Five months ago, we spoke with Jack Bobo, CEO and founder of Futurity, about the rapidly changing food supply chain and what trends he believed would influence the future of food production and consumer habits. We recently spoke to Jack again about how consumer trends in the food industry and the food supply chain adapted through the rest of 2020.

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

Tom:              Welcome to Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities facing the global food supply chain and speak with experts working to support a Planet of Plenty.

                        Futurist and Futurity CEO Jack Bobo was with us back in June of 2020, when we were only beginning to come to grips with the meaning of the term “pandemic”. We wanted to know then what sorts of behaviors and trends peculiar to the COVID-19 crisis he was observing, and so much has happened since then. Jack is back to update us on trends in food and farming. Welcome to Ag Future, Jack.

Jack:               Thank you for having me.

Tom:              When we spoke with you in June, you were noticing an acceleration in online purchases of foods and other goods. Let's start with that. What has happened in that sector since June?

Jack:               Well, a lot is happening. One thing is just (that) the numbers continue to go up. We've got about a 200% increase in shopping over that time. One thing that's interesting is that we're not nearly seeing as much loyalty, though, in the online shopping as we do to the brick-and-mortar store, so I think that's a bit of a surprise — that consumers are much more willing to try two or three or four different online stores, whereas normally, we have sort of one store that we go back to time and again, our local store.

Tom:              I've heard that there is a problem now with returns through the mail and through FedEx and UPS — a phenomenon that wasn't happening before, because people were taking them back to brick-and-mortars. Are you hearing about that?

Jack:               Yes. I think that's definitely an issue. There are a few issues, though. That's one, and that's an important one, and it can contribute to waste — but of course, all of this home delivery is just adding to the package waste that's becoming just an enormous problem. One thing that's a bit of a distinction is that companies like Instacart, where they're actually making local purchases and bringing it to the home, have gotten about a 50% increase (in) consumer loyalty over those that are purely online, and I think that addresses a little bit of that issue. When somebody is actually going to your local grocery store and picking it out, that's one thing, but when somebody's sending it across the internet, that feels like somebody didn't really take as much care to get it to you.

Tom:              Right, and we're learning a new etiquette, a new discipline, in working with our Instacart shoppers. It's been kind of interesting.

Jack:               It is. People are learning lots of lessons that they didn't expect to at this age.

Tom:              Well, at the time back in June when we spoke with you, you noted that due to the pandemic, we had just compressed five to ten years of growth in online food purchases into just a couple of months. At that time, you predicted that this would have a long-term impact. Would you say that online food shopping is here to stay?

Jack:               Well, the numbers are pretty good. (In) surveys that have asked people (who) are currently doing online shopping whether it's something they intend to stick with, about 90% of online shoppers today think that they will continue to make those purchases online long after the pandemic has passed.

Tom:              There's been a big shift from most people dining outside of the home to most everybody now eating their food at home, and this is going to continue for some time. What are the implications?

Jack:               Well, some people today are getting a little bit tired of eating the same thing over and over again and are finally accepting that they might need to learn to cook as well. So, one thing that I've noticed is an explosion in online cooking classes. People are trying to either learn some new skills or learn those skills for the very first time. I think that's going to be a good thing long after this, because people feel more comfortable in the kitchen, but other things that are coming out of this are that restaurants are trying to get in on the game as well — because people aren't coming into the restaurant, but they want to be able to connect with people at home.

                        This has led to a lot of restaurants creating sort of that dining experience in the home, so they're packaging up their products in a way that can then be served at home so you feel a little bit more like you're getting that dining experience than you would from just getting a meal kit. What I think that's interesting is that if COVID hadn't happened, most restaurants would not be getting out of the box. They would not be trying to explore new paths and new models to reach the consumer. They would have just continued to do things the way they had been doing it forever.

                        This has really shaken up the restaurant world, and those are changes that are going to stick — or some of them will. I think that we're going to find that some of them that are able to do it better are going to thrive because of this. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the smaller players, it's just going to be very challenging for them, and I think we'll continue to see a lot of small restaurants going out of business.

Tom:              It's going to be interesting to see what business model emerges from this pandemic and has staying power after that happens. Earlier this year, you were talking to people about panic buying and retail therapy and then food production squeezes and shortages. So, looking forward, what are the long-term implications to our food supply and how we produce food that are going to come out of this pandemic experience?

Jack:               Well, I think the first thing is just to be proud of the fact that our supply chain responded as well as it did to the pandemic. There were a lot of predictions that we were going to run out of food, that animal protein was going to be in short supply, that people were going to be rationing, and none of those things really came to pass. I think that that is to the credit of the companies in the supply chain, the food companies, the farmers and others, who all stepped up to avoid the really serious disruptions that could have taken place.

                        Now, absolutely, there were some disruptions of the supply chain, but given the magnitude of the problem that we faced, things certainly went better than they might have. Other things, though, to think about is that the United States is gearing up for a stimulus package that is about $900 billion, nearly $1 trillion. This is going to provide a lifeline to many people in the near term, but in the longer term, that money is going to run out as well. There are a lot of people that are in a very precarious situation today, a lot of renters who have not been paying their rent. Mortgage owners have not been paying, and at some point, those bills are going to come due. So, as well as things have worked so far, I think we're going to see people being squeezed far more on the consumer side than on the food production side, but when people don't have any money, that tends to have an impact on the entire supply chain.

Tom:              How is the consumer mindset being changed, and where do you think it's going in regards to food trends? Is the way people think about food actually changing?

Jack:               Well, I believe (that) last time we talked, I talked about how uncertainty over jobs, uncertainty over the pandemic, all of those things tend to make people more cautious. When people become more cautious, they become more frugal, more careful in how they spend their money. I think we're definitely seeing a lot of that. I think that those kinds of trends are not things that people get over quickly. They tend to be lasting effects. One, people are going to be short of cash for a long time, but the mental repercussions of that are going to last much, much longer.

Tom:              Again, when we talked earlier in the year, it was, then, way too early in this crisis to make any definitive statements about how it would impact people across the demographic spectrum, but let's look at Generation Z: 18-to-23-year-olds (who) are coming into life with possibility before them, a lot of hope, and suddenly, that's all gone on hold. What does the future have in store for that age group?

Jack:               Yeah. Well, this is definitely the group that is going to be hit the hardest and where the impacts are going to last a lifetime. My daughter started college this fall, but she started from her bedroom. I can tell you, she much would have preferred to have been on a college campus. But more than that, the students that are graduating last year and over the next few years, they'll be graduating into the worst economic climate since the Great Depression.

                        We know that (for) people (who) lived through the Great Depression, that impacted how they think about money, how they think about food, how they think about expenses for their entire lives. So, I think we know for sure that those (who) are in that age group that you mentioned will have really lasting effects on how they think about everything. So, we shouldn't be surprised if they come out of this being more cautious, more careful, more prudent in how they spend their money, but it's also going to have an impact on their earning potential for their entire lives, because the first few jobs you have puts you on a trajectory for retirement.

                        So, they're going to be starting, really, several years behind, and those are things you really just can't make up.

Tom:              What would you say has COVID-19 revealed about the ways that we get the right food to the right people at the right price? What have these disruptions shown us about our food systems?

Jack:               Well, on one hand, our food system is resilient, but it can be disrupted. These disruptions can have broad, even global repercussions. Some of those are going to be in the short term, but some of those will ripple throughout the years. I think the system is better if countries resist the urge to limit exports and to protect their citizens, because we have seen little where countries have been blocking exports, but where we do, those really (have the) potential to disrupt global trade, and it makes everybody nervous.

                        Unfortunately, the few times that that happened over the last six months have not grown and (have) become a global problem. In many ways, that was the problem we saw back in the 2008 and 2009 global recession. This is not a short-term problem. We'll probably lose a decade of progress towards things like reducing global hunger. That's very unfortunate. We had been making decades of progress at reducing hunger and poverty. Those trends are going to continue or (are) going to be reversed for years to come.

                        One of the challenges in 2021 is that we're going to have tens of millions of new people who are going to fall into poverty and hunger, some of them for the very first time. So, at a moment where many governments are struggling to take care of their own people, we're going to have people all around the world that are going to be in greater need, and so it's going to be a challenge to see whether or not countries can take care of their own but also recognize that there's a global need that needs to be addressed as well.

Tom:              Jack, you touched on this a little bit earlier, but I'd like to expand on it, if I could. Again, in June, I asked who you saw coming out of the pandemic as winners and losers, and you singled out online purchasing as a big winner but (said that) restaurants and small businesses (are) in real trouble. What is your assessment now of sectors that will emerge strong versus those that will either not survive or will come out of this, somehow, transformed?

Jack:               Well, one thing I think is interesting is that the importance of farming and food production has never been clearer. I think that's really important because I think, for too long, many consumers had taken food production for granted. Now, this is both a blessing and a curse, for our consumers to care about what it is that you do, because when people care about things, they begin to want policy changes in order to make things better. Sometimes those policy changes do, in fact, improve the situation, but there's also a risk that they'll make things worse.

I don't think we quite know how that's going to play out. But just one example is — I've heard a lot of people talking about how we need to go back to a time when there's greater inventory so that we don't run into the shortages we did at the beginning of the pandemic. I think people forget that by cutting down on inventory, what we did was we reduced cost. Now, the cost of not having inventory is that you're more at risk, but eliminating inventory also reduces cost and the price to the consumer. There are trade-offs. If we have inventory, we're better prepared for a pandemic, but those who are worried about the cost of their food may be disadvantaged. So, I think one of the challenges we're going to have is: How do we balance the need to fix some of the problems that we identified without creating new problems that we'll have to live with?

                        Now, in terms of winners and losers, we've already talked about online purchasing as a winner. We've talked about restaurants; many of them are going to come out of this much, much weaker. There will likely be some that benefit from it, but I think there's going to be a reassessment of the role of dining out in our lives. That's something that restaurants are going to have to figure out: how they can play a more intimate role in the lives of consumers. I think that food companies also are going to have to evaluate where they are and what their relationship is to the consumer.

                        Some of the winners are the larger, big food companies that had been really struggling, to be honest, over the last couple of decades to get the attention of the consumer. These days, consumers are more interested in that comfort and are turning back to the brands that they grew up with. So, I think that they're going to come out of this much stronger, and that's going to be a benefit to them for a long time to come.

Tom:              Well, change is a given. It's like background noise; it's always there. It's always occurring. But right now, we're going through some monumental changes. I wonder about your thoughts, if it's possible to form some thoughts, about the market implications of the changes that are underway in Washington.

Jack:               Yes. Well, I think that we're seeing a lot of changes taking place. I think that there were some that were worried about what the market implications would be of changing from a Republican to a Democratic administration. I think the stock market, at least, has not been concerned about the change, so I think there will be a continuation of positive growth there. But I expect that there will be some changes in terms of how a new administration looks at things like climate change, environmental issues, sustainability, and health and nutrition.

                        I think we'll see a change in focus on priorities, but I don't think that we'll see such dramatic impacts that it's something that people or companies or industries would need to be worried about. Hopefully, there's an opportunity for companies that are already interested in addressing sustainability issues to partner with the new administration in order to accelerate some of the things they're trying to do.

Tom:              Futurist and Futurity CEO Jack Bobo. Thanks so much for the conversation, Jack.

Jack:               It's been great. Thanks for having me.

Tom:              Thank you for listening. To hear other conversations with many of the featured speakers at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, visit ideas.alltech.com. Access is free after signing up.

How do the top farms achieve and maintain exceptional performance? Valerie Duttlinger, chief analytics officer at Summit SmartFarms, explains how a positive workplace culture that focuses on the people and processes on the farm can lead to greater agricultural production.

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

Tom:                          I'm Tom Martin with Valerie Duttlinger, chief analytics officer at Summit SmartFarms, and she joins us to talk about her session at (the Alltech ONE Virtual Experience), “Achieving top performance: What does it really take to be the best?” In this session, Valerie covered how top pig farms achieve and maintain elevated performance through focusing on people and processes. Greetings, Valerie.

Valerie:                      Hi.

Tom:                          So, first, a bit of background. Tell us about Summit SmartFarms.

Valerie:                      Well, we’re a startup company based in Remington, Indiana, and we’re focused on equipping people to optimize performance through labor and technology.

Tom:                          The title of your presentation at this year's virtual ONE (Alltech) Ideas Conference, as I said, was “Achieving top performance: What does it really take to be the best?” And I'm wondering: What criteria have to be met to be considered the best?

