amount of zinc oxide, which is seen as a toxic component in the soil. You increase the amount of zinc over the years. I don't think it will be a problem before maybe 50 or 60 years, but the next generations will have to deal with that. I think it's a good idea to deal with it now.

                    There are also the health issues because there has been a connection made between zinc oxide and MRSA, which is a disease that some penicillin strains cannot deal with.

Nicole:         Methicillin Resistant Staph.

Torben:         Exactly. So that's the problem with the zinc.

Nicole:         Where else is zinc being used in other industries that it could be significantly contributing to the environment? Is it mainly livestock production that is the culprit, or are there other areas, too?

Torben:         I would say when it goes directly into the soil, then it's mainly because of agriculture — the pig industry — which contributes the biggest amount of zinc oxide. The funny part is that the zinc additive used in feed for slaughter pigs is a huge amount compared to the zinc oxide used during the first two weeks of weaning. I would say we could have made more progress if we just reduced the amount of zinc oxide in the feed for the slaughters, and then we still could have some of the zinc oxide for weaning.

Nicole:         What are some of the current inclusion levels in feed?

Torben:         Normally, we can add 120 milligrams of zinc oxide per kilo of feed. That's a legislation and it's fine. In Denmark, all the feed mills are using phytase. When we are using phytase, we can reduce the amount of zinc oxide. We have already done that, and we have reduced the amount of zinc that goes into the soil.

Nicole:         There are discussions floating around that there should be an alternative to the ban. I've heard quite a bit about phytase. What else are you hearing that is promising as an alternative solution?

Torben:         I think if we look at alternatives to zinc, it will be a combination of several things. We have to look at the management on farm.

                    Also, in my opinion, we should look into the sow feeding. It’s much easier to wean piglets weighing 7 to 8 kilos than piglets that weigh 4 to 5 kilos. With sow feeding, we can do something to get a higher milk yield and then have more uniform piglets. That will also help us.

                    If we look at promising products, the Danish Feed Research Center is now performing some concept tests. There are actually two companies doing quite well. I do not know which company it is, but they are performing quite well. I think that will be very interesting, to see how it comes out, and maybe we can pick some of the elements and put it into our feed also.

Nicole:         Do you expect the European Commission to consider some of these alternative proposals, or do you think that it's just set — the ban is going to happen?

Torben:         I think the ban will happen and, hopefully, we will have some solution when we reach 2022.

Nicole:         I read that phasing out zinc could also lead to higher use of antibiotics. How is that?

Torben:         If you look at the Danish pig industry today, if we had to stop using zinc now, it would lead to a higher use of antibiotics. In Denmark, we already use a very low amount of antibiotics compared to other pig countries, like, for example, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany. We have very low use of antibiotics, and our government will not allow us to use more. We really need to find a solution that allows us to still have high-performing pigs with less diarrhea and no welfare problems. That's what we really need to have, because the pig industry in Denmark does not earn that much money, so farmers cannot afford to have reduced production when zinc is banned.

Nicole:         The U.S. had just implemented the Veterinary Feed Directive to limit antibiotic use in feed, and a lot of the conversations that I was having went back to Denmark. It's my understanding that Denmark was one of the first countries to impose a feed directive for antibiotic use. It would seem that the possibility for increased antibiotics as a result of banning zinc might encourage an alternative. Or is this a new argument that's coming forward — that removing zinc could increase antibiotics?

Torben:         It's well known that if we are taking the zinc oxide away, then we will use more antibiotics. I also think that the use of zinc oxides has become more like a reflex for some farmers. In Denmark, we have some really nice farms — well-managed with a high health status. I think they could take out zinc oxide tomorrow. Maybe 20 percent to 25 percent of the Danish farmers could do that. I don't know, because it's just like an assurance that the problems would not come.

Nicole:         Well, these farms that you're talking about, what are some of the management plans they've implemented that would allow them to remove zinc?

Torben:         The Danish farmers are quite efficient — they have 35 piglets per sow — and in the last several years, they have been able to build more space for the piglets. I think that’s the reason that some farmers can wean without zinc oxide. There are still a lot of farmers whose animal density is a little bit too high, and maybe they have not been able to develop the pens and all that, so it’s not perfect. But I think 20 percent of farmers would be okay and would be able to do it.

Nicole:         What about spraying dried plasma as an alternative in piglet feed? Have you heard much about this?

Torben:         In my opinion, that could be a part of the solution, because it's a product that helps the pigs to build immunity. I think we have seen some good results using that in Denmark, but it could be a part of the solution — ­but not the only thing.

Nicole:         I read that there were some concerns about biosafety, particularly during periods of emergence or reemergence of swine diseases in different regions of the world — the recent porcine epidemic diarrhea virus outbreak in North America, for example. With resistance diseases looming in the industry, what kind of research do you expect to emerge in response to the zinc ban? Do you think that there could be new solutions as a result of being forced to find an alternative?

Torben:         Yes, I think new solutions will emerge from this. I think we should have started years ago because, while I think we have all the tools, we have not been able to put them together correctly. Also, I think that we have to look at the way we produce. It should not only be a bulk production. But, of course, the consumers have to pay for it.

Nicole:         So, do things like a zinc ban force the industry to rethink things? Otherwise, you kind of stay complacent.

Torben:         Yeah, they have to rethink how they do things. I think they will develop a lot of tools to handle this situation.

Nicole:         From what I've read, it seems like a lot of people know that zinc contributes to gut health, but they don't really know how it contributes. So, if that's the case, how did it end up in pig feed in the first place?

Torben:         Zinc has always been seen as a very important building material for the pigs. Danish research has shown that, in the first weeks after weaning, the piglet actually needs large amounts of zinc oxide to develop good gut health. It seems that this has been forgotten. I think the most important thing is that it goes into the soil, and that is a thing that we have to look at, even though the pigs need it.

Nicole:         Lastly, if this moves forward, to anticipate whatever the feed industry comes up with to cope with the ban, could it potentially lead the U.S. and other parts of the world in a similar direction?

Torben:         I could hope so, because if we could have solutions, then they could be applied in the U.S. also. In Denmark, we haven't been using growth promoters for many years. Maybe it would be good to have a look at that also.

Nicole:         What are you looking forward to in the research in trying to find alternatives?

Torben:         Reducing zinc oxide is an easy solution, but the feed industry faces a lot of difficult challenges in handling this. On a feed mill like ours, we need the prescription from the vet. We have to deal with that before we can load the feed for the farmer. It's like going to the pharmacy — he needs a prescription. In our production, we need to have thorough cleanings, so we don't carry over zinc oxide to the other feeds. I'm actually really looking forward to getting rid of zinc. All these technical things would be much easier for us. Zinc can be toxic, so I think it would be nice to have a solution with fiber, highly-digestible proteins, milk powder, etcetera. If we could use that, I think we will get better results in the end.

Nicole:         I'm talking with Torben Ancker, product manager at Hornsyld. Thank you so much.

Torben:         You're welcome.

I want to learn more about using organic trace minerals on my pig farm.

The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin's interview with Yehuda Elram, CEO and co-founder of eggXYt. Click below to hear the full interview:

Tom:            I'm talking with Yehuda Elram, co-founder and CEO of eggXYt, a Jerusalem-based startup among the 2018 Pearse Lyons Accelerator finalists. The company has developed a novel CRISPR-based technology for the chicken industry, and Yehuda's here to share the details. Thank you for joining us. What is the problem that you hope to solve?

Yehuda:        Each year, the egg industry has to kill 7 billion male chicks. Doing so wastes billions of dollars and, of course, unnecessarily hatches and disposes those male chicks. And why? Because there are two kinds of chickens in the world: broilers who go to the meat industry, and the layers for the egg industry. The female layers are those who lay the 1.2 trillion eggs we eat. The male layers don't have meat on their body and they don't lay eggs, obviously. So, like us male homo sapiens, they're useless.

Tom:            Well, tell us about the technology that you developed to address this problem.

Yehuda:        The industry today sends 14 billion fertile layer eggs to hatcheries to be incubated for three weeks, and then they meet — as they hatch — human chicken sexers (there is such a profession), and those chicken sexers check if the chickens are male or female. They send the female to market and the males to their immediate death. So, what if you could do that process of detecting the sex at the input side of the hatchery and prevent those potential male chicks from being incubated and hatched? That's what eggXYt does. We make it possible to count your chickens before they hatch.

Tom:            This is where the CRISPR technology comes in, correct?

Yehuda:        Exactly, yes. By using CRISPR — a game-changing revolutionary technology — we edit chickens to lay sex-detectable eggs. The male eggs will carry in their DNA a biomarker. Our device, which we developed and branded as seXYt, can look into the eggs and pick up that signal at the entry point of the hatchery, preventing those male eggs from being hatched to become chicks.

Tom:            So there's actually a way of looking into the egg?

Yehuda:        Yes. But before we develop the technology that enables looking into the egg, we had to develop the technology that creates this DNA marker that then we can see. We make the sex chromosomes, which are the differentiator between male and female, detectable. We can see them, so to speak. That is possible by using CRISPR to edit the chickens to carry that marker in their DNA.

                    The beauty of this is that only the males carry the biomarker. The desirable product — the female that reaches the market — doesn't have any gene addition. It's 100 percent identical to a regular egg as we know today.

Tom:            That is a disruptive technology, obviously, but can you elaborate on how?

Yehuda:        Again, this is very scientific, but CRISPR is a new tool introduced to the world a few years ago, which enables a very precise intervention into the DNA — into the gene set of any organism — be it a plant, an animal or human.

                    With that technology, once you have the map of the genome, you can influence by either removing a gene that you don't want to express or adding in a gene that you do want expressed. By doing so, you can create new possibilities, eliminate diseases or create other efficiencies like we are doing.

Tom:            I'm curious about the background. We don't have a lot of time to go into it in depth, but what brought you to this project?

Yehuda:        One day, while I was sitting at my desk at the law firm at which I’m a partner, one of my favorite clients, professor Danny Offen, phones me and tells me, "I know you don't believe all my stories, but this is another one. I'm having breakfast and we're eating eggs, and my friend shows me this video showing the maceration of male chicks. I was amazed to find out that eggs are laid with 100,000 embryonic cells, more or less. So, the DNA signal is there; the information — male or female — is there as the egg is laid. Yet, as I found out watching that video, nobody knows how to look inside these eggs."