Valerie:                      Well, you know, it's really a combination of a number of things, but it’s ultimately driven by a company's business model. The best for a producer selling weaned pigs is different than what a producer finishing their pigs would be looking for. It's a combination of animal performance, employee engagement and, ultimately, profitability.

Tom:                          And can you give us some examples of “bests” that everybody would be familiar with?

Valerie:                      Yeah. So, for a sow farm, you know, 30 pigs weaned per mated female per year is certainly one that is thrown out there a lot. But again, that's not right for everyone. Low mortality is certainly a driver of “best,” both on the sow unit and on the finishing side. But I think having low turnover and highly engaged team members are often not considered in that definition but really should be.

Tom:                          So, Valerie, if you were called in to diagnose the health of an organization, what would you be looking for?

Valerie:                      You know, there's really four buckets that I would be looking at. One would be: Do they put people first? And second, are they coaching, or are they just bosses? Third, does the team have the tools they need to win and be successful? And fourth, have they really created an irresistible culture?

Tom:                          Okay. Let's take those four points one by one. First, people. What needs to be recognized and understood about the people of an organization?

Valerie:                      You know, everybody is different, but ultimately, people are looking for the same things. And our teams really aren’t any different than those that are working in factories or in offices. They want to be known individually and appreciated for their contributions to the team.

Tom:                          And “be a coach, not a boss” — what does this mean?

Valerie:                      You know, for me, great coaches do three things really well: they advocate for their team; they congratulate and celebrate a job well done; and they provide timely guidance when they don't do their jobs correctly.

Tom:                          “Deploy tools to win” — does this have to do with the quality and the effectiveness of the tools employees are provided to work with?

Valerie:                      Yeah. It's not just enough to provide tools; they have to have the right tools, like quality and user-friendly SOPs. Other tools could include personality assessments and tools to help team members understand each other in a much better way.

Tom:                          What are the things that make a workplace culture irresistible?

Valerie:                      An irresistible culture has a waiting line instead of a revolving door of people, and it's a place where people want to come to work instead of having to come to work. It’s a place where they’re supported and are valued and are known for the difference that they're making in the organization.

Tom:                          And within that culture, what kinds of generational differences should employees be aware of?

Valerie:                      Yeah. There are a lot of generational differences, but there certainly has been a big shift in the way that millennials and Generation-Z’s view work. They’re looking for more than just a job that provides a paycheck. They really want their job to provide a purpose that allows them to use their strengths and not focus on weaknesses.

Tom:                          Do you find that the generations offer different perspectives when they're asked to rate their job satisfaction?

Valerie:                      Yeah. In 2019, we conducted a labor intelligence study with just over 100 team members in 12 different farms, and the millennials were the least satisfied while making up 50% of the respondents in that study. And that's been a trend that is seen across many different industries, across a number of different surveys and engagement.

Tom:                          Some of us, we work too hard. We just throw ourselves into our work. And if the job becomes your life, what becomes of your life outside of the work?

Valerie:                      Well, we do spend more waking hours at work than we do at home. So, a job should really be an extension of your life. It should be working for something that you're passionate about and with people you enjoy being around so that it does add to the value of your life.

Tom:                          This pandemic that we're in is causing us to kind of step back from overworking. Are you seeing that, and do you think that's going to make a difference going forward?

Valerie:                      Yeah. It's certainly impacted the way that people are working and living.

                                    You know, in the ag industry, especially in production agriculture, we don't get to just work from home. The animals, they'll have to be cared for and fed. So, it still means going to work, for many of these people. And so, it has certainly been new concerns and new stresses for people as they're trying to educate their children from home while working full-time, having problems with childcare. It's really had a really big impact. But at the same time, in production agriculture, we’re helping to feed the world. And so, we're playing a really important role for frontline workers, and that's important for our team members to remember: the role that they're playing through this pandemic.

Tom:                          Back to your presentation at the (Alltech) ONE (Virtual Experience). Something I found really interesting (is that) you advocate hiring for fit instead of skills. What is fit, and why is fit more important than skills?

Valerie:                      You know, fit is about culture. Does this person fit in with the core values and the culture of the company? And we can teach people the skills much easier than we can help them fit into our culture.

Tom:                          What are the signs of a toxic work culture?

Valerie:                      Well, I would put at the top of that, gossip, and from — that is generally a result of poor communication. It can be strained interactions, and certainly, high turnover would be a sign of a toxic culture.

Tom:                          What if, Valerie, right this second, we're talking to somebody who is just absolutely miserable in their job. First, what are some signs of this?

Valerie:                      You know, I think one of the signs is feeling like you're replaceable, like you're a cog in a wheel and that you're not really known for who you are personally. If you don't feel a connection to the mission of the company and you don't understand if you're winning in your role, it's really hard to be engaged in your job.

Tom:                          And so, how could this unhappiness be prevented?

Valerie:                      Well, I think it's partly the responsibility of the leadership team to share the messages that come back at, you know, communicating the history of the company, helping each team member understand how they're impacting the success of the company and the impact that they have on the world by being in agriculture and food production, helping to feed those around us.

Tom:                          And what could a manager — and I guess a good manager would notice if somebody is going through this. And so, what could that manager do help to a person feel more positive about their job?

Valerie:                      Well, it may not be just their job that's causing them to be negative. It can be those things that are impacting them outside of (their professional) life. And so, for a manager, to start with having a conversation with them about what really is bothering them is the first place to start. And then, if it dovetails into it being a part of the job and (is) really focused on things that they don't like in the job, it's about how can you adjust the job to allow people to do things that they like. We can't avoid all of the jobs that we like or dislike. But if one person in the farm maybe hates paperwork, and yet they’re responsible for a lot of it, having another person help with that or adjusting those responsibilities can go a long way to helping people be more positive in their outlook on their job.

Tom:                          And what if you have no way, or at least think you have no way, to actually measure progress or success in these areas?

Valerie:                      So, I think it's about getting creative. You know, if you have no way to measure progress or success, it’s tough for people to stay engaged. And we really want to know if we're getting better at what we're doing. And so, get creative — even if it's just the scale of 1 to 10, how well do you feel like you did this week, or having your boss rate you (on) how well did you do this week. It doesn't have to be something that is a hard and fast measurement. It can be an objective measurement.

Tom:                          Okay. And now, this is a “listen up” for management. The question is: What are the key traits of an organization that people want to be a part of?

Valerie:                      Yeah. They want a place that embraces teamwork. They need to have clear goals and objectives so that they really have a clear path to what they're working towards, and they really want to work in their strength areas. You know, a football player, a quarterback, is not out there practicing kicks, because that's not his strength area. So, putting people in the places where they're working in their strength area is really important today.

Tom:                          Earlier, we touched on why it's important to be a coach and not a boss. Let's drill down into that just a bit. What distinguishes a coach from a boss?

Valerie:                      A coach would say things like “we” instead of “I”. They're going to give the credit instead of taking credit, and yet, they're always going to accept the blame instead of placing the blame on others. And I think a really great coach pushes you to do more and be more than you thought you could do or be.

Tom:                          Sometimes, there has to be a difficult, uncomfortable conversation between employee and manager, and you say that these discussions should happen sooner than later. Why is that?

Valerie:                      Well, nothing good ever happens by putting it off. And certainly, if the conversation is about somebody doing a task wrong, and they're doing that task over and over again and then you finally address it, it makes them feel foolish. It also hurts their trust in you as a leader, because if you really cared about them and the company, you would have addressed it in a much quicker manner.

Tom:                          We talked earlier about providing good tools to employees, but what are some important tools that ought to be made available to managers?

Valerie:                      You know, most managers get promoted before they've actually had any leadership training, and that's not just true in agriculture; it’s true across all industry. And so, providing training is so important to help them develop the skills to lead people, because that role of a leader is so different than being an individual contributor. And there are a lot of different tools out there. You know, one of them that we’re utilizing is a personality platform called Cloverleaf that has nine different personality assessments on it. And you can put your team on it to help you see the differences in people's personalities — how they want to be communicated with, what motivates them — so that you can really tailor your role as a manager to best motivate and influence individual team members.

Tom:                          So, these are tools that can help managers better understand their people.

Valerie:                      Yeah. Absolutely. And the Cloverleaf platform has nine different personality assessments — things like DiSC and Myers-Briggs, that are very common for most people. And it puts your team all together so that you can see how individuals fall on those different assessments.

Tom:                          How about conflict? Are there tools available to help managers deal with conflict?

Valerie:                      There are. There's more generic tools out there that help people learn how to have productive conflicts. You know, not all conflict is bad. And then there are other tools on the Cloverleaf platform as well. There's a comparison tool where you can look at two different people and identify where conflict is existing between those (people) and helping them understand each other — that it's not an intentional push of a button to get somebody upset, but just the way that people view things differently.

Tom:                          How can an organization optimize onboarding and training?

Valerie:                      Well, I think it starts with having the right person do the onboarding and training, and that should not be the last person that was hired, which is often the case. Having a teacher's heart is so important, rather than someone who may be annoyed by the same question over and over. It’s going to be really important to optimize that onboarding and training process.

Tom:                          And are there some training tools that you can recommend?

Valerie:                      Yeah. There's a number of production-related training platforms out there today that provide a really good foundation. There are also programs that are done internally within some of these organizations that have been hugely successful, but tools that really focus on improving communication and leadership are important not just for leaders but for everybody in the organization.

Tom:                          Earlier, we touched on culture. Do a company's core values translate into the nature of its culture?

Valerie:                      Not always. So, core values are words on the wall, while culture is the behavior and the actions of the people. And so, they don't necessarily equal each other, unfortunately.

Tom:                          Earlier, we talked about the signs of a toxic workplace culture. How can this be changed?

Valerie:                      It really starts with rebuilding trust, because to get to a toxic workplace, there has been trust that had been broken. And so, communicating transparently that you're making an effort to change the workplace culture, admitting the mistakes that have been made and acknowledging that you want a different outcome in the future (are important steps). It's important to recognize the changes in behaviors as you go through this transition. And one of the big things that happens in toxic workplaces, often, is treating each person — making sure that everybody follows the same rules and that nobody gets preferential treatment. Changing culture is not a fast process, but it may be the most important key to long-term success for operations.

Tom:                          So, these are some ways that an organization's leadership can go about fixing these issues that lead to toxicity in the culture.

Valerie:                      Yeah. I think you've got to start with making a commitment to change and then find somebody to help you through the process who doesn't have other responsibilities pulling them away from the mission. You know, it's great to pick a platform to get to know your people better, and that can be that single assessment, like DiSC or Myers-Briggs, or it could be the Cloverleaf platform that I talked about. And then, finally, it’s integrating those changes and inspecting them regularly to make sure that the changes are taking place and you're seeing the outcome that you desire.

Tom:                          Valerie Duttlinger, chief analytics officer at Summit Farms. We thank you for joining us, Valerie.

Valerie:                      Thank you.

Tom:                          I'm Tom Martin. Thank you for listening.

How can the dairy industry reduce its environmental hoofprint? Michael Boccadoro, executive director of Dairy Cares and president of West Coast Advisors, explains how California is leading the world in reducing methane emissions from cattle and how other regions can adopt new dairy technologies and practices for more sustainable production.

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

Tom:                          Greetings! I’m Tom Martin, and joining us from Sacramento, California, is Michael Boccadoro, executive director of Dairy Cares and president of West Coast Advisors. Hello, Michael.

Michael:                     Good morning.

Tom:                          So, let’s begin by talking about your presentation at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, “Reducing the environmental hoofprint of dairy farming.” You talked about the ways California dairy farmers and their families are leading the world in planet-smart farm practices.

                                    And so, first, if you would, give us some perspective: Where does California fit among contributors to global greenhouse gases?

Michael:                     California contributes, globally, about 1% of all greenhouse gases in the environment.

Tom:                          And then, what proportion of California’s total emissions come from farming, from agriculture?

Michael:                     Just 8% of California’s emissions. Most of the emissions are coming from fossil fuel use, electricity production, industrial, and the big elephant in the room is transportation in California; that accounts for only about half of all greenhouse gases in the state.

Tom:                          And then, breaking it on down further, how much of (the) farming share of California’s greenhouse gas emissions come from cattle?

Michael:                     About 78% come from cattle, 13% from crops, and about 8% from agricultural fuel use.

Tom:                          So, cattle. Methane. Why is methane such an important emission to keep watch on?

Michael:                     For a couple of reasons, right? Methane is an important greenhouse gas because it’s a short-lived climate pollutant, and we’ll talk about that. Methane breaks down in the environment after 10 to 12 years, compared to carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas in the environment, which can last as hundreds of years — and some people say as long as a thousand years.

                                    The other reason why methane is important is it’s more potent than CO₂, carbon dioxide. It’s 24 to 28 times more potent, which means a little bit of methane goes a long way.

                                    But even when you account for that increased potency, as you had already asked the question and I’ve already answered, it’s still only a small fraction of the total greenhouse gases here in California and, for that matter, across the United States.

Tom:                          Why would reducing methane emissions produce results faster than reducing CO₂?

Michael:                     For that simple reason: It’s a short-lived climate pollutant, because it leaves the environment on its own after 10 to 12 years. And this is a really critical point: Carbon dioxide accumulates in the environment. So, every year, as we add additional carbon dioxide, it’s like adding an additional blanket to the world, to the globe, and we’re increasing global warming as a result.

                                    With methane, after 10 to 12 years, as you add a blanket of additional methane, the blanket from 12 years ago comes out of the equation, or out of the environment. So, you’re not accumulating methane the same way we accumulate carbon dioxide.

And so, by reducing methane in the short term, we can actually achieve something called climate cooling, not climate warming.  You heard me right: climate cooling. Because if you reduce methane to compared to where you were 12 years ago, you’re actually accounting for less methane in the environment, in that twelfth year, than you were previously. You’re putting less in in the twelfth year than it’s coming out from 12 years ago. So, you’re actually cooling the climate a little bit. An amazing thought, when you really think about it.

Tom:                          Well, it is. And in 2016, the California legislature passed a bill that was aimed at reducing methane emissions (by) 40% by 2030. It’s a pretty tight time frame. So now, four years later, how is that going?

Michael:                     It’s a great question, and the California Air Resources Board is currently doing an assessment of the progress that’s being made toward that goal. And I think all indications point to the fact that the California dairy farm families have really stepped up and are doing a fantastic job.

                                    And with the projects that are currently being built to reduce methane — these are digesters and what we call alternative manure management practices; things like solid separators, converting from a flush system to a scrape system and so forth — (with) all these projects combined, by 2023, 2024, (we) will achieve 25% of that 40% reduction that the state is looking for. So, we’re making good progress in just four short years. We’re on path to get to the 40% reduction by 2030.

Tom:                          You’ve mentioned that some people tend to misunderstand this legislation. What are they misunderstanding? What are they missing here?

Michael:                     The big misunderstanding about the legislation in California and the dairy industry were — to structure the legislation properly — is that this is not a regulatory approach. This is what we call an incentive-based approach to getting these voluntary methane reductions from the industry.

                                    What I mean by that is the state is stepping up with a significant investment in terms of grants, in terms of programs to support the purchase of the energy and the fuel that’s being produced. And so, this incentive-based approach is leading to this significant reduction.

                                    If the state had taken a hard regulatory approach — and many people were pushing, particularly from the environmental community, for that — it would actually have backfired on the state. And I give credit to the state regulators for realizing that. It would have backfired because it would have just pushed these dairies out of California, and pushed dairy production — because demand is not decreasing for dairy; it’s still increasing across the world. It would have pushed this production to other places, where they’re far less efficient than we are here in California, where the greenhouse gases produced per gallon of milk are much higher. And it would have backfired; it would have led to actual, significant — more methane and significantly more global warming, as a result, across the world.

Tom:                          At first, the energy that was being produced by these methane digesters was being supplied to the state’s grid. Has that changed? And how?

Michael:                     It has changed, and you’re correct. Many of our early projects were producing electricity using internal combustion engines on the dairies. Dairies were sometimes using some of that energy to energize their own projects on the farm, but most of it was being sold to the electricity grid, to the investors on utilities in California, who provide that power, then, to the ultimate consumers. And we’re transitioning away from that.

All the projects being built in the last few years — and this is true in California, (and) I think it’s true across the United States as well. And we’re transitioning to producing renewal natural gas, and basically, that gas can then be utilized in the transportation sector to replace diesel fuel in heavy-duty trucks. And so, you not only get the methane reduction on the dairy, but we’re actually reducing the use of fossil fuels for transportation, and you get substantial benefits from that. So, we’re seeing a lot more renewable natural gas trucks come online in California and, I think, to some degree, across the U.S. as well.

                                    But it has provided a new halfway for us to be able to generate even more revenue for these projects, which is important — to keep this, you know, sustainable from an economic standpoint as well as an environmental standpoint. So, it’s providing the revenues that the farmers need to be able to make the decisions to put these investments in. And so, it really is making this program work a lot better.

Tom:                          Michael, we’ve been focusing on methane here, but I’m wondering: What other pollutants are being reduced?

Michael:                     That’s also a great question. And so, when you look across the board with these California digesters, you’re looking at significant reductions in what we call criteria pollutants. So, these are the air pollutants that cause, basically, smog in California.

And most of our dairies are located in the San Joaquin Valley in California, and that’s an area of the country — not just the state, but an area of the country — with some of the worst air quality around. And so, there, reductions are immensely important.

                                    But we’re seeing reductions in nitrous oxide, or nox. Also, organic compounds — ammonia, hydrogen sulfide — and we’re seeing some water quality benefits from this project as well. So, from an environmental performance standpoint, they’re fantastic for the state, and on the criteria standpoint, (they’re) very important as well.

But once we move the gas into the transportation sector, it really allows us to get the air quality benefits at a much cleaner burning fuel than diesel in those heavy-duty trucks. And that’s where you get your nitrous oxide reductions, and that’s where you get your particulate matter, or soot, from diesel engines reduced greatly.

Tom:                          Any additional steps or practices underway to reduce farm emissions in California?

Michael:                     Yeah. We’ve got another program — digesters are the primary program, but we have another program called the Alternative Manure Management Program that’s also funded by our California Department of Food and Agriculture with grant funding.

                                    And basically, you know, the concept there — (the) concept of the digesters is to capture methane that’s being produced. The concept with this alternative manure management practices is to prevent methane from being produced in the first place. And so, they’re all geared around the concept of keeping manure outside of those anaerobic conditions that occur when we store manure in a lagoon so that we can use it for fertilizer later in the growing season. And these practices include things such as solid separators, compost pack barns, converting from a flush system to either a scrape system or a vacuum system. Keeping the manure in a much more dry form allows for much less methane production.

                                    And so, those programs are also being implemented. We’re seeing that on some of the smaller dairies, in particular, in California, and the larger dairies are tending to move towards the digesters. They make a lot more economic sense, purely from an economic standpoint.

Tom:                          I have to believe that, as these technologies and programs are introduced, deployed, implemented, that there is a great learning opportunity going on here. What would you say has been learned so far from all of this work?

Michael:                     I think we’ve learned a couple of things, and we’re still learning. Believe me, these projects are not easy to implement. I think the most important thing we’re learning is that digesters and these other programs work very well. We’re learning that the incentive-based approach works very well.

                                    And I think if you, you know, hopefully carry forward what California is doing, it’s critically important. I think, from a global standpoint, we’re also gaining a better understanding that it’s really important for other countries to come up with ways to stabilize their methane, and the best way to do that is through production efficiency.

                                    And California and the U.S. (are) very efficient in terms of production. We produce far more milk with far fewer cows, and if we can get the rest of the world to follow our lead on efficiency alone — not even talking about all these other additional things California dairies are doing — but if we could just bring the rest of the world up to our level of efficiency, we’d achieve — and this was recently calculated by one of our researchers at the University of California — we would achieve a 1.72% reduction in global greenhouse gases. And that’s huge.

If you go back to what we started with in this conversation, we talked about how California accounted for just 1% of all global greenhouse gases. So, this 1.72% reduction that can be achieved just by bringing the rest of the world’s dairy production up to the same level as California, it’s amazing. It’s almost twice as important as California getting to net-zero carbon.

So, it can’t be understated that we’re learning a lot here in the state, and we need to extrapolate that and move that beyond our borders, beyond the U.S., beyond North America, and into the rest of the world.

Tom:                          So, it sounds as though California is something of a model for the rest of the country — the rest of the world, for that matter. And where can the rest of the world go to get more information about what California is doing to reduce greenhouse gases?

Michael:                     A good place to start is our website, at www.dairycares.com, and that will lead you to a lot of other important websites in California. I think another place to go is University of California-Davis and the Clear Center that is run by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, also known as the “GHG Guru.” And he’s got a lot of wonderful information about all these issues on his website as well.

Tom:                          This has little to do with methane, but it’s a question we have to ask you in these times. How have the coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19 affected dairy production?

Michael:                     It was a huge challenge, but you know, farmers are very good at adapting. And I think the challenge initially was one of distribution, right? We went from, you know, a significant amount of dairy sales that are done through restaurants, and that changed almost overnight when restaurants were closed and schools were closed.

                                    And so, we saw a lot of our normal channels of distribution for dairy products immediately shut down. Grocery stores became much more important in terms of sales. And I think there was just a distribution lag there for a couple of months while, you know, these channels of distribution were being figured out, needing many more trucks to get product to grocery stores and far fewer trucks needed for getting product into restaurants and schools and the other venues. So, that was probably the biggest challenge.

I think, for the rest, the dairy industry has really adapted quite well. You know, we got a few minor outbreaks in some of the plants, but for the most part, I think we’ve come through this about as well as can be expected. It’s been a challenge, without a doubt, and difficult, without a doubt. And farmers are very resilient, and they adapt, and the industry adapted to a very significant challenge here.

Tom:                          Michael, as you keep watch on the trends and track the data, what would you say lies ahead for the future of dairy?

Michael:                     I think the future is very bright. We’re seeing some clear changes from consumers. There’s a lot of competition in beverage markets, as we all know, so we’ve seen declining milk sales, and that may or may not continue as we move forward.

                                    But more has been picked up on the other end, with butter, cheese, yogurt and other commodities that are also very important to consumers. And so, I think, moving forward, it’s really important, because consumers are looking beyond nutrition; they’re looking beyond food safety. They’re looking at the environmental performance of the products that they purchase, the food products that they purchase.

                                    And it’s going to be really important for the dairy industry to continue producing more with less — with less water, less energy, fewer fossil fuels — and make every glass of milk more sustainable. That’s going to be the key, I think, to maintaining the growth that the dairy industry is still seeing and dairy production is still seeing in a world like this.

Tom:                          Michael Boccadoro, executive director of Dairy Cares and president of West Coast Advisors. Thanks for joining us, Michael.

Michael:                     My pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity.

Protix is a Dutch nutrition company working to improve future food-production systems by using insect-based foods. Founder and CEO Kees Aarts joins us to discuss what inspired him to pursue creating alternative feed for animals and his vision for a future with less food waste thanks to insect-based ingredients.

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

Tom:                          I’m Tom Martin, and with us is Kees Aarts, founder and CEO of Protix, an insect-based and nutrition company headquartered in the Netherlands. Kees joined us to talk about his product and about sustainable agriculture.

                                    Thanks for joining us, Kees.

Kees:                          Thanks for having me.

Tom:                          Let’s begin by having you tell us about your company, Protix, and its goals.

Kees:                          I’ll be honored to. So, Protix is a company, a market leader, in insect-based nutrition. Why that is relevant for a sustainable future is because (of) the role insects play in nature, and it’s actually so fascinating and, actually, quite curious, why we never use it in our food system. Because basically every animal, when it’s young, when it has to grow fast, and when it needs to build its defense system, it eats insects, right? Whether it’s a bird, reptile, mammal, fish — it doesn’t matter. They all eat insects when they’re young, they need to grow fast and need to build their defense system.

                                    So, insects are vastly nutritious, and even more beautiful, they can be grown and harvested from feeding them with food wastes. And that is a very exciting new arena, because we’re depleting our natural resources; whether they come from land or from the seas, they are being depleted. And we have this huge amount of food waste, which is nothing more than a whole bunch of nutrients, like protein, lipids and other nutrients, and we could feed that to insects and basically extract the nutrition from that food waste and make it ready again for anything in pet foods, fish feed, livestock feed, chicken feed and even human foods, in the new development bind that we’re having.

                                    So, that’s a bit about Protix. It started ten years ago, and (I’m) very proud about all the 130 colleagues that are basically working relentlessly every day, making this work at scale.

Tom:                          I wonder, do you think it could be psychological? I mean, this is a generalization, but it seems like a safe one that humans — for humans, there’s kind of an “eek!” factor to consuming insects, when you’re not really talking about eating a bug, you’re talking about what’s in the bug, correct?