                    “Being the brain scientist,” — Danny is the head of the neuroscience lab at the medical school at Tel Aviv University — “it didn't leave my mind, this issue, which I came across by chance and inspired by the usage of CRISPR and brain research, which I'm busy with,” he tells me. “I thought, ‘I can solve it in the egg world as well.’”

                    He approached me to do some IP research to see what's going on. I was then fascinated to find out that this is a problem that the world has been dealing with for decades, and so many attempts to solve it have been tried, but there's no solution at market until this day. The way that it's done is that the male chicks are actually hatched and only then disposed after going through this sex detection.

Tom:            Interesting. Okay. Could you briefly describe for us your business model?

Yehuda:        We are creating value in many areas of the egg and chicken industry. I'll go through them quickly. In the egg industry, we double the capacity of hatcheries. Instead of hatching two eggs, now you need to hatch only one egg, because the male eggs will stay outside. You eliminate the need of those chicken sexers, because the sexing is actually done at the entry point of the hatchery by automation, not by human labor.

                    Then you have those male eggs that you created: instead of becoming waste, after three weeks, they become a product. They can be sold to markets such as the pharma and cosmetic industries that use egg protein for their manufacturing processes.

                    In the poultry world, the ability to introduce an elegant and cheap way to do sex determination is also important because the industry, more and more, is raising the males and females separately because of efficiency of feed. The FCR — the feed conversion rate — of males and females is different. You want to raise them separately to save on feed cost. This also has a huge environmental impact because, now, you can save all that feed.

                    Lastly, you can sell at supermarkets these ethical welfare eggs — the culling-free eggs — at a much higher price. It’s the same concept as today, when you can find premium eggs that are organic-fed or cage-free. This is obviously a higher level of premium eggs that we can introduce to markets.

Tom:            Your informational materials state that you are tackling a truly global problem, creating both economic value and social impact for societies in every nation on earth. Talk to me about the social impact part of that.

Yehuda:        There's this whole new concept that is relatively new and attributed to millennials, that they care — of course, it's not just them — about what happens to the food from farm to fork. People are more conscious of what happens to what they eat, even if they're not vegetarian or vegan. If they eat an animal product, they want to know where it came from, how it was treated and what the ingredients are. The impact of enabling people to eat eggs without carrying this price of needing to kill those 7 billion male chicks makes a huge impact.

                    Of course, the fact that we do not need to hatch these eggs minimizes the carbon footprint of this industry, because you don't need to waste all the resources of electricity, et cetera, that it takes to incubate and then sex those eggs. As I just said, in the poultry industry, the fact that you can minimize feed cost has a huge global impact as well.

Tom:            Have you received funding?

Yehuda:        Up till recently, we were “boot-strapping,” and we received grants from European governments, and we also won some accelerator prizes. We're just now finalizing our first round and accelerating our progress to go to market.

Tom:            Speaking of markets, what are your targets?

Yehuda:        It’s a global issue and the whole world is our target. The main driver of where we go to market first will be the regulation. CRISPR is new. Usually, regulation follows technology. That's how it should be, because technology comes first. So we are talking to regulators across the world and figuring out the pathway to market given this new technology.

                    Just recently in the U.S., at the end of March, the United States Department of Agriculture announced that in plants, CRISPR is seen as accelerated natural selection and, therefore, if it meets certain criteria, will not be regulated. We believe that animals are next, and we want to be there.

Tom:            Is the application of your technology limited to eggs?

Yehuda:        CRISPR is now creating a revolution in all fields of science: Human, plants and animals. We’re building eggXYt as a platform for CRISPR innovation in livestock.

                    The next venture in our pipeline is in the avian world: The elimination of diseases, which is a huge pain point to the industry. But then, we will also look at other livestock — cows, pigs — and see what we can do there.

Tom:            Tell us how The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program has affected your business.

Yehuda:        The Accelerator was a great experience. Unfortunately, it's ending soon, but it's really been great — mainly because of the ability to work with, as a startup, a well-established global company such as Alltech, which has presence in 128 countries. The doors it can open for us within the company and within the network that Alltech has is a stage that would take years to reach. The people at Dogpatch Labs, who run the Accelerator together with Alltech, have been very helpful by introducing us to partners and to mentors that really helped us improve what we're doing and to accelerate many processes.

Tom:            Yehuda Elram, co-founder and CEO of eggXYt, thank you very much for being with us.

Yehuda:        Thank you.

Yahuda Elram and his team presented eggXYt during ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference(ONE18). All presentations from ONE18 are now LIVE on the Alltech Idea Lab! Click the button below to view presentations for FREE after sign-up. 

The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Dr. Atila Mogor, faculty at Federal University of Parana, Brazil. Click below to hear the full interview: 

Nicole:         I'm talking with Dr. Atila Mogor, faculty at Federal University of Parana, Brazil. Dr. Mogor has dedicated his work to sustainability in agriculture with a focus on plant physiology and plant nutrition. Dr. Mogor joins me today to discuss what could be the next green revolution: biostimulants. Thank you for joining us.

Atila:             Thank you very much for inviting me.

Nicole:         To get started, what are biostimulants?

Atila:             Biostimulants are natural sources that can act on plant physiology as signaling molecules to possibly improve the plant growth, the fruit sets, the fruit enlargement, the shelf life of some horticultural crops and also the ability to face the big challenge in agriculture, which is abiotic stresses like drought and salinity.

Nicole:         It was Dr. Norman Borlaug who kicked off the first green revolution with his contribution of disease-resistant, high-yielding varieties of wheat that saved many people from starvation. Some farmers are turning their backs on modern agriculture methods — the use of modified seeds, fertilizer and pesticides — so today, biostimulants seem to be a way forward in that respect. Can you tell us a little bit about developments with microalgae and their multifunctionality and their roles as biostimulants?

Atila:             The most frequently reported biostimulant sources were the humic substances, kelp extracts, algae harvested from seas and amino acids. The new frontier is the use of microalgaes, because of their production systems and their reactors or photobioreactors. Microalgae are completely sustainable, help to reduce the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere because they are photosynthetic microorganisms, and could also release some bioactive molecules that act in plants as biostimulants.

Nicole:         Biostimulants, to me, are one of the most interesting areas of agriculture. There's so much potential with microalgae as fuel, food, animal feed and fertilizers, like you mentioned. Where would you say research has come the furthest in being able to use biostimulants on these platforms?

Atila:             Yes. We use biostimulants frequently in organic horticulture at the university, and we are also testing the new sources of biostimulants and the traditional sources. The university's farm is on an environmental protection area because it's very close to a main freshwater source of Curitiba. Curitiba is a main city of Parana state — 2 million people live there — and we are safeguarding these water sources. The microalgae produced at the university are frequently used as a stimulant to improve the plants' root growth and the sequence of plant development.

Nicole:         Who's using it right now in agriculture, would you say?

Atila:             It is being used in drip irrigation, on hydroponics or by foliar sprayers.

Nicole:         I recently joined a Master Gardeners group. During one of the classes, we were given this thick packet of chemical pesticide and herbicide information on applications — just being able to understand how to read the labels. But there wasn't anything about biostimulants mentioned.

Atila:             No. It's because the regulation is not clear enough. The Brazilian regulations on biostimulants are as biofertilizers. The Brazilian regulation called these kind of natural sources biofertilizers; the rest of the world calls them biostimulants.

Nicole:         Gotcha.

Atila:             This is like a carnival. The regulation is not clear and it's under construction, I think, in the U.S. and in Europe. There is the importance to separate the biostimulant effect from the fertilizer effect. It’s not a nitrogen source, for example, but a bioactive amino acid source. This concept is very important because we’re using molecules that can act on plant physiology, and not in the same way as the nutrient can act on plant growth and development. This differentiation, in my point of view, is very important, and the regulation is not clear about it.

Nicole:         On the basis of crop type, it's my understanding that the cereals and grains segment is expected to acquire the largest market share of biostimulants due to higher demands for biofertilizers. The North American region is predicted to occupy the highest market share due to bans on harmful chemicals used as inputs in agriculture. Is that what you're seeing?

Atila:             Yes. It's possible. It's a new frontier. It's not very clear, actually, but there is knowledge in the field of trophobiosis. When the healthy plant can maintain its health, the microalgae or the biostimulant could contribute in the ability to stimulate the plant's own capacity for biochemical responses against diseases.

Nicole:         There are also efforts underway in Appalachia to reclaim mined land and restore the soil for production. How would biostimulants aid in something like this? Could they help regenerate topsoil?

Atila:             Yes. In arid areas with high salt level in soils, the biostimulants could improve on some varieties — the genetic background of a soil variety is fundamental for this, as it’s not possible to stimulate something that does not exist. The first step is to understand genetical background of varieties and stimulate growth in this salty soil, improving, for example, the proline amino acid synthesis on plants. This amino acid acts as an osmoregulator on plant metabolism and can help the plant to survive in these kinds of conditions.

Nicole:         What are some of the major challenges in increasing awareness about the usefulness of biostimulants? Why aren't we hearing more about them?

Atila:             In my point of view, good communication with the growers is very important so the growers understand how these kinds of products work. Plant physiology is not a miracle, but a technology. Also, the regulation could be clearer to separate natural sources from fertilizers — plant growth regulators — or synthetic sources. From my point of view, the biggest challenge is related to clear information for the growers and clear regulation of this issue.

Nicole:         What is the outlook for use in emerging countries like China, India, Argentina, Brazil? Are they more or less than the U.S., and are the regulations what is holding it back?

Atila:             Yes. Countries are on the same level because it's a new concept, a new technology, and the regulation is slow. It’s the same situation around the world.

Nicole:         From an environmental perspective, how would greater global use of biostimulants help heal chemically treated lands and water sources?

Atila:             The use of biostimulants will reduce the use of pesticides and will improve the efficient use of chemical nutrients — nitrogen, for example. We have research in Brazil using the microalgae together with the Bradyrhizobium bacteria — that is a nitrogen-fixing bacteria — on soybeans, with very interesting results. We’re using more than one microorganism in a systemic approach.

Nicole:         So how do producers interested in biostimulant use get to them? Are they accessible?

Atila:             Yes, and the result is very positive. Growers will always choose the natural way because sustainability is the new agenda.

Nicole:         Dr. Atila Mogor is an agronomy professor at Federal University of Parana, Brazil. Thank you for joining us.

Atila:             Thank you very much.

Dr. Atila Mogor spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference(ONE18). All presentations from ONE18 are now LIVE on the Alltech Idea Lab! Click the button below to view presentations for FREE after sign-up. 