Kees:                          Absolutely. Yes, there’s definitely an “eek!” factor, and it’s a pretty cool factor, actually. It’s a bit like — like the first fear people had when they — when they were driving a car instead of (riding) a horse. The car was much faster. That was a genuine fear. It’s a bit like this as well.

So, we have these natural barriers against something that is new or something that is small or something that is unknown. So, it is natural that there is this “eek!” factor, because we haven’t used insects in our food system.

So, it’s new, but when you think about it, what do insects really deliver? Other than, of course, beautiful products like honey, (it) is a whole bunch of nutrition. So — and of course, some insects don’t look really nice, but if you — if you process them into a protein meal or an oil or a derivative and you include that into food formulations or feed formulations, then all of a sudden, it becomes this very interesting source of nutrition. And that is something I think will overcome the “eek!” factor big-time in the coming years.

Tom:                          Well, I’m really curious about this, Kees. How did you initially arrive at this idea: building an entire business around insect-based nutrition?

Kees:                          The idea emerged from a beer on the beach after a diving trip, which is very simple, because I came from the sea again, (and) I was genuinely frustrated again by the damage we do through dynamite fishing, overfishing, etc. There was literally nothing to see. So, you could say that’s bit of an egocentric approach, to say, “Okay, I don’t have fish to see when I’m diving, which is a luxury sport. What can I do to battle overfishing? Because I would like to dive and see more tropical fish.”

So, that’s where the idea emerged, because there was some residual knowledge from the past where my family — I’ve got a lot of farmers in the family. My grandpa was feed miller. (Because of) that, I knew that a lot of fish is actually caught, ground into a protein meal, and then, as a protein meal, is fed to chicken and other fish. And that is a resource that is actually not necessary, because insect-based nutrition is far more nutritious.

So, one of my missions is to stop fisheries (from using) protein meals, because I believe that natural biodiversity in oceans is disappearing too fast, and we need to restore that. So, that’s how the idea emerged.

                                    Now, the second part of your question — whether I was actually sane enough to think about the consequences of starting the business, because it’s quite a hell of  a ride since then. We needed to develop new legislative frameworks, new technologies, new operating principles. So, there was all these — all these barriers in between the idea and the execution.

                                    So, luckily, I was young and I didn’t have children, so — but, yeah, that’s how the idea emerged and how the venture started.

Tom:                          Interesting. Let’s turn to the product line, and before we get into the specific types of products that you’re producing, tell us: What are the benefits of insect-based nutrition?

Kees:                          So, one of the key benefits is the antioxidant activity. So, what we truly see is that the immune response of the animals eating the insects is very positive. It’s far more positive than the pro-oxidant activity from, for instance, fish meal or chicken meal.

                                    So, if you have fish or chicken and you want to feed them, then you have choices. The choices, of course, (are) the cost or origins, but now, there’s this new category that originated from insects, that you have additional benefits, like antioxidants, which is genuinely important when the creature needs to grow fast.

                                    So, these are, these are only — and we’re just scratching the surface of this, because we are now a market leader in this field, but the field is very young. And so, this is only one of them. We see other benefits, like a better liver quality of the fish. We are seeing the plasma between the knee wrist and the shoulder wrist of the chicken was more smooth, and so, there was less knee sores.

                                    So, there’s all these benefits that we’re seeing in the last couple of years that makes the feed and (has) the aquaculture and the food industry looking at this with very big interest.

Tom:                          I mentioned your product line. What are the food system markets that you target?

Kees:                          Principally, our main objective is to create sustainable white meat and fish as fast as possible. So, if you look at chickens, eggs, shrimp, salmon and trout, these are five major categories of very concentrated protein growth. So, these are very efficient animals; they grow fast, and they grow very efficiently, sometimes even at a 1.1 conversion rate. This means you only need 1.1 kg of feed to grow 1 kg of target animal flesh.

                                    Now, within these sectors, the demand for sustainable nutrition is the highest. And those are the ones we target, because that’s where the consumer can directly choose what is a great product — eggs, chicken, trout, salmon and shrimp — but all of a sudden, we did (it with) a vastly lower footprint. So, a much lower environmental effect (was) measured in CO₂ (on) land and water.

                                    So, those are the targets to create a sustainable meat and fish as fast as possible.       

Tom:                          Okay. Let’s look at one of those, aquaculture. What are the benefits? How is it applied in aquaculture?

Kees:                          Aquaculture, this is very interesting market, right? So, this is one of the fastest-growing markets and one of the most efficient animals.

                                    Now, for those fish, let’s take, for instance, trout and salmon. Feeds are formulated, and the feeds are formulated basically as a composition of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and some other additives.

                                    Now, within that, we can replace protein meals, some of the lipids, and we can increase the functionalities, especially on the antioxidant side. And these are benefits that salmon producers start to see, on top of the sustainability element, that you can actually grow this fish with a lower dependency on marine-based ingredients. Because that’s the tricky part, right? So that, on the one hand, you’re growing the fish, but on the other hand, you need these marine resources, like fish meal or fish oil and other ones. And that’s something that consumers, more and more, would like to challenge, and that’s where we come in.

On top of the sustainability of this replacement argument, we have some additional health benefits.

Tom:                          You have a product for poultry, and on your website, you say that this results in a better-tasting egg. Tell us more about that.

Kees:                          Yeah. That was really fun. And so, basically, if you look at a chicken, right? It has two eyes on the side of its head, but the brain is a lizard brain. A chicken basically reacts to something that moves, and what doesn’t move, it doesn’t see. These chickens are in this barn and basically waiting to be fed, but all these feeds are silent, right? They don’t move.

                                    What we did — we brought, through a very smart system, live larvae into the pen again. And all of a sudden, this lizard brain starts to work again, so this chicken becomes more active, and it is less inclined to start pecking each other, so that it’s more active, more healthy chicken, each side. (Thanks to) reformulated feed, these live insects and the combination of that, basically, in public panels, as a result of that, the people love the smell and the taste more (because it’s) more natural.

Tom:                          You know, the temptation is to go down the rabbit hole with each one of these products. I mean, I have to wonder: What is the story behind the discovery of that? It’s almost like the discovery of lobsters, you know — who thought of that first?

Kees:                          I agree. But this is the beauty. I mean, you have to go back a century to think about — so, when was the last time this new category of ingredient was created, right?

                                    So, it’s just truly a new platform. Once the boats got bigger to catch fish and to catch them deeper, all of a sudden, fish was more than just a direct meal; it was this new category of ingredients.

                                    Fish meal and fish oil, other than (the fact that) they’re destroying natural diversity, it’s a good platform of nutrition. If you go back and ask the question, “When was the last time this new platform of nutrition was created?” You have to go back a century. And that’s why I like your remark. It’s true; you can literally go down the rabbit hole for each one of these new applications, and we only scratch the surface of it.

                                    I bet a lot of things (are) moving in the insect industry. We will see so many exciting applications and health-promoting benefits in chicken feeds, but we will also start seeing — we’ll start seeing flavors being extracted from insects.

Tom:                          Ah!

Kees:                          We’ll start to see human applications.

So, I love this question: “How can it be that larvae, they live and grow in this very challenged environment with a lot of microbial pressure, and they remain healthy?” It’s because they have all these waxes and these skins and these compounds around them. So what if you extract those, what if you isolate those and use them in, maybe, plant protection or skin protection?

                                    And I’m not just asking them — we’re actually looking at some of these avenues, and we saw some very exciting things when we sprayed some of those compounds on leaves. So, I fully confirm that it’s so exciting to think about all these rabbit holes for each of these applications. It’s pretty cool.

Tom:                          Is there a particular insect that is your, your workhorse, key to your product line?

Kees:                          Yes. So, we work mainly with the black soldier fly. That’s our workhorse, indeed. We have knowledge of some of the others, and we have bred, for instance, also a mealworm and a cricket.

                                    But why we’ve chosen to pursue building the platform of black soldier fly is because it doesn’t eat as a fly. So, why is that interesting? It actually doesn’t have a mouth. The larvae need to store all the nutrition to transform itself to cocoon, to pupae, to hatch, to mate and to lay the eggs, because anywhere between the eggs and the transition to pupae, it doesn’t extract any new nutrition. So, the larva is especially nutritious, to do all of that after that. So, that’s why it’s a workhorse, and there are some other benefits, but it’s a bit too detailed for now. But so, our platform is the black soldier fly as a nutritional base.

Tom:                          Pet food applications also are included in your line — is that correct?

Kees:                          Yes, absolutely.

Tom:                          Are you also engaged in developing it for human consumption?

Kees:                          Yes, absolutely. So, in our office, there are two people who are constantly cooking this exciting new stuff. And then, sometimes, they’re wildly tasty and wildly interesting.

Tom:                          Well, let me just — let me stop you right there. Give us an example. What does it taste like?

Kees:                          One of the things I really loved was a butter, which was — which has to do with melting pathways. So, the melting temperature of insect oil is very long. So why is that interesting? So, when you put that on a sandwich and everything you top, (what) you put on top of it has a very strong carryover, because butters and fats are usually the taste intermittent. So, the butter was really tasty.

                                    We had a consommé, so basically a soup extract. We did a baking oil for breads and cookies. The protein fillers, so the protein itself —  so what we tested is a hybrid where we took a meat — so, ground meat, I think, is the word, and then we replaced half of it with our insect protein meal. And then, we gave it in blind testing to people, where there (was a) 100% score, that all of them chose the mix with the insect, because it delivered this additional nutty and even an umami, salty-type flavor.

                                    So, other than it is a higher concentrate of protein meal, it delivers a natural flavor. And that is why I think it has the potential, because if you look at the meat replacements development, it’s hard to do that without a whole range of additives to match the taste. So, this insect protein meal comes with its own taste, taste platform, or how do you call that? Palatability. And that is a very exciting development in food, of course.

Tom:                          The people who tried these products and approved and liked them, were they later told what they had had?

Kees:                          Yeah.

Tom:                          Were they amazed?

Kees:                          Yeah. A lot of them were amazed, especially if you — I think what you alluded to as well in the beginning, right? If it’s a hidden ingredient, the “eek!” factors come really quickly, right? And the curiosity kicks in much easier. If it’s a visible compound, then it’s harder to skip to that curiosity, but the hidden compound, it was fantastic.

Tom:                          We’re not talking about chocolate-covered grasshoppers here, are we? [Laughs]

Kees:                          Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I agree that it’s been of an adventurous, maybe a party-style thing, that you put a cricket on a stick with a chocolate dip. No, we’re, indeed — we’re really talking on (an) ingredient level and enriching a product or a food with the ingredients we supply.

Tom:                          I don’t mean to trivialize; I just think that the human mind generally kind of goes in that direction when we’re talking about insects, and perhaps we need to get past our arachnophobia here — because we’re talking about sustainability, aren’t we?

Kees:                          Yes. What I discussed as well, earlier, I even coined a term for that. I wrote a book. It’s called “The Footprintarian,” whereby, basically, you combine all the basic principles. All my products, foods, services, goods and experiences, I wish to source at the lowest possible footprint, because when you have the choice to buy different products, services, goods, foods and experiences, you are already at the top 10% in the world, right? So, and once you’re there, your footprint is simply too big.

So, every individual has a contribution to make, to make the future inspiring and motivating again. So, there’s one objective we all have, whether you’re a government and creating new legislation or at a company creating a new product or as a consumer buying something: You need to somehow source and fulfill your desires at the lowest possible footprint.

                                    And in that, I kind of appeal a little bit to everyone (that we have) a responsibility to overcome anything, right? If you’re — let’s take a sidestep. I know it’s very cool to have your hand on the steering wheel and own a car, but you have to overcome, somehow, that feeling, right? It’s about mobility. You have to ask your government and companies to fulfill your mobility at the lowest possible footprint. That’s cool.

                                    Same as with foods. It doesn’t matter — it literally doesn’t matter how it looks like or how it’s made, as long as you like it, it’s tasty, and it’s produced at the lowest possible footprint. And in trying to achieve that, you have to overcome everything, anything. You just have to ask the question to companies, the government, to help you fulfill that need.

And our contribution in that is that we have an ingredient that has the lowest footprint in terms of protein, unit of protein, in terms of energy, water and land. And we’ve proven that with the Deutsches Institut für Lebensmitteltechnik with ETH Zurich. We can produce over — and this is phenomenal — our production capacity is 6,000 tons of protein per hectare per year.