I want to improve the health of my soil.

The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Bill Northey, the USDA under secretary of agriculture. Click below to hear the full interview: 

Nicole:         I'm speaking with Bill Northey, under secretary of agriculture for the Farm Production and Conservation mission area. Bill, thank you so much for joining us.

Bill:               Great to be with you.

Nicole:         Your role at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is still fairly new, but your history with agriculture is quite extensive. Can you talk a little bit about the role the USDA played as a partner for you over the years — as a farmer, and as Iowa Secretary of Agriculture?

Bill:               Sure. I farm up in Northwest Iowa and have always participated in the farm programs. Farmers in the audience will know Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) — lots of acronyms in government agencies — but these are programs that help support farmers when prices break significantly lower.

                    I've been a participant in the crop insurance program, which is a program that is offered by the USDA through private insurers. I have always had crop insurance on our farm. Most events don’t trigger a loss, but when we do have one — and we've had a couple disaster years — it was critically important to allow me to have enough resources to be able to farm again the next year.

                    The conservation side of the USDA has been important as well. We do some cost-share programs, whether it's incentives for cover crops or other kinds of programs. I had the 10-year Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) on a grass waterway that goes through one of our fields.

                    So, there are several different pieces that I've been able to use. The last 11 years that I was secretary of agriculture in Iowa, we partnered extensively with the USDA. Half of the Department of Agriculture in Iowa is focused on conservation programs — soil conservation and water quality programs. We have 99 counties in Iowa, and we have offices in each county. Those county offices were shared with Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), with our state conservation folks and with local conservation folks.

                    We partnered well, and as technology changes, we talk about the kinds of things that will work on the new water quality programs. In fact, we changed the title of our Division of Soil Conservation to the Division of Soil Conservation and Water Quality as we increased efforts to look at reducing nitrate and phosphorous in our water, both in urban and rural areas. So, there are lots of opportunities to partner with USDA programs, and now we get the chance to look at some of those programs from the USDA point of view.

Nicole:         Right. Where do you hope to take this new department as a future partner for farmers in the ag industry?

Bill:               Well, certainly our charge from the secretary is a very customer-oriented USDA. My piece is the (USDA) Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service and Risk Management Agency. Those are the most customer-facing parts of the USDA. So, that's where farm programs, conservation programs and crop insurance are.

                    The secretary charged us with finding out what is working for producers out there or what needs to change. How do we be efficient, effective and customer-focused in what we're doing? We're going to be measuring customers’ attitudes toward the things that are happening at the office. We are already measuring workload analysis as we look to place people around the country in the 4,500 offices so that we understand the right places to put people.

                    We're looking at technology. We have a website called farmers.gov where we offer information. As time goes on, that will become a portal where users will be able to apply for or check up on programs as well. There are opportunities for folks to use our county office, but if they're sitting in a tractor waiting for a truck to come and pick up a load, they can also possibly report on the program activities or check out activities with USDA programs.

                    There are lots of opportunities to be more customer-focused — to be more customer-oriented. We've got to discover what that means, and that's going to be different between Maine and New Mexico, between Mississippi and Montana. We have to understand the most needed services and how we're doing.

Nicole:         The customer experience feels like a new concept with the ag department. Did you ever feel, as a farmer, like a customer? How do you tie those two together?

Bill:               You always do, somewhat. I think the engagement, to the degree that there is now, is certainly a step up. I'd argue, as you look at our county offices, those are the folks that people think of when they think of the USDA. They don't think of some under secretary who’s a thousand miles away.

                    They think of the folks in their county office. They know the operation. They know which programs work for them. Maybe we didn't define or measure customer service at that time, but everybody knew that you could depend on your staff there in those county offices.

                    As time has gone on, we burdened them with a lot of paperwork as we “dumped” new programs on them and have given them lots of opportunities to find other programs that will help people. It creates a complexity that takes them away from some of that customer service.

                    We're trying to understand the approach that business has taken toward customer service. A lot of folks say that banks, a long time ago, understood that there was a customer service aspect, and then some lost that. Now they're refocusing. Government hasn't always focused on it, either. Certainly, that's a desire of United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and especially for the mission area that I have responsibilities for.

Nicole:         Innovation and being wirelessly connected is also critical to this industry. How do rural farmers fare with staying connected, and what are some of their barriers? Any idea how the U.S. compares to other countries in this arena?

Bill:               Certainly, we have some areas with a lot of connectivity, and folks are able to use their GPS on their tractors and have high-speed internet at their farms. We have a lot of areas that don't. Others have better numbers of exactly how we sort out what those speeds are and how we compare to some other places, but we can drive across this country and you can be in a fairly populated area where your cell phone coverage drops off — where there isn’t good high-speed internet.

                    That is, as you say, increasingly important because so much of the technology we use now needs to be able to connect. We have livestock buildings that constantly report to farmers via their phones what the temperature is, whether the feeders are full, whether the water is working or the fans are working.

                    I just had somebody send me a Snapchat last night of him on his planter. Seven monitors in that planter cab are all doing different things. Of course, his feet were up because the tractor was driving itself across the field. He was able to Snapchat me in his field, planting soybeans — he has to have a signal to do that, and that information is likely being constantly uploaded to a computer back home, or maybe even to a report showing his planting progress to his crop insurance agent or, eventually, to his Farm Service Agency (FSA) office as well.

                    We have some real needs in broadband. That's a focus of some parts of the USDA. The secretary has been very engaged in that. Rural development is the arm of the USDA that probably focuses the most on that, but it's going to be increasingly important, and we have a long way to go to catch up to where we need to be.

Nicole:         Crop insurance is also a vital safety net. You mentioned that, using it as a farmer yourself and operating in an increasingly unpredictable environment. From what I hear during my interviews with farmers, current payouts don't account for conservation practices and risk management. How does the lack of data and ability to connect with Wi-Fi and be wirelessly connected affect the ability for insurance to account for the effectiveness of risk reduction?

Bill:               It's a challenge to rate risks appropriately. If you have a large amount of crops and they're all treated the same way, it's pretty easy to do it. For the most part, we're able to do that with our larger crops very easily. When you have smaller acreages, when you have a lot of variability in value, particularly with specialty crops — you look at an apple crop, and some of it goes to a fresh market and some of it goes to a processed market, and the production techniques vary — to make sure folks are doing things that raise a crop appropriately and not trying to abuse the crop insurance program, you've got to be able to have some oversight in what's going on. You've got to be able to rate it all properly.

                    With the technology changes in conservation right now — cover crops or other kinds of good conservation practices — if not done right, can actually put the crop production at risk. For example, can cover crops increase yields? I believe they can. I use cover crops on my farm, and I know a lot of folks that do. It can also add risk if you use cover crops in a dry production area and you don't get them terminated in time before that next crop; you take moisture away. How crop insurance is able to get the information that best represents what's happening and can show that good practices were used — to say, “Yes, there was a loss, but good practices were used” — and able to test all those practices over time is a challenge.

                    I believe technology is going to help us as we report more of those practices and we're able to rate those to a greater degree and compare those with yields as well. It's a challenging time, but we have more and more tools to address those challenges as well.

Nicole:         Do you feel like cover crops became less of a conventional method in agriculture, and is that kind of coming back now?

Bill:               There probably was a time, certainly before we had some of the tools we have today, that cover crops were generally used. We went away from that, and we do see it coming back. In Iowa, we encourage cover crops to a large degree because of water quality, and there's a significant improvement to water quality. You don't lose as much soil to erosion — phosphorous issues.

                    Also, nitrate is held in the soil longer during that time when the crop is not growing in the spring. Farmers are really adapting them because of control in erosion — being able to build soil health, feel of tilth, and being able to build organic matter as well. In Iowa, we have grown in the last six or seven years from about 50,000 acres of cover crops to over 600,000 acres of cover crops. We do see some real advancement of cover crops in some areas, certainly in the Midwest and in places that were previously low on cover crops.

                    We see it in lots of other areas as well. People are innovative. We're getting some new genetics in some of those cover crops — letting them grow a little bit better in cold weather, which allows them to not be so competitive against the crop but very competitive against the weeds. There are a lot of opportunities to increase the amount of cover crops with all the benefits that creates, not only for production, but the off-site benefits as well.

Nicole:         Where do you see public-private partnerships playing a role in programs like the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP)?

Bill:               It's a great program. Not only as the (former) Iowa secretary of ag, but also within USDA as well, we look at it as the only way we're really going to scale up the amount of conservation that is needed is not with a larger amount of new public dollars. It is by engaging folks the right way so that we can bring those private partners into the mix as well.

                    The Regional Conservation Partnership Program is a program that helps encourage partners to work with a program that generates federal dollars and brings partners to the programs. We have them all over the country. I visited several in other places besides the ones that I'm very familiar with in Iowa. It has brought thousands of partners across the country together. It has brought tens, maybe even hundreds, of millions of non-federal government dollars into those partnerships — private dollars. Organizations — farm organizations, non-farm organizations — have been a part of it. Certainly, state governments and local water conservation and water quality agencies have been a part of it. It is a great program.

                    There are some things that Congress is looking to adjust. RCPP came out of a program called the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Because it came out of EQIP, RCPP requires a certain amount of paperwork to make sure that you prove folks are spending the money the right way.

                    We can have more flexibility if it's funded on its own. It will still be oriented toward the right kinds of projects. It will still bring partners, but it will actually allow for more efficient management of those dollars, as the reporting requirement can be better. Congress is trying to address that, and I think that will be very helpful. I think that program will absolutely grow in the future.

Nicole:         There are a lot of people watching the EQIP program.

Bill:               There are, absolutely. It's a great program — our most popular program. RCPP, as a spinoff from that, is probably one of the other most popular programs.

Nicole:         Big data in farming is also growing. I dare say that there isn't a John Deere tractor or any other major distributor with a machine coming off a line that isn't readily connected to the cloud. While the information that can be shared offers greater weather predictability, precision and pesticide and fertilizer application, it also tracks productivity.

                    There have been reports that farmable land is getting sold off in lieu of sprawl. How does value-added information help farmers argue that land is more valuable in production than out, and what scenarios could you see where this might play out in the future?

Bill:               I think we are able to capture some of that transition. We're not always able to capture it, but we can capture it in several different ways. One way is through the technology in tractors. The other way is measuring program sign-up and whether people have crop insurance. Once you convert land to housing, you don't have crop insurance anymore. We're able to look at some of that participation rate in some of these programs.

                    We do have to try to keep good land around our cities. In fact, many of our cities are built on the easiest land to build houses, which is often highly productive farmland. We need to protect that. We have programs at the USDA in which some of our states or private entities will partner. They have easements in which a farmer who is in the path of development will sell off development rights and continue to farm the land. The farmer is paid a portion of the difference between development rights and farming, and the property is guaranteed not to be developed. We keep those areas in open spaces — we keep that agricultural initiative going in that area, and most of the time, the folks that are in the development around that space really appreciate having it. It's important productivity-wise. It's important for the viewscape that folks have. It's important, in many cases, for water quality. Although we have challenges in our ag land, we have more challenges in our urban areas with water quality issues as well. So, the right mix is important to retain.

Nicole:         For a farmer who might be up against something like development, what program would you advise them to look into?

Bill:               The easiest place to start is with their county service center. There is a USDA Service Center in every county. The program is called the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP). We offer it out of the USDA, and not every state participates, and every region has the local dollars that are required for matches, but the folks in your county service center would know.

                    There are probably some programs outside the USDA that allow folks to address that ability to keep land in agricultural production, even though they would like to get some of that extra value — sometimes it's because of farm heirs or sometimes it's the transition from one generation to another, or other reasons you need to generate some dollars — you just don't want to lose the fact that it's a farm.

Nicole:         A farmer who has this technology compared to a farmer who doesn't has a significant upper hand when it comes to negotiating sharecropping or renting land. For instance, the farmer who has the tech can go to the landowner and say, "I can produce X amount on this land and for this profit," whereas the farmer who hasn't tapped into the cloud might not be able to argue production rates as well. How do you balance some of these larger farmers who can afford the tech with the owners who aren't tapped into cloud technology?

Bill:               Technology comes at us lots of different ways. Some of it is very size-oriented, so it's much easier to afford on a planter tractor covering 4,000 acres than one covering 400 acres because the cost is nearly the same to put the technology on a tractor. There are some non-size neutral impacts. Now, buying seed that has some technology on it is often just as easy for a smaller producer as it is for a larger producer. Some of our technologies are not as size-sensitive.

                    There are lots of reasons folks decide to rent to different farmers. We have some farmers who are smaller producers. They will talk about their ability to respond much more specifically to the land, to increase organic matter and maybe longer rotations. There are landlords who will say, "I'll take that even over a higher annual return from somebody else because I believe you're going to protect the land and you're going to do some positive things that are not only good for our neighbors that I can be really proud of, but also build the value of the land."

                    There are lots of decisions that go into deciding who you're going to rent to and who you're going to rent from. Technology plays into it. Not all technology is going to make a producer money. There's a lot of whiz-bang kind of technology that’s interesting to see, but does it create value? Boy, a lot of folks have figured out how to create value out of some of that technology.

                    We’re seeing it on smaller and smaller farms now as well — the ability to turn a planter on and off as it goes across point rows and angled fields. That is showing up on farms of 500 or 600 acres instead of just farms of 5,000 or 6,000 acres.

Nicole:         As these farmers are putting this information in the cloud, there's debate on who has access to that and who doesn't, and being able to protect that. But who's to say that ag companies using a compilation of this data won't one day decide to farm themselves?

Bill:               That could happen. There's a lot of tension out there over how much information is accessible. Most farmers are going to say they know some things that are not in that data, which will still limit the ability of somebody else to farm it. When it comes to caring for a farm with livestock or crop operations, there is nothing like the person living on the farm — the person who knows it.

                    They can wake up in the middle of the night and decide, "We're going to get some planting done tomorrow." Some of these farms don't operate really efficiently in a corporate structure where somebody is external or doesn't have the love of that land and grandpa's advice in the back of their head as they care for that land. I'm not sure how that's all going to play out.

                    We see some parts of agriculture that have really gravitated toward larger operations. The bulk of the operations across the country are still family-owned. Some of them are corporations. They'd look to transfer farming operations between generations, but for the families who are operating these farms, the decisions are made around kitchen tables. These are folks who feel that weight of earlier generations — that hope of younger generations and walking with them across that farm.

                    I tell you, they're going to be pretty competitive against any company out there that thinks there's a push-button that can operate from a thousand miles away and farm.

Nicole:         Just to switch gears a little bit here, China has reopened its market to U.S. beef. What direction is the USDA taking toward helping farmers implement traceability and systems that support hormone-free production, which is a requirement for U.S. export beef to China?

Bill:               We see some different criteria. For example, there have been changes in the soybean criteria — the amount of damaged crops that can go along with the soybean seed, or non-crop that can go along with the soybeans that we export. There's a constant effort that really happens in a different part of the USDA — and I'm not up to speed on all the other pieces — but there are constant efforts to come up with ways that help us increase exports. In some cases, there are extra requirements to do that.

                    Now, we also have a piece of the USDA saying the places where those requirements are not necessary will challenge those trade rules as well. We’ve certainly seen some of those from China from time to time or other places. We'll get into our discussions about whether those are fair trade rules or unfair trade rules, and we'll push back on those unfair trade rules.

                    In the meantime, you operate with the rules that you have for us to get more exports into China. There probably needs to be some traceability; certainly, we're seeing some of that finally grow again after not having access into China for way too long.

                    We had a few cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) over 15 years ago, and that kept beef out of the Chinese market for 15 years when everybody else had come back. It took way too long. We need open markets to be able to do it. They’re going to love the beef the U.S. producers produce if they get a taste of it. I think, in the long run, it will play out and we'll have our increases that we should have.

Nicole:         We have just a little bit more time, so I'm going to touch on a couple more things. Let's talk about the dairy crisis, which groups like Farm Aid are saying is a reminder of what happened during the 1980 farm crisis when as many as 2,100 farms closed a week. In Wisconsin, they're saying a farm closes every day and a half because of oversupply and low milk prices.

                    On the flipside, some economists would say that the U.S. open market system has allowed more efficient farms to succeed — those that have grown in size and adopted a more technical approach to the operation. Is that the future? Bigger, better and those that are more innovative will succeed, or can systems like Canada’s supply management offer a market alternative?

Bill:               It's a really challenging time right now in the dairy market. One of the challenges with milk is that you have to move it — cows produce milk two or three times a day and it needs to get on the road to a processing plant, either for milk, cheese, yogurts or other kinds of things. We're seeing some increase in exports, which helps take a little bit of that supply. We have some places where we do not have enough processing capacity right now, and we see some dumping of milk going on. Part of it is our producers of all sizes have gotten more efficient. Our smaller producers are producing more than they used to, and, certainly, our larger ones are as well.

                    It's a real challenge trying to get that right. For folks to quit that business, it has to be very unprofitable. They work so hard — you think it'd be a lot easier to drive them out of business — but these are folks who plan to be in this business, have the commitment to it, and take some real losses before they'll get out. It's a real challenge to not have so much pain for everybody out here.

                    I do believe they will continue to get more efficient at all sizes. We see technology helping some of our smaller producers where they're using robotic milkers and other kinds of things that allow them to be competitive against the labor cost of larger producers.

                    We have a margin protection program that was used a little bit by producers previously that just wasn't working, and Congress changed it. We're in the process of sign-up right now for those producers of a newer, improved margin protection program. Is that going to be the answer to all the problems? It is not. It's going to take a little bit of the edge off, but we do have to look at rebalancing the production and the demand.

                    It’s really up to Congress and others, but I doubt that we'll see a supply management program like Canada’s — although their producers might feel very good about it right now — they're abusing that program and dumping milk into markets that we used to have and that we would be competitive in if they weren't subsidizing that by charging their consumers a higher rate.

                    That's one of the issues out there in the trade discussions between the U.S. and Canada. Certainly, that has created some problems. If you're going to expand in Canada, you've got to buy quota. That means it's going to cost you more to buy quota than it will to buy the cows and build the barn. That's not a painless system, especially as young people try to get involved in the business.

                    There hasn’t been a magic solution. It's hard. Hopefully, more demand will be a part of that solution and then we won't have to lose many more producers, but some producers are at the place where it's just been too much too long. They don't have another generation coming in, and it's really hard to see. In some cases, some of those cows are going down the road and not going to another dairy.

Nicole:         You're talking about technology helping with some of these things, and gene editing — we’re hearing so much about that and the future of CRISPR technology in ag, from the Arctic apple to gene editing pigs for disease resistance. Did you ever imagine as a young boy on the farm that this would be the future of agriculture? Does this kind of science excite you or remind you of the precautionary principle?

Bill:               It excites me. I did not imagine it, not at all. When you look at some of the conversation around CRISPR — and I'm sure most of the listeners understand we’re talking about biotechnology. Being transgenic — actually taking a gene from another species and putting it into this species — is a different kind of technology than CRISPR, which is actually editing genes that are already there so that you can prevent an apple from browning, or allow an animal to be healthier, to avoid a disease or food safety issues.

                    It's almost mind-blowing to think of all the possibilities here, but an awful lot of those possibilities are ways that will make food safer, ways that we can care for our animals, our land and our plants to a better degree. We will be more productive with all the challenges that that brings as we talk about productivity. In a world that's growing and a world that expects us to care for our land and our animals in a better way, this technology is going to be very important to address some of those concerns.

                    It's also very democratic. It doesn't take a billion-dollar or million-dollar operation to make changes that will create improvements. So, rather than just being for our big crops, it will be available for smaller crops. It's kind of mind-blowing, again, to think about how it can all be used, but it certainly is a technology that we want to figure out how to use appropriately because it's going to be an important part of our future.

Nicole:         We've covered a lot, but nowhere near all the areas that ag touches. To wrap things up, what would you say you're most interested in seeing develop with the future of ag, from biofuels to biostimulant technology? What is the priority for you in your new role?

Bill:               The priority in my role is the customer orientation that we need to take the USDA in my farm production and conservation area — the ability to respond in a way that works for each producer no matter what their crop or livestock is; we need to be relevant. We need to be able to be responsive, but we also need to be efficient with taxpayer dollars when we do that.

                    I'm excited about the time that we're in, the opportunity for innovation, the entrepreneurship that there is in agriculture. Yes, we see growth in some of our larger farms, but we see brand new operations that are smaller: vegetable, specialty cheese operations, mushroom operations — there are just so many creative activities out there. They have always had challenges, and still do, but there are opportunities because we're able to market those products across a wider area – to produce those in a way that adds technology and uniqueness.