                                    And that number — I’ll put it in perspective. It’s three (tons per hectare) for soy, intensified soy. It’s 100 for the best algae farm. It’s about 400 to 500 for extremely well-developed fermentation-type approach or bacterial. And we have 6,000, and that is because our technology, the biology, the operations, everything is under control, and we manage it in a very high-tech environment. But that system — and it should then normalize that to the use (of) energy, water and land. And that protein meal just should find its way in every product imaginable, whether it’s a pet food, whether it’s a feed, whether it’s direct food — it doesn’t matter, because we need to reduce the footprint of our food system.

Tom:                          Well, this would seem to have significant implications for efforts to mitigate climate change.

Kees:                          It has. Huge.

Tom:                          Another thing that you talk about on your website (is) mycotoxins’ threat to lifestyle producers, especially in the Midwest here in the United States. What has your research revealed about how insects can play a role in reducing these molds?

Kees:                          Yeah. That’s an interesting one. What we found out is that they can break it down. I’m not sure yet, but I expect that the indications will even be stronger. But we could extract a compound from our insects and use it on the crop side. Our “flytilizer” on the soil improves the soil quality and, therefore, reduces the risk of the mycotoxins, but that is in development still.

What we have already seen is that if you take mycotoxins, then there are huge amounts of corn and other cereals that cannot be used in the food system (and are) discarded. And then (these) can actually be fed to our insects; they break down the mycotoxins, and then those products that come out of it, the protein meals and the lipids, can then be used again in the food system.

                                    So, that is quite impactful. So, it doesn’t have to go to landfilling or digestion or any other utilization outside the food system, because that is a true waste. So, mycotoxins, we already saw the ability of insects to break it down, fingers crossed. I’m not making the scientific proof yet, but there are indications we can even avoid it.

Tom:                          Kees, tell us about your contribution to discussions about supply chain collaborations from production all the way to the consumer level.

Kees:                          This is, of course, the nicest opportunity, but also, of course, one that takes the most effort. So, we have this new ingredient, and we’re about four or five stages away from the consumer. And every single supply chain has its own dynamic, right? Whether it’s purchase, risk, or whether it’s minimum size needed, or whether it’s ability to afford the increased price. So, there are always, always challenges.

                                    Now, how we try to solve it is to go all the way to the consumer with a brand we own, something like the Oer Egg or the Friendly Fish. And then, we try to bring this narrative of, “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Consumer, we can help you make a choice to buy a product where all the way to the fundamental resources, a sustainability trigger we made. Now, how does it look like?”

                                    And then, we tell that on the packaging, we tell that through in-store and communications. And then, we see (that) consumers like having this “aha moment,” right? So, “Aha! Of course sustainability is more than an LED light in a farm or a non-plastic packaging. It is where does the primary ingredient come from, how is it made in the meantime, and if this end product actually healthy.”

                                    And these three questions, we try to answer, based on proposition, of course. And in order to — and once we have the brand in place, we go back to the players in the middle, and we start helping them also, creating their contribution and increase the demand for our ingredient.

Tom:                          Well, speaking of your contribution, I’d like to ask you if you can condense this. I know it’s difficult to put this in brief form, but if you could, describe for us, Kees, the future food system that you imagine.

Kees:                          So, for me, it’s one in balance. So, if I simply look at myself, it’s becoming more and more guilt-laden, right? Everything you buy, there’s always this downside related to it. And those downsides have become more and more visible.

                                    Now, I don’t think we have it in our nature to be always in some form of restriction. So, “You can no longer do this, you can no longer do that, you can no longer do this, because it’s not good.” That’s not our nature. Our nature is motivation, inspiration, long-term, endlessness. So, that is our nature.

                                    And I think the food system is one that’s so primal, it’s so close to our skin — if we can make that in balance with nature again, then your purchase and your consumption is guilt-free. And all of a sudden, it’s no longer guilt-laden, but it is pleasure-laden. And that is the basic picture I would like to draw up for the food system — that I can’t do everything, (but) I’ll do my part — but that is the picture I would like to see for the food system.

Tom:                          Okay. I have to ask you this question. What was it like for you and for your people when the king came visiting (your company)?

Kees:                          That’s, of course, such a fantastic recognition. I mean, it’s truly fantastic. We had about ten or twelve colleagues at all different parts of the factory explaining to his majesty what — the king — what was engineered, how it would work.

                                    And the cool thing about our king is he is extremely committed to stimulating innovation, and especially at the crossroads of business, education, science. And I’m pretty proud about the amount of innovation that goes on in the Netherlands, even though we’re that small. And having him as a true advocate of that and then coming up (to) visit us at the grand opening was quite, yeah, was pretty cool.

Tom:                          Kees Aarts, founder and CEO of Protix, an insect-based nutrition company headquartered in the Netherlands. Thank you so much for joining us, Kees.

Kees:                          Thank you.

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

While many people working in the agriculture industry were raised around animals and farms, there are others who do not have this background and, instead, learned from the ground up to start their careers. Dr. Keith Latson, a board-certified equine veterinarian and co-founder of FullBucket Health, joins us to share his experience of breaking into the agriculture industry at a young age with no prior experience. Dr. Latson discusses how those who might not have a past in agriculture can break through to build a successful career in the industry, as well as the importance of mentorship and being willing to say yes to opportunities that arise.

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

Brian:             Welcome to Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities facing the global food supply chain and speak with experts working to support a Planet of Plenty.

                        Today, the World Bank reports that the agriculture sector represents 28% of all employment globally. In the U.S., agriculture represents only 1% of all workers. Across most of Europe, agriculture hovers around less than 5% of all jobs. Many people working in the ag industry today were raised in agriculture, whether they showed animals, had a parent in the industry or grew up working on a family farm — yet there are others who didn't, who didn't have a background in ag, had to learn it from the ground up, and who also became very successful. So, the question for today is: How can young people who are not raised in agriculture break through to begin a successful career in the agriculture industry?

                        Welcome to an exciting episode of the Ag Future podcast. I'm Brian Lawless, North American brand manager at Alltech, and today, I'm joined by Dr. Keith Latson, a board-certified equine veterinarian and co-founder of FullBucket Health. Dr. Latson serves as NBC's on-call veterinarian for the Kentucky Derby and has even worked with Triple Crown winners across his impressive career. But unlike some in his career, Dr. Latson did not grow up in the world of agriculture, equine or animal health; he grew up as a military kid living all across the U.S. So, how did Dr. Latson even get into the world of agriculture? What is he doing now? And most importantly for our listeners, what lessons can Dr. Latson's story teach to those of you who are not in the agriculture industry today but want to work in ag in the future? I'm really looking forward to this. Dr. Keith Latson, welcome to the Ag Future podcast.

Keith:              Thanks, Brian. It's such a pleasure to be here with you.

Brian:             Someone wise in my life once said, "Begin with the end in mind," so I'd like for our listeners to know a bit of where your story not necessarily ends but is today. I think I stole a bit of your thunder in the intro, but what do you do for work these days?

Keith:              Well, that's always an interesting question to answer. After having quite a career at the racetrack as a veterinarian and a surgeon for Thoroughbred racehorses in Southern California, I left the racetrack for a life of entrepreneurship. That's been an interesting lesson to learn, entrepreneurship itself, as well as keeping that end in mind every time we start something new. There are so many lessons that had to be learned in building our companies and our brands that distracted us from that end in mind. So that, in and of itself, is a really big lesson to really focus on versus just learning. We've all heard it before, but oftentimes, it takes someone to reach out and say, "Hey, keep in mind why you started this."

Brian:             Absolutely. Yeah, the "begin with the end in mind" concept runs true through all of our career, not just in the beginning, and that's where I want to start right now. You were not raised in the ag or animal health industry. Can you tell us a little bit about how you were first exposed to agriculture?

Keith:              Sure. I grew up, as you said, as the son of a military officer, and so we moved every two to three years. There wasn't really anything in my life other than youth soccer and suburbia as a kid. Occasionally, we would go on field trips or something to expose us, in our schools, to agriculture or farms, those sorts of things. The real first trigger for me was, as a Cub Scout, we took a trip to Monmouth Park while we were living at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. Fort Monmouth is now closed for the military, but we took this trip to the barn area. As soon as I got there and saw the horses being saddled up and coming back from the tracks steaming with sweat, the first time I laid my eyes on a real, live, Thoroughbred racehorse, I thought it was the most impressive, spectacular athlete or animal I'd ever seen. That was the first time for me that I really got a taste of what else was out there besides what I was being exposed to every day as a suburban kid on a military base.

                        That really stuck with me as we watched the Kentucky Derby. That was really the only horseracing you could find on TV back then, when we had 26 channels in a wired cable box. So, the first Saturday in May every year, my family and I would watch the Kentucky Derby. There are so many of those races that I remember watching and seeing Bob Baffert cover his mouth with one finger when Real Quiet was running. There are so many of those experiences that I was watching on TV, and I wished that I could connect with that more. Ultimately, I did. I just didn't know how it would happen.

Brian:             Well, I can definitely relate to you on the fact that I grew up in suburbia and grew up playing soccer, and that the first Saturday in May was huge. I'm a Kentucky native, so I can definitely relate to those things. For you, what was the turning point where you said you took ag seriously or really jumped in in a meaningful way with the equine industry?

Keith:              Well, I think it was a stroke of luck, honestly. My dad was a Texas resident, and he told me I could go anywhere I wanted for college as long as it was in Texas. My sister had already gone to Texas A&M University for her freshman year of college while I finished high school, and I knew that I was headed west. We were in Georgia at the time. I knew that I was headed west for college, but I didn't know if that would be University of Texas or if that would be one of the smaller schools or whether it would be Texas A&M. Well, my first stop was Texas A&M in College Station. As soon as I got there, it was like being home. There were so many different, interesting people there. There were people in cowboy hats and Wranglers. There were people in flip-flops and cut-off jeans. You name it, those people were there.

                        As you wandered over from main campus to west campus, there was this whole area of animal science, veterinary school, and all of those things were there. I just looked around and it felt comfortable, and it felt like it fit. I didn't really realize that, after my first couple of years in engineering — slogging through an engineering program and not really knowing why I was doing it, other than that I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. I thought that that's a nice angle to take, bioengineering, as a launching pad into orthopedic surgery for humans. Along the way, I met a person named Amy Reed, whose dad happened to be one of the premier racehorse veterinarians in Louisiana. I needed a summer job and he needed someone who was willing to work hard six days a week, so Amy connected me with Dr. Reed. I got a phone call over Christmas one year and he said, "Hey, I hear you're interested in horses. I hear you love racehorses. I'd love to offer you a place to live and a job for the summer at the racetrack with me." I just said "yes". I had no idea what I was getting into. I knew I was willing to work hard and I knew it was going to be hot, but I knew nothing else. So, when I went for that first day at work, I knew that was it. I did not want to be in a human hospital. I wanted to be with the horses.

Brian:             If I'm hearing what you're saying, it seems like you said "yes" to a lot of different unique opportunities. You went to Texas A&M, the school in Texas you could go to. You said "yes" to not pursuing something that you thought you would in orthopedics, and then you said "yes" to this opportunity with Mr. Reed. At least to me, that jumps out as a really important point for those of us who are looking to get into agriculture: When you get the opportunity, even if you're working six days a week, you jump in. Maybe early on, when you're getting into agriculture, are there any other keys to success that maybe you would want to point out?

Keith:              Well, I think saying "yes" is the first step for a lot of people. It's really easy for all of us to sink back into our comfort zones and not really push ourselves into unique experiences or the unknown. For me, that certainly was the unknown, other than (the fact that) there was a person on the other end of that phone who made me feel very comfortable saying "yes".

I think the other thing, too, is just being willing to be a beginner. In these days, with so much information out there, it's really easy to get analysis paralysis, and we start looking for that perfect thing. I think if we keep looking for that perfect thing, we'll never uncover the other opportunities that are out there that may come to us from that unperfect thing that we've said "yes" to.

Certainly, for me, working six days a week, 13 hours a day in the Louisiana sun was not necessarily perfect by a lot of people's standards. There were certain things that I didn't like about the job, but it opened up this world to me (that) combined my passion for orthopedics and for building things. I grew up rebuilding motorcycles and riding dirt bikes, so it uncovered that opportunity to be able to put fractures back together in high-level racehorses. It uncovered the world of science behind the racehorse and the mechanics behind the racehorse to me. All of those things were topics that I was exposed to as an engineering student or rebuilding those motorcycles that I had no idea existed and I wouldn't have (known had) I not said “yes” to Dr. Reed. Certainly, I wouldn't have met the person who became such a great professional mentor for me through the years, not just through school and vet school but as a young professional veterinarian as well.