                    So, the specialty side of agriculture continues to grow with lots of opportunities for farms of all different sizes, different places, different families and different jobs, and whether they're part-time or full-time farming to find their place in agriculture. That also, hopefully, allows us to tell that story of how food gets to the plate and have folks appreciate agriculture and all the folks who help make it happen to be able to feed everybody every day.

Nicole:         Bill Northey is the under secretary of agriculture for the Farm Production and Conservation mission area. Thank you so much.

Bill:               Thank you. I appreciate it.

Bill Northey spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference(ONE18). All presentations from ONE18 are now LIVE on the Alltech Idea Lab! Click the button below to view presentations for FREE after sign-up. 

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

Nicole:         Like their owners, companion animals are living longer, but are they functioning optimally in their later stages of life? I'm talking with Dr. Richard Murphy, research director at the Alltech European Bioscience Centre in Dunboyne, Ireland. Thanks for joining us.

Richard:        Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here again.

Nicole:         Dr. Murphy, are we providing our fur babies the right nutrition as they age?

Richard:        That's a great question. We could sit and talk for hours on this. We're engaged with a lot of different areas of research in Dunboyne. Primarily, it's on gut health. We’re interested in how nutrition influences the makeup of the bacteria in the gut. We're also very much engaged in trace element research, so we’re looking at how trace elements can impact not only the health of the animal, but also the quality of the food ingredients that we give to our pets.

                    I think that we need to be careful of what we put into their diet — that's probably the easiest way to look at it. We might think we're doing good, but we could be having a profoundly negative impact on the overall health of our pets.

Nicole:         And how can we tell? Will our animals tell us by losing interest in their food? Will their bowels change? What are some signs that we can look for when our pets might need a change in diet?

Richard:        Again, a great question. I think a lot of it, when you look at intestinal health, when you look at the microbiome, certainly bowel movements will give a big indication of whether there's something wrong. We know, for instance, a lot of the work that we do on our so-called mannan-enriched fraction — which we isolate from yeast cell wall — we can have a very profound influence on the diversity of the bacteria within the gut.

                    For me, the key to intestinal microbial health is to have as wide a diversity as possible in the types and range of different bacteria that are present within the gut. That's something that we know we can positively enhance. When you positively enhance the diversity of bacteria within the gut, you tend to have a much healthier gut. The animal tends to be able to resist those pathogen challenges that they would get from time to time. Certainly, when we look at the literature, there's a clear link between diversity, pathogen load and the antimicrobial resistance populations that are present.

Nicole:         Does the information and packaging provide the answers that pet owners need when they go to the store? Should they be looking for something specific on the label when they're buying food for their pet?

Richard:        I don't think the labeling will even begin to cover that. Manufacturers are limited in many ways to the types of claims that they could make on the packaging. It would be very difficult to explain in one sentence, for instance, how diet is going to influence the makeup of the bacteria within the gut, or how nutrients in the food are going to influence the overall makeup of the nutrients in the gut. So, I think the labeling lets us down, but that's not the manufacturer's fault. There's only so much they can do.

Nicole:         From a market perspective, are millennials driving the pet food industry like they are with everything else? I was skimming through Facebook the other day, and I saw a GIF that read, "I work so that I can provide the backyard that my dog deserves." I love that because so many of my friends have that same thought process. If we're making our living decisions around our pets’ happiness, how might that translate into market demands for food and nutrition choices for our fur friends?

Richard:        Certainly, from what I've seen and from what I read in the popular press and the news, there is a clear drive now whereby people really want to give their pets the absolute best. So, they're not willing to accept second-rate for their pets. They really want to move more toward premium, and they are looking at providing optimum nutrition.

                    I think people are more in tune now with how diet and health are linked. With the internet being what it is these days, you can very quickly find a lot of information — some of it “fake,” perhaps — but certainly, you can find a lot of information that will tell you what is good or what is bad. I guess the old adage "pay peanuts, get monkeys" comes to mind as well. If you want a quality product, you really need to look at spending a little extra.

Nicole:         I've seen many dogs with tumors — cancerous and non-cancerous — food allergies, you name it. These aging ailments, as with humans, get costly with vet visits. How are you gaining an understanding of how nutrition and immune defenses interact?

Richard:        We’ve gotten a lot of insights over the years from the work on monogastrics like pig and poultry, for instance. So, we know that by providing the optimum nutrients and providing the right nutrition at the right time at the right stage of life, you can positively influence the health and performance of “meat animals,” if you want to put it that way. Certainly, the trend toward the development of pet food over the last 10 or 15 years has been more and more toward premium. People have tapped into work that would have been generated from meat production animals, and basically been able to translate that into more optimum nutrition for pets.

Nicole:         If the secret to immunity starts in the bowl, which is what we're hearing more and more, how can we choose what is appropriate for our pets when each animal has its own unique microbiome?

Richard:        Again, it's back to drawing insights from what we see and work with on the monogastric side. You can get a lot of information from peer-reviewed publications. Scientists will tell you that the overall microbial population in the gut is so important that they would ascribe it being alike to an additional organ. They would actually say that the microbiome is actually like an extension of the body. Such is the importance of it in regard to overall health.

                    It’s known through many different studies that the gut microflora population, with the way in which it works in terms of breaking down nutrients and producing short-chain fatty acids, can have a profound influence on the development of, not just immune function, but overall intestinal health.

                    We even see work coming out from a group at University College Cork in Ireland that basically indicates that the microbiome connection can control mood. So, if you look at the gut microflora and look at how we influence it, I think it's very profound in the way we can influence not just the health and performance of our pets, but also perhaps even, in the future, looking at enhancing their mood.

Nicole:         Dr. Richard Murphy is the research director at the Alltech European Bioscience Centre in Dunboyne, Ireland. Thank you so much.

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

Dr. Richard Murphy spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Click below to view presentations from ONE18:

The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin's interview with Dr. Karl Dawson, co-director of Alltech’s Center for Animal Nutrigenomics and Applied Animal Nutrition. Click below to hear the full interview:

Tom:            Over the last 10 years, scientists at Alltech have been using nutrigenomics to develop new feeding strategies and, ultimately, redefine animal nutrition. What are the practical applications of this science, and what does it mean for the future of aquaculture specifically? Joining us to explore these questions and more is Dr. Karl Dawson, vice president and chief scientific officer at Alltech. Thanks for being with us, Dr. Dawson.

Karl:             It's a pleasure, Tom.

Tom:            Let's begin with a fundamental question: What is nutrigenomics, and why is it such a valuable tool?

Karl:             Well, nutrigenomics is really one of the new tools or sciences that we can use to evaluate what specific nutrients or the nutrition of an animal, or a human, is doing to the process of gene expression. Today, we're looking at many different tools that are from this molecular-based science. We can use nutrigenomics, which looks at the transcription or expression of genes, and there are other things, for example, like metabolomics, which looks at the ability of a nutrient to influence the metabolites that are developed in the bloodstream. These are different tools that we're using today that give us a much deeper view of what nutrition does in an animal's body.

Tom:            In a recent panel discussion, Farming the Future, you said that nutrigenomics is really going to redefine things, if it hasn't already. Can you elaborate on that?

Karl:             Yes. We are using nutrigenomics to find new concepts and challenge the nutritional concepts that are out there today. We are just answering such questions as “What does an antioxidant do, what does it do in the animal's body and to improve animal health?” We can find substitutes for the traditional antioxidants that are out there.

                    We've done other things, for example, like defining trace mineral requirements in animals. We've used nutrigenomics to redefine what we thought was the expected or needed levels of minerals in an animal's diet. Many of these things are changing what we think about in terms of the way a nutrient will interact with the animal, providing for their health and well-being.

Tom:            The name of the field, “nutrigenomics,” might lead someone to believe that it's limited to exploring how nutrition influences the expression of individual genes. But it's more than that, isn't it?

Karl:             Yes. Well, nutrigenomics is really built around the nutrition concept — that's the nutrient or nutrigenomics part of it. The term that's probably more appropriate is the term “transcriptomics,” which is measuring gene expression overall. We can look at such things as the effects of a disease process on gene expression, or how a change in environmental temperature affects gene expression. All of these factors influence gene expression; nutrigenomics is just focusing on what the nutrients in the animals’ diets are doing.

Tom:            Okay. Let's turn our nutrigenomics focus over to aquaculture. How is this tool being used to define new feeding strategies for fish?

Karl:             Well, we have lots of examples of things that we're doing today. Nutrigenomics — or this gene expression measurement — is something that is fairly new in fish, but it is becoming a very popular tool. In the last seven or eight years, there's been a surge of scientific interest in looking at gene expression and what influences gene expression. We've been particularly interested in looking at such things as “How does nutrition influence fillet quality from a fish?” We can identify the specific gene markers that are correlated with such things as the firmness of a fish fillet. Those things are highly correlated. Now, that's very interesting because that's not something we've been able to do in the past — to go in and find specific markers. That doesn't mean the fish does not have those genes. It means it does not have the ability necessarily to express those genes. So, it's not just genetics here. We're talking about the way genes are turned on and turned off.

                    We've used this very specifically in recent months, or in the last two years, to look at some very specific feed additives that we might use in salmon diets. One of the big problems for the salmon industry today is the problem with sea lice. We've come up with ways to influence the infestation of fish with these sea lice by changing what those fish are receiving. We did that by taking specific feed materials that we had identified and had some history with, and we looked at how they influence gene expression. We tried to find feed materials that would enhance things such as mucin production on the surface of the fish and the innate immunity of the fish. That gave us a lot of clues before we had to do any real animal experimentation to find materials that were very effective.

Tom:            Are these salmon now better able to resist sea lice?

Karl:             That's the point we've made in the last six months or so. We do have some fish that, while they will still be infested, the infestation rate tends to be much lower. So, if we look at the number of fish that have fewer than 20 lice, for example, we'll see that we can change that distribution and find a lot more fish that have fewer lice. It's not a total resistance to infestation, but it changes the ability of the fish to support this parasite.

Tom:            How long does it take for a sample from the herd, the flock or the school, in this case, to yield useful data?

Karl:             This is usually a fairly quick thing. Typically, we look for gene expression changes within a matter of days. It can be within a matter of hours. One of the most interesting studies we reviewed just recently was one where we looked at how the sea lice themselves influence the gene expression in the fish. It's very interesting to see, but within three days, those sea lice would change the immunity of those fish, and it’s not by increasing it — they tend to depress it.

                    They also depress such things as the ability of the fish to respond to wounds and wound-healing mechanisms. This is a very unique observation because we're actually saying that this lice — or this louse — is changing the ability of that fish to recover and is influencing the fish gene expression just by attaching to the fish.  