Brian:             Absolutely. You've touched on saying "yes" to these opportunities, but someone like a mentor has to provide those opportunities, and it seems like Dr. Reed was that for you. It seemed like there were a couple of different paths you were considering. I think a lot of our listeners would be at a point in their life where they'll be choosing, like you did with Dr. Reed. What made his mentorship or his impact on your life so attractive?

Keith:              There are a few things. One is he allowed himself to be a little bit vulnerable with me in that he was happy to talk about the things that worked for him and the failures that he'd had as he encountered his success, as he built his business, as he was trying to balance his family life with his work life, as he worked with difficult clients, as he celebrated successes with some of those clients. (It was about) really watching and learning and being open to me peppering him with questions about all of those things and about the horses just as I was learning about what are the common injuries of racehorses, what are our options for treating those injuries. And then, discovering what's beyond what we have today and what's possible, what's coming down the pipeline in terms of science, medicine and treatment that we may be able to use five, 10 or 20 years from now.

                        Now, I'm standing in a position where many of those things that were just conceptual 20 years ago, we're actually using every day. I think that's one of the really exciting opportunities that a lot of us as seasoned professionals within the agricultural industry, that's one of the opportunities that we have, is to help young people who are trying to break into this really niche world of agriculture and all of the different channels within agriculture. It's really an opportunity for us to reach out to them and help them imagine what the opportunities can be for themselves.

Brian:             Yeah. I like that point of being okay with being vulnerable. You've touched on this: Within two seconds in a Google search, you can be an expert on a given topic. I think having someone who's okay with saying, "I don't know how to solve this problem. I looked at all the answers, but maybe I still don't have them. They don't exist on Google" — and I think particularly for younger folks who are trying to get into an industry like agriculture. If you look in the U.S., we have 99% of the folks who would not be in agriculture and only 1% who would be in it. We make, I think, a lot of 99% and 1% comparisons, but I do think it takes someone getting involved in someone else's life to make that happen. Maybe now, as you're looking at the next generation, how do you think the industry should approach getting the next generation involved in agriculture? But maybe (also) talk about getting the next generation involved in the equine industry.

Keith:  Oh, there are so many opportunities for all of us who are involved at all levels of our industry, whether it's as a veterinary technician who is encouraging young people to come and shadow and say, "Hey, look at what I do for these animals that are sick. We're helping them get better. This is what I do every day.” It could be the scientist who is studying some of the new technologies in microbiome science. There are so many things out there. Even for me to just try and think about these things as you and I are talking, there are so many channels that it can be overwhelming to pick the few that we talk about, which makes me realize that young people who are exposed to all of these things, plus more, it can be so difficult for them, too.

I think the opportunities for us are to be open. Listen. If somebody reaches out to me on LinkedIn and says, "Hey, I'm really interested in knowing more about something. Can you help point me in the right direction?" This is somebody who has had the courage to reach out, has shown some real interest, and I'm going to respond to that because that's how I broke in.

I think it can be on an individual basis like that. I also think that some of the larger corporations and industry organizations — like the American Association of Equine Practitioners, with which I've been associated for many years — have created real opportunities to help people connect within their industries. I think it takes a young person being resourceful in looking for those opportunities or for those people who might be willing to connect on social platforms like LinkedIn. Many of us are not on Snapchat, Instagram and those places. I think that there's a little bit of a divide between how young people commonly communicate and connect and some of the more seasoned people in agriculture. So I think there has to be that open communication both ways and the willingness to take on a little bit of a mentorship role and take a chance on people, because when we say "yes" and they say "yes," the opportunities are endless.

Brian:             Yeah. I think you touched on something, (and) I just want to drive it a little bit deeper in, because I think you've touched a lot on what it takes to be a good mentor, but you just began to start on what you would look for in a potential mentee, someone who would be bold enough to reach out directly on LinkedIn. When you're looking at the next generation, what are you looking (for) in a potential mentee, someone that you would mentor?

Keith:              When I was young and trying to break into the Thoroughbred industry, I used to put my hands in my pockets. It was a habit that I had, and I didn't realize I had it. I didn't realize that I was communicating that. Maybe I wasn't sure of myself. Maybe I wasn't interested. Whatever that message was, it wasn't the message of, "Hey, I'm enthusiastic. I'm ready to do whatever it takes."

                        I think moving beyond constantly looking at that phone — move beyond that. Show that enthusiasm, that courage to reach out. Show that you don't have your hands in your pockets or that you're constantly on your social media. Look, let's work. Let's discover. Let's talk. Let's interact, because those human relationships are the things that I think we all really revel in. That's what drives us forward in our profession. That's what I'm looking for in a young mentee. I'm not looking for somebody who has already had a few experiences, has already taken a few chances. Maybe I'm the first chance that they've taken to reach out to, but certainly, if they're showing that enthusiasm and that they had researched multiple things around what I do, I'm willing to answer questions. I'm willing to point them in the right directions that they think they want to go.

                        Man, that's an exciting person, when they come to me. There are three or four who come to mind throughout my career that it's been really fun to watch develop from young college students who were doing something in a horse-racing club or Darley Flying Starts, some of these development programs. Young people who have reached out from those programs and said, "Hey, I've seen what you do. I'm really interested in it. Could I spend a day with you in your truck at the racetrack?" "Absolutely. Come on. Let me introduce you to some other people." And that really becomes their first working interview with me. Those are the types of things that I'm looking for.

                        As a mentee, I want to give them everything I can that is actionable and thought-provoking. If we both have done that for each other as mentor and mentee, I think we've really accomplished something together.

Brian:             Yeah. Seeing someone succeed who was a mentee of yours, I can only imagine it's just got to be so encouraging and must give you a ton of energy to keep reaching out to others, because it's not just being a mentor yourself. It's being a mentor to someone else.

It's interesting. You've touched on “no hands in the pockets.” Our (Alltech) owner and founder, the late Dr. Pearse Lyons, had a big thing of “no hands in the pockets.” That was just a bad expression of body language that didn't show enthusiasm, just like you touched on. So, I think there are some cool correlations there.

                        Moving us into maybe the last segment, the question, always, is: What's next? To you, what are some of the positive opportunities you see in equine moving forward?

Keith:              I've touched on it a little bit earlier. I think one of the most exciting things that we're seeing coming out in equine health — and this expands beyond just equine health and into total animal health — is the concept and the science behind the microbiome and the metabolome, the microbiome being the living organisms in the DNA that's within the GI tract and then the metabolome being everything else that's in there. Are there inflammatory mediators? Are there other things that can tell us what's going on with the overall health of an animal? And what the risk or health profile is of an animal.

                        I think there's so much on the frontier to be discovered there and to really discern how it relates, how each of those findings relates with not just equine health, but how those findings drive certain discoveries in human health, in pharmaceuticals, in supplements, in feeding, in wellness, in food as medicine, not just as a function of nutrition. I think that is such an exciting frontier where what we do in animal health and what we do in agriculture contributes so much to the overall health of the populace of our world. There's opportunity, on an individual scale, to greatly contribute to society and to our world in that way from agriculture.

Brian:             As a global animal health and nutrition company at Alltech, I could not endorse that statement any more. We have our researchers working on things from the microbiome, but we have people all throughout the process bringing that to fruition. We even take it into the human health side. I think that connection between the science that we do, connecting between animals and people, really just starting with the microbiome, is so exciting. I think the future is really bright for that.

                        What I'd love to do is just leave us with a specific takeaway for our listeners. Say someone has heard this (podcast). What's the first step someone who's interested in agriculture should take if they're not currently involved but want to get involved?

Keith:              Pick up the phone and connect with people. That is number one, even beyond a connection on LinkedIn, even beyond a colleague calling me and saying, "Hey, I have a niece or a nephew who is really interested in what you do." When I receive a phone call from a person or an email asking for a phone call from a person who is interested in what I do, who has researched what I do, I'm going to take that call. I think there are so many people within our industry, within agriculture, who would be so excited to have somebody connect on that human level to say, "I'm interested. I'm excited about what you're doing. I would love to know more about how you did it, how you got there and what's next for you, where do you go (next) from where you are." That is somebody that has a bright future, and they're showing it to me with their first action.

                        That's a difficult thing to do. I know a lot of people have trouble picking up the phone and making that cold call. It's not my favorite thing to do either, but it has created massive results in my life. I know other people whose lives have been changed by a single phone call. Pick up the phone and make a call.

Brian:             Keith, I think there could not be any better message and more clear message. If you're interested in getting into agriculture, pick up the phone. Call someone. Make a contact and go meet with them.

There's so much to unpack here. I think this has been extremely helpful for our listeners. Just maybe to sum up a couple of things that I heard (that) you said that were really interesting, point one just being to say "yes" to things. If you have an opportunity to meet and be mentored by someone, take them up on it. The second point being not only have a mentor in your life but be a mentor to someone else and be willing to receive that phone call that you just talked about. Beyond that, be willing to be a beginner. I really liked that comment because I think, in this Google age, we can all be “experts” within five minutes, but not really. So, with the point that Dr. Reed made of being okay with being vulnerable, I think that's a really important step for long-term success. Bringing it all together, show enthusiasm. Don't put your hands in your pockets. Be willing to take chances. Last but not least, pick up the phone and call someone. You'll be well on your way to a successful career in agriculture.

This is Dr. Keith Latson of FullBucket Health. Thank you for joining us on the Ag Future podcast.

Keith:              I sure have enjoyed it. Thank you.

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

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

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

Brian:           Welcome to AgFuture, presented by Alltech. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities facing the global food supply chain and speak with experts working to support a Planet of Plenty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coburn Farms has been in operation for more than 200 years, and like many family-owned farms, they are facing a transitional phase from one generation to the next. Father and son duo David and Tyler Coburn join us to talk about how they have approached farm succession planning and to share some lessons for both the older generations passing on their businesses and the younger generations beginning to manage those operations.

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

Brian:             Welcome to Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities facing the global food supply chain and speak with experts working to support a Planet of Plenty.

                        Currently, family-owned businesses make up 80% of all U.S. and Canadian companies. Family-owned businesses make up an even higher percentage of all companies across agriculture and across all companies globally. That means most companies face this one problem: How do you successfully transition your business from one generation to the next?

                        Today, we have an exciting episode of the Ag Future podcast. I'm Brian Lawless, North American brand manager at Alltech, and I'm joined by David and Tyler Coburn of Coburn Farms. Coburn Farms, from New Brunswick, Canada, has successfully been in operation as a family farm for over six generations in 200 years, but now, they're in the middle of a transition from the sixth to the seventh generation. So, the question is: Will Coburn Farms successfully make it through the seventh generation? What succession plans does Coburn Farms have in place? What secrets to successful generational business transitions can we learn from Coburn Farms? David and Tyler, welcome to the Ag Future podcast.

David:             Thank you for having us.

Tyler:              Yeah, thank you.

Brian:             Now, before we dive into the challenges and lessons of generational businesses, which we'll get to, you built a really impressive business, so I believe it's important that we, as listeners, understand exactly what's at stake here. Now, David, you've managed Coburn Farms during its sixth generation of business. And within the last couple of years, you've been transitioning the business to its seventh generation, to your sons, Tyler and Glen. We have Tyler with us today. David, can you tell us a bit of the history of Coburn Farms and what the operation looks like today?

David:             Coburn Farms was established in 1806. I currently live in the original household. The house was built back in 1806. It was your typical mixed-commodity farm, having a little bit of everything. We started to specialize back in the 1860s. My great-grandfather specialized in potatoes. At one point in time, he was growing 30 acres of potatoes, which is not very much by today's scale, but if you think about it, he ploughed with one furrow plough, and he would have walked 300 miles.

                        He planted our first apple orchard in 1875. We still have one of the original trees still producing here on the farm. On his deathbed, he told my father, "You look after the orchard and it'll look after you." That was very true here in Eastern Canada. In the early 1900s, the apple farmers were some of the more successful farmers out there.

That brought us up into the 1950s. My father had a small dairy herd, as well as the orchard, and he started to move into chickens. Originally, they were dual-purpose, meat and eggs. Then he went into commercial egg production back 53 years ago, in 1967, with another barn following in 1970. I came back to the farm almost 40 years ago, in 1981. In ’86, we built a new lay barn, bringing both flocks into one barn, and we managed 25,000 birds for the next 30 years.

                        We moved into composting. I'll talk a bit more about that a little later, composting our farm waste. We have downsized our apple orchard; we went from 100 acres down to 10. We run a processing orchard and, with that, turning the apples into apple cider and apple syrups. As I mentioned, we went into composting. The compost is used on the farm primarily in the orchard or sold off to (other) farms. In 1995, we built our own feed mill, started manufacturing our feed and just continued to specialize that way. It's been an exciting, exciting ride.

Brian:             Absolutely. It sounds like, from apples to a feed mill, doing stuff in the layer industry, a lot of exciting things. Tyler, from your perspective, when you look at what your dad's built, how does Coburn Farms continue to look to the future in order to make the changes necessary to be successful?

Tyler:              Well, you've always had to be on the leading edge. In 2018 — or, I should say, in 2017, we started plans for constructing our new layer barn. I had to do career placement through Dalhousie's Faculty of Agriculture in Nova Scotia, and I did it with a broiler-breeder company, Atlantic Poultry. They had a lot of free-run housing on their broiler-breeders, and I got to look at pretty well every aspect of the free-run barns.

                        I knew at that point (that) I did not want to go that route, so I looked at alternatives. We went with enriched housing and a new layer barn. We started construction in May of 2018. We put in tunnel ventilation along with our sidewall ventilation that we use as our minimum, but the tunnel — our days are getting hotter here in New Brunswick in the summers, so it'll keep the birds about two degrees cooler inside and outside, (with an) air speed of 365 feet per minute. With these enriched housing units, they have scratchpads, nest boxes, nail files, four inches of feed space per bird. We did go with in-system lighting, so there's equal light on each tier and they are in the red. So, layers actually see — their spectrum of light is in the red, and so it actually keeps the birds quite calmer. Ninety percent of the birds actually lay in the nest boxes. Our group size in each unit are about 36 birds.

Brian:             I guess I've read specifically that you guys have this concept called “chicken condos.” Now, I'm from Lexington, Kentucky, where the University of Kentucky is. We have built upgraded student housing; it's kind of called student condos, apartment-style living. Is this the kind of concept that you guys are bringing to chickens? Maybe explain that, because I think you were just touching on it. Tell me about chicken condos. What are they?

Tyler:              It's just a concept to have bigger groups of birds together. There has been research done that anywhere between — roughly 20 birds together, up to about 75, is what you typically see in these units. They have all these amenities for them to display their natural attributes to the birds. The key is having happy, healthy birds to produce high-quality, Grade-A Canadian eggs.

Brian:             That makes sense. I want to ask both David and Tyler this question. Your family has been in business for six, going on seven, generations. If you had to sum it up, what's the secret sauce of Coburn Farms? What is the strategic advantage or part of the culture that's been keeping it successful for so long?

David:             I guess we've been always willing to look and try new things. I have a farm museum here on the farm that we put together on our bicentennial a number of years ago. I mentioned the potatoes, the beginning of the apples that brought — my grandfather, when he was young, he brought in bees on the farm. In the early 1920s, we got into fox farming, and he did that for a number of years while it was viable, until the Depression hit. We tried different things. My father was growing strawberries in the 1960s. We built a farm market and we ran that for 20 years. It was a very successful addition to our farm.

                        For me, when I was 14 years old, I ended up spreading manure. The manure spreader broke and I had to shovel semi-liquid manure out of a manure spreader one afternoon. I said to myself then, "There's got to be a better way of doing this." In 1990, 30 years ago, I was introduced to Alltech's De-Odorase product. We put that into our feed, and I'm proud to say it's been there ever since, but it dried the manure out to the point where I was going to have to buy a new manure spreader to spread it. I said, “This is worth composting.” That's what led us in to building the first in-vessel composting facility in Atlantic Canada.

                        We'd be willing to step out and try things. I researched that one for two years, and it got to the point where you're either going to build it or stop talking about it. We did that with our apple cider here a few years ago. We introduced apple syrups. We now have three different kinds of apple syrups, and we're starting to build that market up. So, like I said, you've got to be willing to try new things and give them up if they don't work, try and make them grow and live their time. Twenty years is time on some of these niche markets, so you have to be aware of that.

Brian:             Tyler, anything to add to that? The list I had running was a museum, bees, potatoes, fox farming, strawberries, farmers' market, manure, using De-Odorase, an Alltech product, composting and apple syrup. Yeah, the spirit of trying new things certainly seems alive at Coburn Farms. Anything that you would add to what your dad just said?

Tyler:              My brother is actually, he's got five acres of pumpkins and squash, which — we're very fortunate this year. The two farms around us that actually grow pumpkins, they didn't have a crop. So, in hindsight, we should have planted more than five acres, because we could have sold it all. The other thing is we have a small beef herd here as well. It's just land that's not being utilized. We live on a ridge. We live on a side hill. If you’ve got the land, you might as well do it.

                        The other thing I'd like to add (is that) we don't have land masses like they do in Western Canada or the Northwest United States. That's one of the reasons we had to diversify. We couldn't keep our eggs all in one basket. We had to keep trying new things because one year, one thing could pay for the other, and other years, (it would) not. Sustainability is key.

Brian:             Exactly. Sustainability is key. I'd like to maybe pivot the conversation and then really just talk more on just how to successfully transition a business between generations. I guess I want to start with you, Tyler. Tyler, if I understand correct, you have a brother and a sister. Some people grow up and they know right from the time they're born what they want to do with their lives. But for you, did you always want to take over the business? Were there any points that you thought about pursuing something else? What about your siblings?

Tyler:              At four years old, I knew I actually wanted to farm. I'd start my day off just like any kid, eating breakfast, and then I'd go to the office here on the farm and find out where my father was or the hired help who were working then; I'd go follow them around. I think I was helping at the time, but you're just a kid, so it's hard to say. You're more in the way, probably. But I knew from a very young age that I wanted to go to agricultural college and follow in my father's footsteps. No, there wasn't really ever a point that I said to myself that I didn't want to farm. I always knew I wanted to.

                        I do have a brother and sister, like you just touched on. My sister always knew she wanted to be a nurse. I'm not sure whether she just liked helping people (or what). My grandmother, my father's mother, she was a nurse back in the late ’40s, early ’50s, so I think she takes pride and joy in following in our grandmother's footsteps. You're right, I am lucky enough to farm with my brother, Glen. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses, and luckily, ours actually work together quite well. He's more hands-on; I prefer a lot of the business aspects of running the farm. It just goes hand in hand. We are lucky enough that we have a father who is willing to transition, make it work and not necessarily make us buy the farm right out from underneath him, because then you'd be spending the rest of your life trying to pay that debt off and not trying to prosper and grow the operation.

Brian:             Absolutely. David, I'd like to go right into that then. How did you go about preparing Tyler and Glen to take on the business? For all of our listeners, what are some of the lessons you'd want to pass on to any farmer who's preparing to pass on their operation?

David:             The best I could do is follow the example that my father did for me. He actually incorporated our farm back in 1974 with the sole purpose of transitioning that to the next generation. He gave out shares to my two brothers and myself at the time to introduce us to the farm. We eventually bought him out a few years later.

                        Glen and Tyler, when they graduated from agricultural college, I gave them each 20% of the ownership of the farm. You've got to be an owner in order to be part of it, so we've done that. Now, we're starting discussions on what we're going to do with the other 60% over the next few years, but they're working for themselves.

As I said, I farmed with my two brothers. Circumstances happened over the years and I ended up buying both of them out. It was the goal that I want my brothers to talk to, and we've been successful for that. I actually have one of them, he's come back, and he works for us part-time. That's the definition of a family farm. I've watched some farms here in my community where the grandfather was almost a dictator. He held tight to the ownership and the purse strings and never let go. His children and grandchildren weren't prepared to run the farm, and those farms have disappeared.

                        The other big thing that's helped us to last for generations (is that) we go to a farmers' market. My father started taking me when I was nine, and so that's what I did with our kids, with the three kids. When they turned nine years old, I introduced them to the market. (There were) a couple of rules: number one, there were no calculators. You had to learn math and people skills. You've got to walk up to a customer. You've got to entice them into buying and then make their correct change. That gives you a good, young perspective, whether you farm or not. Those are lessons that are going to carry you well. That really helped in the development of the kids.

Brian:             I think you've touched on a lot of really good points there. In between that, it seems like you've really emphasized open communication, with the whole concept of having shares of the farm, discussing what percentages people own. It also seems like you've resisted the urge within your family for the older folks, maybe the grandfathers of the operation, to act as a dictator. I'll circle back to that in a minute. I do think introducing the kids early to the farmers' market without calculators and, we'll say, without cellphones, in this moment where you had to do both math and people skills and learn the sales side, is really intriguing. I think it's really important to know.

                        To circle back to the comment on dictators, this transition from generation to generation — how do you think you've done personally, David, of now, where at one point, you were maybe the head person in charge, and now you've transitioned to more of a guidance role or are in the process of this transition?

David:             It's not always easy. Sometimes you’ve just got to walk away. We're all human. We all make mistakes. The best lessons I've learned in life have been by the mistakes I've made. You've got to give them the rope to make their own decisions. Heart, that is one thing, and I make this very clear to the boys. I inherited this from my father. He had it, and he called it “the veto power.” Sometimes he did have the final say. The boys know that. I don't exercise it very often, but they listen when it happens. That's how we go about it. We tease each other about “the veto power,” but they're going to get to inherit that at some point in time.

                        We've actually got the eighth generation around here now a lot. I've got a grandson that's two and a half, and he wants to know what's going on around here, even at that young age. That's how we treat it. No two farms are the same. Every farm family has to figure out what's going to work for them, and it's not easy. You're right: communication, passion — those are all key parts of it.

Brian:             You've touched on this, of it not being easy. I think a really tough moment has to be when you let your sons, Tyler and Glen, make their first mistake. David, when will you let Tyler and Glen make their first mistake? If you have already, how did it go?

David:             We're actually dealing with one now. We had some feed that got made in the feed mill without the micro ingredients in there, and that affected a couple of rows of production, so we're living through that. Like I say, I've been there a couple of times over my career with a decision made, and you have to allow it. It's no one's fault. Mistakes happen. It's how do you handle the mistake, and how do you learn from it? I've had a few instances over my career where it really changed fundamentally how we did things, by making that mistake. That's part of it.

Brian:             Well, I was just going to say, yeah, that transition from generation to generation isn't easy. The question I have for you, Tyler — and I'll provide a little more context to it — is how are you different than your dad? At Alltech, we've undergone a similar transition. I’ve had the pleasure to know the late Dr. Pearse Lyons, the founder of Alltech, and the current president and CEO of Alltech, Dr. Mark Lyons.

                        Dr. Pearse Lyons was this driving, visionary entrepreneur. Currently, Mark Lyons is also very entrepreneurial but is really gifted at collaboration, at partnership. He can bring people together unlike anyone I've seen. What's been smart is Dr. Lyons hasn't tried to just be like his dad; he's utilized his unique strengths, and the company has really benefited from that. So, I guess my question to you is: How are you different than your dad?

Tyler:              Well, that's actually a pretty tough question to answer. I've got people who tell me I'm quite a lot like my father. I always have the push to grow the operation. One of the arguments we had is, when you build a barn, what number of birds do you build for? When Dad built his barn in ’86, he built it for 25,400. At the time, he didn't realize this, but they didn't get a quota increase or a bird increase up until the early 2000s, when the barn was almost past its life. But on the other hand, I fought to have extra room in the barn, and we built that back in 2018. Here we are, and we're full, no room to do any bigger, unless we build another barn.

I don't know. I'd like to think I'm more aggressive when it comes to wanting to grow the operation.

David:             Just to clarify that, here in Canada, we have supply management, so we're only allowed a certain number of birds. It's a quota system, and in the quota, you can buy or sell as needed. But as the market grows, then our provincial and national boards will increase the quota, and that's how you grow your quota. That's a whole other conversation.

Brian:             Well, that makes complete sense, and I think it gives some perspective for our international audience. To your point, Tyler, it really seems like you've continued the legacy of Coburn Farms of making decisions that fit the business. That may be a consistency, which is very good throughout generations, but it seems like you've been willing to continue to take those risks that fit the needs of the business. One really final question for you, Tyler, for this conversation is: What advice would you give to someone who's stepping up or continuing a family legacy?

Tyler:              You've got to initiate the conversation and show that you're interested, but keep in mind that if you are working on your family operation — and even if you're a farmhand on someone else's operation that has no people to take it over — you have to make people aware of sweat equity. Yes, you're working on it. Like my father said earlier, he gave us 20% when we graduated from college, and we've had some skin in the game, so then it's not just his head on the table. It's all of ours. It's initiating the conversation, having the tough discussions, which most of us don't want to have those, but it's to keep the ball rolling. You've got to have a plan for the future.