Tom:            What are some specific ways aquaculture producers can use the information that you're gleaning from this nutrigenomics research?

Karl:             Well, we know quite a bit about specific nutrients today. For example, mineral supplementation is one that we have worked with quite a bit. We do know that if you provide selenium in a very rich organic form such as selenium yeast, you can change the genes, or the expression of genes, that result in immunity and such things as mucin production on the surface of fish.

                    Those are things that are real, that are being used today, but probably not attributed directly to nutrigenomics. We don't go out and measure the gene response. But, as a result of what we know from gene expression, we can predict what's going to happen in the animal. We can do that quickly, too, because our turnaround time on understanding gene responses is a matter of days instead of waiting for a full production cycle.

Tom:            So, it's fair to say that this science is really bringing a new level of precision.

Karl:             Right, absolutely.

Tom:            What are some new commercially useful feeding concepts that have come directly from the use of this molecular tool?

Karl:             Well, as I indicated, minerals are one that is very much being used today — sources and types of minerals that are being used and actual levels of minerals. Mineral supplementation is a common one. We're doing quite a bit of research right now using yeast cell wall components to address what's happening within the fish in terms of disease resistance and, most recently, in terms of nutrient absorption. It appears these materials are also influencing the tight junction proteins that make up the intestinal tract and change the way the fish absorbs its nutrients.

                    Those are real things that are happening today that will change how we think about providing nutrition to fish.

Tom:            Can this tool be used to quickly determine the value of newly developed feed supplements, and how?

Karl:             Yes. That's really the approach we use right now. One of the interesting models that we're using today is nutrient injection. If we want to test out a new product or nutrient, we can inject the fish with small amounts of that material and evaluate what's happening with gene expression.

                    As we do this more and more, we're building a pattern, or an encyclopedia, of responses that we would like to see. We've already done that to some extent with some of our yeast products and some of our minerals. So, we're starting to understand what those responses have to be to speed up the time it takes to evaluate new nutrient concepts.

Tom:            How will the tool be used to demonstrate the effects of maternal nutrition on the growth, development and disease resistance of offspring?

Karl:             That's getting into another term, “epigenetics,” the concept of being able to pass on traits that aren't really related to the actual genetic material. We don't have a lot of experience in fish. Although we know that a healthier mother tends to have healthier offspring in fish, we've never been able to measure that directly. However, in some of the other livestock species we're working with, it is a very important tool.

                    One of the observations we've made in pigs, for example, is that by feeding a mother a very specific prebiotic late in pregnancy, we can completely change the gene expression in a young piglet, even at weaning. This is after the pig is quite developed. You're working with a new piglet that has a completely different nutritional set of requirements — it is something totally different.

                    It is something that we're using a lot more in livestock species than aquaculture species, although we have some ideas in the next couple of years that we're going to try out and see how we can make that work in fish.

Tom:            Dr. Karl Dawson directs activities at Alltech’s bioscience centers around the world, including the Alltech Center for Animal Nutrigenomics and Applied Animal Nutrition, where he is the co-director. Thank you for being with us.

Karl:             Thank you.

Dr. Karl Dawson spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Click below to view presentations from ONE18:

The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Ian Lahiffe, lead of operations at Allflex Livestock Intelligence in Beijing, China. Click below to hear the full interview:

Nicole:         I'm speaking with Ian Lahiffe, lead of operations at Allflex Livestock Intelligence in Beijing, China. Ian was formerly new business general manager for Alltech in China. Ian, thanks for joining us.

Ian:              Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

Nicole:         As wage earnings increase in China, so does the demand for meat. Meanwhile, the U.S. is easing its way back into the market after 14 years of being banned, but analysts predict the transition won't happen overnight. What is your take on the re-entry of U.S. beef into China?

Ian:              It's a very topical issue, and I'm delighted to be here to talk about it. I think the first point is that the growing demand for beef, as you highlighted, and the growing income in China is very clear. Secondly, China needs new suppliers for beef, so it's a very pragmatic approach to reward the U.S. for nearly 15 years of lobbying and education. And in 2017, the market was reopened.

                    Now, the challenge, and why it will take time, is due to the Chinese requirements for U.S. beef in terms of two aspects: one is traceability, and the other is the use of hormones. These are the two issues that the U.S. as an industry needs to address or have a plan for so that they can get full access and take advantage of the huge surge in demand in China.

Nicole:         There are debates that take place here in the U.S. as to what constitutes hormone-free and antibiotic-free. Some would say a weaning period takes away any trace elements of antibiotics or hormones, and that equals hormone-free. Does that mentality cut it abroad?

Ian:              I don't think so. I think the young consumers — and that's the particular age group that we're dealing with — if you ask them about their consumer habits and their preferences, “healthy,” “natural” and “antibiotic-free” are frequently used keywords. Actually, there was a bit of a fuss in China when McDonald's made their announcement that they would move to antibiotic-free in the U.S. The Chinese consumers were like, "Well, what about China? When will you move to antibiotic-free production here?" So, I think it's an issue — not only from a government and regulatory perspective — that in order to get full value from the market, moving toward antibiotic-free in its purest form, if possible, is what the consumer market is really looking for.

Nicole:         Canada is spearheading an acceleration project that aims to track an animal from farm to table. There are similar programs on the ground in the U.S. as well. Is this the type of system needed for new market requirements like China's?

Ian:              I think so. Obviously, a lot of countries have their own national identification systems. Increasingly, we're seeing processing companies want more information as to where the animals come from. Part of it is provenance, part of it is building a brand that consumers trust. If you're making a claim that it's an Angus, or particular claims about organic, well, how can you back up these claims? So, I think part of it is commercial, but part of it is going to be a government requirement in terms of international trade because there are a lot of sensitivities around traceability, particularly in China.

Nicole:         China is only second to the U.S. in global beef imports, from what I've read. What would you say are the differences in preference in beef products in the U.S. and China? And how do producers raise livestock to meet different market demands? Do you have to pick between one or the other?

Ian:              That’s a very good question. I think the first thing is that, obviously in the U.S., Angus is the leading beef breed, and that's partially driven because of Angus' efficiency, but also because of the particular cuts — you get a better steak cut. In China, it's a little bit different. While there are more and more people interested in eating Western steak and Western beef — typical beef consumption — there are actually lots of traditional Chinese dishes like hotpot, where the meat is very thinly cut and you can get value out of all different types of cuts. Also, there's quite a strong market for chilled meat rather than frozen beef. In a lot of Chinese cuisine, they prefer fresh meat.

                    I think the message would be that it's important for producers to understand the consumer experience of eating the beef. Don’t just assume, “Well, because we produce prime Angus beef (it will be successful).” Maybe that's not what the market is willing to pay for, or maybe that’s not where the demand is. So, I think it's good to get an understanding of where the true beef consumption is taking place within the market.

Nicole:         Are there parts of the U.S. that are ahead of the curve in meeting some of these demands and cultural requirements of being hormone-free?

Ian:              Well, according to the U.S. Meat Export Federation, only 3 percent of the U.S. beef herd officially meets China's requirements for hormone usage. For the record, about 15 percent of the herd will meet requirements for traceability. So, these are quite low numbers in terms of the total potential growth. But, again, it takes time. Obviously, the market only opened in 2017, and it opened in a political frenzy. It was all done with a lot of goodwill about a new president. There was a “rush job” to get beef into the market, whereas when you get into the true supply chain challenges, I think it will take a lot longer for the producers and the supply chain in the U.S. to get there.

                    I know there are a number of states in the U.S. like Texas, Nebraska, Kansas and Montana that are leading in terms of their engagement with China from a state to government level. I'm sure there's a huge engagement between the U.S. and China and their beef industries to understand the needs of the market. I think the market is also moving so quickly in China that the market of 2003 is very different than 2018. I believe even within a number of years, China's consumption habits will continue to evolve, so it's a constantly moving target.

Nicole:         The United States' main competitor is South America. How much does ag science play a role in our ability to compete with other countries? For example, utilizing natural feed additives and understanding the significance of modified environments for hygiene and bacteria control? Does the U.S. have an advantage here?

Ian:              I think the U.S. certainly has an advantage. Obviously, there's a commoditization. When you look at the volumes that are coming into China — I mean, between Australia and Brazil, they would be somewhere in the region of supplying 350,000 tons of beef, which is almost half of Ireland's production, to put that in context. It's very easy for it to slip to a per-ton price. The initial reaction from Chinese buyers when U.S. beef came on the markets was, "Oh, it's too expensive. We're used to buying big containers from Brazil that are coming in maybe $40,000–$50,000 cheaper per container." So, I think that is a real challenge.

                    It's not only a challenge that the U.S. would face. European exporters to Asia would also be challenged by South America. I think the efficiencies are, as you mentioned, the scale, but also meat quality. I think what the U.S. really has is, not only does it have the science and the excellence, but it has a grading system to back all that up. I think the USDA (label) and prime cuts and all that is well-understood in the Asian markets. That's a sign of quality and reliability.

Nicole:         If U.S. beef is at a cost disadvantage in a price-sensitive market like China's, what are some strategies that U.S. farmers not using hormones can do to increase profit? And the same question for farmers who have not yet moved away from hormone additives: What can they do to increase profit margins?

Ian:              Well, I think it's a very exciting time. The supply chains are changing, and part of what's driving this is an incredible Chinese entrepreneurial spirit. If you think of Alibaba and JD.com, they are e-commerce giants. If you look at what they've done in a comparable sector of seafood, they've taken all of the middlemen and all of the traders out of the supply chain, and now they work directly with producers, engaging in the customer experience, giving feedback and shipping the product so it's the freshest it can be. It's the closest you can get to your customer.

                    I think my advice to any of the ranchers is to try to find a way to connect directly with these e-commerce platforms and build, insofar as possible, your own brand. Maybe your order will come directly from China rather than going through three to four trading companies where margins will be added, but very little value might be created.

                    When you saw the activities in 2017 when the market was first opened, a lot of Chinese entrepreneurs were looking around thinking maybe they'll take stakes in U.S. businesses as part of their commitment to disrupting the supply chain.

Nicole:         So, how difficult is it for ranchers to make those connections?