Brian:             That is fantastic. I think that is really — that last point, of having the courage to have tough conversations, particularly within family, is never easy. It's never comfortable. That's something, both David and Tyler, you've touched on, this open line of communication, this transition from being the owner to someone who's being more of a guiding figure, not a dictator. There are just so many lessons. A couple others that stuck out is just taking this early initiative but understanding it's not going to be easy and no two farms are the same.

                        I think this has been a really encouraging conversation, something that will give our listeners advice on how to successfully transition a business between generations. David and Tyler, thank you very much for being on the Ag Future podcast.

David:             Thank you.

Tyler:              Thank you.

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

Dr. Ranveer Chandra, chief scientist at Microsoft Azure Global, joins us to explain the company's FarmBeats project and how it is taking the guesswork out of agriculture. According to Chandra, data-driven agriculture makes operations more profitable and sustainable — but some farmers rely simply on their instincts and personal experience to make decisions about their crops or animals. Chandra and the FarmBeats project seek to provide these farmers with data and insights about their operations that will help them make informed decisions for their production.

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

Tom:                          Dr. Ranveer Chandra is the chief scientist at Microsoft Azure Global, and among the projects he is currently leading is FarmBeats, where he is principal researcher.

                                    The goal is to enable data-driven farming with the aim of improving yield and reducing cost while ensuring sustainability.

                                    Dr. Chandra joins us from Seattle. Thanks for being here, Dr. Chandra.

Dr. Chandra:             Thank you for having me.

Tom:                          And let’s begin, if we could, by laying out some fundamentals. There is this imperative to increase the world’s food production by 70% by 2050. What is driving this effort?

Dr. Chandra:             As you know, the world’s population is increasing, there is more urbanization, more and more people are moving to cities, and there is a need to feed this growing population of the world. That is, the amount of land is not increasing — the amount of good land — the water level is, like, going down, the soil is not getting any richer.

                                    So then, the question is: How can we feed this growing population of the world to — and not just feed them food, just give them food, but give them good food and grow this food in a sustainable way?

Tom:                          I mentioned data-driven farming. How does that differ from traditional agriculture?

Dr. Chandra:             Yeah. A lot of decisions a grower makes are based on guesswork. So, when I started this project, I went and talked to several growers. What I realized is that growers, these producers, they know a lot about their farm; they’ve been farming there for decades and, in some cases, even centuries. Like, there was one farmer who could feel the soil and say what’s going on. There was another farmer who could taste the soil and say what’s going on. But even though they knew a lot about their farm, a lot of decisions they made were based on guesswork — like, for example, how much water to apply, where to apply, what seeds to put, when to put out, when to harvest, when to plant. A lot of these decisions are based on guesswork.

                                    If this guesswork was replaced with data and data-driven insights like a vision is, if you could take a farmer’s knowledge and augment it with data and data-driven insights, you could enable a future of agriculture that is more productive. You could grow more that is more profitable because you would reduce cost; you would use less inputs, less water, less pesticides. It’s also better for the environment for the same reasons: that you’re not wasting water, you’re not wasting pesticide.

                                    So, that is what I mean by data-driven agriculture: the ability to use data to augment the farmer’s knowledge, so that farmers are more profitable and they’re using sustainable practices for their farming.

Tom:                          I’m imagining a field of crops, and perhaps one corner of it, or one section of it, is usually drier than other sections of it, and that can be difficult to detect. Is what we’re talking about here being able to detect areas that need more moisture or less moisture, for example, that kind of thing?

Dr. Chandra:             Yes. So, you’re then able to, like — for example, meaning which, I believe, if you would farm properly, you will have sensors everywhere. You would be able to see what’s going on throughout the farm. Wherever there is stress, you’d be able to respond to it in a timely way. And that’s very difficult to do. Like right now, mostly, you don’t know what your entire farm looks like. With data-driven agriculture, we can give you that view of what your farm looks like at any instant in time. Not just in terms of imagery; maybe even in terms of sensors. For example, what might be happening below the surface.

                                    So, one, you’ll be able to detect what’s going on, and second, you might be able to diagnose why are you seeing what you’re seeing, so that you can then take corrective action and fix that — and exactly to your point that there could parts of the farm that are very different than the others in different ways. For example, it could be in terms of crop stress, it could be in terms of nutrients, it could be in terms of moisture, water stress. And to be able to flag that in a timely way so that you can take corrective action is where data can help.

Tom:                          Okay. Tell us about the FarmBeats project. How does this work?

Dr. Chandra:             The FarmBeats project started in research, and the goal was exactly what we discussed: How do you take guesswork out of agriculture? How do you enable growers to take more decisions based on data and data-driven insights?

                                    And toward that, we have been developing various methods, both in terms of the Internet of Things, being able to get data from the farm, from different sources about the farm. For example, you can have sensors and drones and tractors in the farm, you could have satellite data, weather data. All of these data being able to bring all of that together in one place in the cloud, and bring the benefits of the cloud in artificial intelligence on top of that data, so that you can then start driving insights to the growers.

                                    And that is what we have been doing in the FarmBeats project: coming up with new ways to bring data from remote parts. For example, using new connectivity technologies, being able to leverage a news TV channel to send and receive data, so that even if you have no internet right now, you could then use this new method to start sending data using technology such as edge compute.

                                    That is, if you have a camera somewhere in the farm, sending all that data to the cloud will take a long time and will need a lot of bandwidth. You could, instead, be doing a lot of processing on the farm itself using edge compute. And then, when you bring all of these data to the cloud, you’re bringing new artificial intelligence tools to be able to merge different data streams.

                                    For example, you could be having very few sensors on the farm. We then use artificial intelligence to start predicting what the sensor values would be in other places where you don’t have sensors so that, at low cost, you can then start building these detailed maps of the farm.

                                    So, with the FarmBeats project, that’s what we’re building. We are building this platform for data-driven agriculture, the ability to bring data from different data variety of streams in a way so that you can then start running AI, artificial intelligence techniques on top of that data to drive new insights, to be able to predict things that you otherwise wouldn’t know.

Tom:                          I wonder, how can you gather data from farms that have no access to power in the field — or connection to the internet, for that matter?

Dr. Chandra:             Yeah, and that’s what makes agriculture so fascinating. As you know, my background is in computer science. I’m a computer scientist, and I work in different areas, not just agriculture.

                                    When I started working in agriculture, I realized that the agriculture poses very interesting problems to technology. For example, these farms, many of them do not have any internet; many of them don’t have power. That is, you don’t have power outlets so you could plug in your devices. Well, people say you could use solar panels, but then you have to spend the winter in Seattle to realize that it doesn’t work. We get very cloudy winters.

                                    So then, to address that problem, we’ve been developing new methods. For example, one way to get internet from the middle of the farm is using the technology I mentioned called TV white spaces. What the TV white spaces enable is — imagine a Wi-Fi that can go several miles, and one of the ways you could get that is if you take a white signal and put them in noisy TV channels. These are TV channels you watch using antennas, over-the-air antennas.

                                    You know, when you browse through TV, on certain channels, you get a transmission, and on other channels, all you see is white noise. The interesting thing about that is that most of these TV towers are in the cities. So, if you turn on a TV in the middle of a farm, most of the channels are just white noise. While that’s not great news for a grower who wants to watch TV, it’s great for someone who wants to use that unused TV channel for sending and receiving data. So, even if you have 20 TV channels that are available, we are talking of over a few hundred megabits per second of available capacity in the farm.

So, this is one way in which we are bringing connectivity to the farm. The other thing we are doing is bringing edge compute. That is, this is a scenario where, if you have barns where there are multiple cows and you have cameras, rather than sending all the camera data to the cloud, you could have edge compute. Imagine a small computer sitting in the barn or in the farmer’s house that takes all of this data, the camera data, and runs the processing over there itself, so that you could be sitting in your house and monitoring how your cows are doing. You could be getting alerts if a cow is sick, if the cow is not moving very well.

                                    And these are, again, things that could be enabled because of these new technologies: TV white spaces, edge compute, the Internet of Things. And we’re bringing all of that to agriculture.

Tom:                          This is fascinating. Have these technologies been deployed?

Dr. Chandra:             So, these technologies, some of them are Microsoft products. Like, for example, we have Azure IoT, Azure Edge, the Azure Stack Edge. And in the context of agriculture, we are working on some of these technologies. We have farms where we’ve deployed TV white spaces, we’ve deployed edge compute, we are doing all of this intelligence on top. And there are various farms in the U.S. and abroad where we’ve deployed this and shown the feasibility of this technology.

Tom:                          How are you using drones and sensors to map such key data as soil moisture and pH levels?

Dr. Chandra:             One of the things we want to know that the growers want to know is: How do certain soil properties (that) are in the farm produce certain weather properties (that) are in the farm? And you could get that information using sensors. So, these are sensors, for example, you could get from our partners, such as Davis Instruments special instruments.

                                    But the question, then, is where do you put these sensors? And so, one of the algorithms we have, an artificial intelligence algorithm we have, is it will tell you — once you give it the farm boundary, we then get the satellite image for that farm. And then, for that farm historically, we look at the satellite imagery for that plot of land and then estimate the best places that you need to put sensors.

                                    You could — say you have, say, three sensors. You can then use artificial intelligence to decide the best places you put those sensors. Once you put those sensors in the farm, the data then starts going all the way to the cloud. What that means is you could be anywhere in the world and you could turn on your phone and you’ll be able to see what your farm looks like, what those sensor values look like.

                                    But the question, then, is if you have, say, a thousand acres of land and you put just three sensors, it will just tell you three points in the farm. You want to know more; you just don’t want to know those three points where you intelligently place the sensors.

                                    This is where we use, again, artificial intelligence, where we combine the sensors with aerial imagery, say, from drones or satellite. The way we use it is, our key insight — and you would be able to relate to it — is that if two parts of the farm look similar, they are likely to have similar values. When I say look similar, it’s not just in red, green and blue, but in multispectral or high-spectral imagery, they are likely to have similar values.

                                    And we incorporate this intuition, this insight, in an artificial intelligence model again, where we combine the small, the sensor values with aerial imagery, say, from satellites or drones to build a heat map of what your farm looks like. So, with very few sensors, by bringing the latest in technology, you’re able to visualize what the problems are in different parts of the farm.

                                    And then, partners, the companies that we work with, could then start building solutions on top. Once you have this map, you can see how you could build several agricultural advisory solutions — for example, for irrigation or fertilizer management or others — on top of this framework to start providing insights to the growers.

Tom:                          We’ve been talking about farming that revolves around crops, around plants. How is the technology being used in animal husbandry — poultry, for example?

Dr. Chandra:             Yeah, that’s a very interesting question. And I recently gave that talk at the Alltech poultry conference. You could — the same ideas that I talked about could be used for poultry as well.

                                    For example, I talked about how, in a barn where you have cows, you could be using cameras to determine how the cows are moving around. Imagine, like, a baby monitor, but for cows. You could then get notification when a cow is sick so that you can then provide timely intervention to manage the cows.

                                    The same things could be used for poultry as well. That is, a lot of times, when you’re in chicken coops, you might not, like — especially when the chickens are young — you want to know how they’re doing, you want to know that the conditions are right. You might want to put sensors in the farm; you might want to put temperature sensors (or), in some cases, humidity sensors. So, (something) similar to kind of an IoT system could be beneficial for poultry, too. 

In fact, we are taking a step further. One of the projects we did, this was with the University of Washington, is where we’re looking at acoustic information that — instead of cameras, where cameras can’t see through obstructions, we were looking at putting microphones in chicken coops. And the system that the students spearheaded was called [clucky?] eye, where they had these microphones, and then, by looking, by observing the sound patterns of chicken, you could tell when a chicken is in stress. And that would be information that you could flag to a farmer (and) say, “Hey, go, there’s something wrong. Maybe there is predation going on; the chickens are not happy, for whatever reason.” And this is, this could help poultry farmers be more profitable (and) avoid damage which, otherwise, which will be just hard to monitor.

And there are many more new cases, too, and this is where I really enjoy talking to farmers. So, if there’s any farmer who’s listening to this podcast and would like to discuss ideas of how technology could be used for poultry farming or other farming practices, I would love to get them a comment (or) chat.      

Tom:                          How they can reach you?

Dr. Chandra:             Yes. The best would be to either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email on ranveer@microsoft.com, and I try to get back on email. So, I would love to talk to more growers, more people in the agriculture community, to discuss ways in which we can bring the technologies I talked about and many new things to help farmers be more profitable and practice the most sustainable practices.

Tom