Ian:              Well, the first thing you can do is get in contact with these e-commerce companies. They all have offices in the U.S. The thing is that they're almost like hunters, so they'll find you. So, make sure you have your own branding. Make sure you have a website. Think about social media — are you on Chinese social media platforms? Are you on Western social media platforms? Is there a story behind your beef? Is it well-understood? Does your story connect with Chinese consumers, Asian consumers? Maybe engage some people that have experience in the region to get some ideas as to how you can connect and then generate demand that way.

Nicole:         The U.S. beef brand is not as familiar as other brands in China because it hasn't been on the shelves, which are already crowded with its competitors. So how do you get Chinese consumers to take notice of it once it is actually on the shelf or in the freezer?

Ian:              I think, generally, the U.S. is seen as a model of quality for products in general. In China, obviously, if you look at the premium offerings in the market, it would mostly be Australia and New Zealand. But, again, you're into the differentiation here — the Australian premium would be a grass-fed Wagyu, whereas American might be a grain-fed Angus.

                    Again, it's about education. It's about using these online platforms. It's about training people on how to cook, because one of the challenges is that you might have excellent beef quality, but if somebody cooks it very badly, people would say, "Whoa, that American beef isn't as good as people say." So, I think it's about following education right through to consumption.

                    I was in Carrefour (retail company) and Walmart in the last few months just looking around, and there's U.S. beef with flags, and the price, obviously, isn't as competitive as the Australian beef, but it is certainly generating customer interest. There’s also the “symbol” of Black Angus — the Chinese consumer seems to think when it's a pure black animal, it's definitely high-quality. Whereas sometimes with the crossbreeds that we see in Europe — we're bringing Chinese beef farmers to Europe and they look at a field of Irish cattle and say, "Oh, how could the beef be good from those when they're all different colors?" Even very simple messaging like this can be used to the U.S.'s advantage.

Nicole:         So, cultural education, marketing and traceability.

Ian:              Yeah, I think traceability. I mean, there are a lot of interesting technologies that I'm seeing in the market. Obviously, Walmart has an interesting relationship with IBM, and they're doing a blockchain project in China. They're looking at beef. Their pilot project was in pork and fruit, but beef is next.

                    I think you can use DNA traceability. It's already being widely used in the U.S. I think it's a matter of understanding if we can get a premium by being more transparent — so rather than just adding extra cost and extra work, ensuring that this is really driving a premium. I think that's part of the business model: By being fully transparent and providing the customer confidence, can you get a few extra cents per kilogram? I think that's a key part of the negotiation skills, and I'm sure the U.S. beef guys are going to be really good at that, too.

Nicole:         Lastly, how far away are we from implementing some of these programs?

Ian:              I don't think very far at all now. I mean, there's obviously a bit of concern due to what we call this impending or ongoing trade war. If you look at some of the commodities, there is a very famous turning around of five shipping containers of sorghum. They were on their way to China when the tariffs were announced. Three of them were diverted to other markets and two were sent back to the U.S. With beef, there's a lot of hesitation as to the extra tariffs that will make the price even higher. There's also a concern that during this potential tension, that if your beef is in port, suddenly there will be an issue and they'll say that the paperwork isn’t right, or “Our software system is down. Please reapply," and suddenly your shelf life is shortened.

                    There's been a lot of concern about these things, but I would say the demand is so strong. China will need another 600,000 tons of beef by 2020, and where do you turn for that beef? Realistically, if you want beef coming from reliable sources, Ireland is a good example and the U.S. Two prime countries that aren't already exporting. So, in that sense, it's now time to take action. By 2020, of that 600,000, can the U.S. supply 200,000 tons or 300,000 tons? The sky is potentially the limit because the Chinese domestic industry is contracting. It's the perfect storm for U.S. beef producers now. It's just a matter of sending the right signals and taking the right actions.

Nicole:         Ian Lahiffe is lead of operations at Allflex Livestock Intelligence in Beijing, China. Thank you.

Ian:              Thank you very much.

Ian Lahiffe spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Click below to see presentations from ONE18:

The following is an edited transcript of Nicole Erwin's interview with Laura Daniels, president and founder of Dairy Girl Network. Click below to hear the full interview:

Nicole:           Dairy farming has changed considerably in the last 20 years, but the consumer view of the industry has not adjusted as quickly. I'm talking with Laura Daniels, president and founder of Dairy Girl Network. She is also a mother, wife, farmer, dairy consultant and agriculture advocate. Laura, thank you for joining us.

Laura:             I'm really glad to be here.

Nicole:           How do you balance all of these roles?

Laura:             I don't really believe in balance. I believe in giving your all to what you're doing right now and then switching gears and focusing on what you need to focus on next. I think it's a misnomer to think that we can put all of those different parts of our lives into neat little balanced bits. It doesn't work that way in my world. That’s how I balance: I just don't!

Nicole:           You just do!

Laura:             Yeah, that's right.

Nicole:           It is no secret that the dairy industry in the U.S. is in a crisis, along with other struggling markets in Europe and elsewhere. The National Family Farm Coalition, along with dozens of others, are calling for significant changes to the current system, from advocating for new markets to asking for price controls and even a quota-based system. Laura, what role does the consumer play in helping to move this industry forward and verbalizing the needs on the farm?

Laura:             I think that the consumer has been contributing to this conversation all along. Sometimes, I think we forget to recognize the part that they have played and will continue to play. Consumers want something specific from farmers — dairy farmers, crop farmers — depending on what they produce. It's our job to segment that market. If someone wants to buy organic milk, we should produce it. If someone wants to buy a grass-fed milk, I believe we should produce it. If someone wants to have confidence that the milk they buy is healthy and it came from a family farm but it's cheap and they can feed their family for a good price, we should give that to the consumer.

                        I think that the consumer has been entering into this conversation for a long time, and it might be the dairy industry that's behind when it comes to responding to this. We have to remain nimble — we have to be able to identify new markets and fill them quickly. This is something we haven’t always been good at, but we have to get better because the consumer is going to continue to make, not demands, but requests — and I really think that's what they are; they’re requests. The sooner we fill that need, the more milk is going to be sold in the U.S. and worldwide.

Nicole:           When did you realize that you had a voice that could be heard, and what message motivated you to get started as an “agvocate?”

Laura:             I feel like I found my voice probably when I was in college. I was active with a lot of leadership responsibilities. But the first time I really stepped up as an agvocate — or maybe even an activist, depending on how you use that term — would have been when author Michael Pollan came to the campus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is my alma mater, and gave a free speech. There was a statewide book club about one of his books. I really felt like the full story wasn't being told. I agreed with a lot of what Pollan said, but I most certainly disagreed with part of it. I felt like my story as a farmer was left out of his pages. So, I gathered a lot of other farmers who I thought were also left out and mobilized them. We had a huge impact on the discussion in Wisconsin. That was the first time that I really found my voice and realized I could use it.

Nicole:           Do you think that your direct connection to the farm provides more credibility in a time when consumers are looking for that transparency or that missing piece?

Laura:             Absolutely. There is just no question about that. It’s important that whoever makes the decisions on the farm be the one who shares the reasons why they have made those decisions. For example, if it’s someone on a farm who's responsible for animal care, if they're the decision-maker, they are the most compelling person to tell the story. Sometimes that's the leadership of the farm, but it can also be the people who are side-by-side with the animals making those decisions day to day. But the decision-making, in my mind, is what makes someone incredibly compelling.

Nicole:           What are you seeing happening in dairy and around your own farm, and how does the dairy market today compare to 2014, when it was doing really well?

Laura:             Farmers — dairy farmers, all farmers — are these incredibly resilient people. I see my neighbors digging deep, doing a lot of research, figuring out if continuing to be a farmer is what's right for them and their families. In dairy right now, there are a lot of really honest conversations — hard conversations — happening at kitchen tables across the Midwest and across the nation, and I'm sad about that. The answer to that needs to come from so many directions, and every little bit helps.

                        My hope is that we don't lose some of the farmers who are uniquely positioned to meet those requests from the consumers. Right now, that is something I'm very worried about. The young farmers — the people who are first-generation and put it all on the line to start farming, the ones who are farming because they believe in the value of raising their family on a farm, the ones who are in some of those unique niche markets — if they go out of business now, it'll be harder for us to fill that need with the consumer. My hope is that they can hang on until the market is developed.

Nicole:           You were talking about finding new markets. Are you thinking in terms of export, or are you thinking in terms of just changing the way that milk is consumed — a lot of people grew up eating cereal, but now there's more yogurt on the table — in what markets do you see a future?

Laura:             Yes, yes and yes. All of the above. We as dairy farmers have been looking to this international market. I've been a farmer for 12 years, and I can remember going to conferences even before I was farming — I was involved as a dairy cattle nutritionist — and we all kept waiting for these international markets. We thought once they were developed, there was going to be this skyrocketing demand for dairy products. I feel like we've increased exports, but we haven't really seen that accelerated increase that was predicted. I'm hoping that the potential is still there. I believe that it is.

                        I also think that we have a great chance to increase domestic demand. When I go to the grocery store, I see more people buying whole milk than ever. I can't see many people buying skim milk anymore. I know that's good for the dairy markets. I also believe it's good for those families who are consuming that healthy fat. I happen to milk Jerseys, so I'm really excited about people consuming more fat! I think that those shifts are going to continue to create more markets for us. Once again, we just have to be nimble and be ready to fill it.

Nicole:           How can producers effectively educate the public about the passion, which you clearly have, behind dairy, and what's needed to keep it going — the health benefits or whatever you think is needed?

Laura:             I think that consumers want to hear the individual stories of the people behind the care of the animals. There are a lot of similarities behind our individual stories, but consumers want to hear the unique components of it. They want to know that the people caring for the cows and caring for the land are truly entrepreneurs who are looking for a better way to do that job every day. That means that we have to do things differently because creativity can't come from a cookie cutter.

                        For example, I graze my cows, whereas one of my good friends has a large barn with lots of mechanical ventilation and a controlled environment. Both are good environments, and both are important for ingenuity and generating great new ideas. That's what I want consumers to know. That's why I'm always urging farmers to get brave and tell their story even if their voice cracks or they don't know exactly what to say. I find consumers to be incredibly compassionate when you are honest. I think that's one of my main messages: Just be honest and tell the good stuff, talk about what drives you and what your values are, because they’re probably pretty similar to their values as well.

Nicole:           How do you think they should do that? Is it by going to meetings, social media or seeking out someone who can help them tell the story? Where would be a great place to start?

Laura:             I think social media is a nice place to start because it gives you the chance to dip your toe in — you can create a Facebook page for your farm and just post some photos. You don't have to do it every week. I know there are lots of really smart people on social media, and they'll tell you to build your audience, you've got to post so often, and you've got to do this a certain way. But, really, it's about practice. It's about practicing telling your story, and I think social media is a good place to get a start.

                        However, I think what have really been underestimated are one-on-one conversations. Even in my rural community, we are some of the only farmers in my kids’ class at school. They are the only farm kids, and the school is in the middle of a cornfield! So, we need to remember that there are people out there who we can talk to, and we need to remember to tell them about what we're doing on the farm because they might not know.

Nicole:           I remember when I was young, there were milk campaigns all over the place. “Got Milk?” was on posters, in schools and in libraries — the milk mustache was everywhere. Would something like this work to help the dairy industry again? If it would, why hasn't that happened?

Laura:             I really trust the people who we have hired to market milk, whether it's by our state organizations or the national dairy checkoff program — it’s their job to find the best way to promote milk — I think they're doing some of that, but I also know that what consumers want to hear is not as universal as it once was. Marketers really need to break down the messaging into those more farmer-specific categories. That's what they're working on, and I think that's good. It's also really hard to compete with dollars in comparison to other beverages, and even with other large food companies. So, we have to stretch our dollar when it comes to promotion, just like we have to on the farm.

                        That just really shifts the importance to individual farmers getting involved and reaching their own audience. It just makes it that much more important. That's what we have as dairy farmers that many other national food conglomerates don't have — literally thousands of farmers who care and who can really spread that message and explain what we're doing. So, it puts more pressure on us, but I think that farmers are up to the charge. I really think that they're ready to do that and they understand it's part of their responsibilities — it’s not only caring for the land, their animals and their employees, but also explaining to the public what they're doing, that social license to farm is a real thing. Farmers are believing it, and they're stepping up more than ever.

Nicole:           Laura Daniels is president and founder of Dairy Girl Network. Thank you so much.

Laura:             Thanks for having me.

Laura Daniels spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE18). Click here for more sights and sounds from ONE18. 

The following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin's interview with Dr. Gregory Jicha, chief clinician and professor at the University of Kentucky Alzheimer's Disease Center. Click below to hear the full interview:

Tom:              According to the Alzheimer's Association, an estimated 47 million people are living with dementia worldwide, and this number will triple by 2050. With a new case diagnosed every three seconds, can we stop the clock on dementia? It’s one of many questions we have for Dr. Gregory Jicha, chief clinician and professor at the University of Kentucky Alzheimer's Disease Center. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Jicha.

Gregory:         Thank you for having me.

Tom:              Given what you know from your research, are you optimistic that we can indeed stop the clock on dementia?

Gregory:         I am an incredibly optimistic person, but my thoughts are based in reality, and, yes, indeed, they are optimistic. We have discovered what causes Alzheimer's disease at almost every level. We have almost every piece solved, and we know how to go about attacking each of those targets with a set national plan in the U.S. of having a cure or medicine for the prevention of Alzheimer's by 2025. That means the medicines we hold in our hands today are the cures of tomorrow.

Tom:              You and your team are actively engaged in several state-of-the-art clinical trials in an effort to find better treatments and investigate potential cures for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. Can you tell us what you're looking into?

Gregory:         We're looking into a variety of different mechanisms, and what we know about Alzheimer's is it is a long process that begins about 20 years before the first complaints of memory loss. There is a slow buildup of amyloid in the brain, inflammation and oxidative damage, eventually leading to neurofibrillary tangles, cell death and dementia. So, we are looking at a variety of agents that may prevent the disease initially, and that once it's begun, may abort it at many of the different time points along that pathologic spectrum. The excitement is quite high. We do think that our best opportunities, the most promising medications that we're using currently, are in early prevention or in aborting the process very early on.

Tom:              Some time ago, Alltech and the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging began partnering on research into the properties of the selenium-based Alltech product AT-001. A 2009 study using a mouse model found that the supplement significantly reduced the levels of amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer's. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the Phase I trial. That study confirmed that the AT-001 seemed to be preventing these plaques from migrating from the spinal fluid to the brain. You now have a Phase II trial underway focusing on volunteers who are at risk for Alzheimer's. Can you bring us up to date on the study?

Gregory:         That's correct. We've had a long-standing relationship with Alltech in moving AT-001 forward from the early animal preclinical studies, which not only have shown an impact on reducing amyloid plaques, suggesting a role in the early prevention and/or treatment of Alzheimer's, but even later stage changes like neurofibrillary tangles.

The Phase I study that we performed was really looking primarily at safety: How high could we push the dose of AT-001 safely in humans? We found no ceiling on that. We went up to 800 milligrams a day — that's 400 micrograms of selenium — and that is much higher than the U.S. RDA (recommended dietary allowance) for selenium. But in this particular form — the form produced by Alltech in the compound AT-001 — safety was not an issue at any dose. We were able to show in that study that we could use the high dose successfully over 12 weeks, and in that 12-week period, we saw tremendous changes in the research participants.

We saw an overall reduction in systemic inflammation — that's inflammation throughout the body — and we also saw very positive trends for reduction of Alzheimer's proteins in the spinal fluid. We've carried that forward now in conjunction with Alltech in a Phase II study. We have a large number of subjects receiving the supplement. Many folks have finished a one-year duration of high-dose treatment with AT-001.

Again, we're not seeing any signals suggestive of any safety concerns whatsoever. I am “blinded,” of course, during the course of the study, so I can't comment on outcome measures as of yet, but I will tell you the last subject out of that study will be December 2018. We hope to have data available by late winter or early spring 2019, which will hopefully confirm everything that we saw in the Phase I study and pave the way not only for AT-001 to make its mark as a supplement for brain health and the potential prevention of Alzheimer-like changes in the brain, but also as the scientists at Alltech move forward, trying to identify the active compounds to purify, to improve the efficacy, the ability of this supplement to promote brain health. I think we have a long road ahead of us with lots of discovery, and it's a very exciting time for us at the University in this partnership with Alltech.

Tom:              We would very much like to follow you on that. When the second phase is over, perhaps we can revisit and see where you are at that point.

Gregory:         Absolutely.

Tom:              Alltech founder Dr. Pearse Lyons was a major proponent of these studies. What do you recall about Dr. Lyons' enthusiasm and support?

Gregory:         Well, Dr. Lyons had inexhaustible energy, in my opinion. I never saw him moving at less than 180 miles an hour — that’s in brain thought processes, not in the rate at which he operated his car. Dr. Lyons was incredibly excited about the potential of AT-001 to impact humans. It's a supplement that's been used in the animal husbandry business for many, many years, and Alltech scientists have noted profound benefits on brain health in those animals. As the first endeavor to move Alltech discoveries directly into human care and disease prevention, this was something that Dr. Lyons really championed and maintained his enthusiasm for throughout the entire project.

Tom:              On another subject, you've noted that what we eat today can affect our cognition in the future. There is recent research that demonstrates that people who follow a Mediterranean-style diet enjoy a high level of protection against age-related cognitive decline. What components of this diet contribute to these benefits?

Gregory:         That is the million-dollar question when it comes to diet in humans. We know that composite diets like the Mediterranean diet, and the modified version that's become quite popular — the MIND diet — are certainly associated with better brain health outcomes. Unfortunately, we're currently lacking data on which of the components are most beneficial in that regard. Is it a potential combination of components where we need certain ingredients or certain food types to promote brain health, and the others are simply things that are carried along? I think that looking at the individual nutrients — much the way that we're doing with studies of AT-001, studies of omega-3 fatty acids and of other nutritional compounds —is someday going to unlock that mystery. We may find the ideal diet, where each of the components is based on science rather than our current coarse understanding of dietary needs for brain health.

Tom:              What additional lifestyle changes, cognitive exercises or dietary supplements might be of further use in preserving brain health and cognitive ability as we age?

Gregory:         I think that there are several areas of our lifestyles that do need to be modified for brain health, the first of which is cognitive exercise. I hear frequently from folks as they age that they can't wait to retire and do absolutely nothing. That may be great for relaxation, but that is the worst thing in the world for your brain. We know that if you don't use it, you will lose it.

                        Recently, the National Academy of Sciences had an advisory panel looking at brain health and prevention, and their number one recommendation was cognitive activity. That was followed by management of medical issues such as blood pressure control throughout middle age and later years.

                       We know that negative impacts on the body are also reflected through negative impacts on the brain. If you're not seeing a doctor and have those medical problems, get out there and get those problems addressed.

                      The third is physical activity. We're not talking about devoting your entire life to becoming a gymnast or a heavyweight champion; what we're really talking about here is a simple 30 minutes, three days a week, of high-intensity exercise. It reduces your risk for a disease like Alzheimer's to almost one-third. That's a 300 percent improvement in your brain health through that single activity.

                      What we don’t yet understand is the impact of combining all those things. Perhaps if each one lowers it by a third, and we're looking at a third of a third of a third, we may be to a point where there is a 90 percent plus chance of eliminating the future threat of Alzheimer's for an individual person who's maintaining that healthy lifestyle.

Tom:              Are there any emerging technologies or innovations that excite you that you're keeping your eye on?

Gregory:         There are a number of exciting technological innovations. Many of these are in the area of genetics. Genetics have helped us unlock the mysteries of Alzheimer's disease, and more importantly, they're helping us unlock the secrets to brain health and the individual cellular pathways that are important for us to target through interventions, nutritional supplements and medications.

                      One always thinks about genetic discoveries as being something that we're simply left with — that you're “stuck” with genes and if you have that risk, there is nothing you can do about it. But I think what we've learned from precision medicine in cancer is that understanding your genetic risks can help us to develop a personalized prevention program for Alzheimer's disease — a personalized program for your individual brain health.

Tom:              Dr. Jicha, what would you say you enjoy the most about the work that you do?

Gregory:         That is an incredibly difficult question. I am a physician, and I directly care for patients one-on-one throughout most of my day, whether that's in the context of research or in straightforward clinical care, and that's incredibly rewarding. But on the other hand, the ability to help move innovative ideas forward, to be at the forefront of our search for cures for a disease as devastating as Alzheimer's disease, is incredibly intellectually rewarding. That combination is something I simply wouldn’t trade in for anything.

Tom:              Dr. Gregory Jicha, chief clinician and professor at the University of Kentucky Alzheimer's Disease Center. Thank you so much for your time.

Gregory:         Thank you for having me.

Dr. Gregory Jicha spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference(ONE18). Click the button below to see presentations from ONE18: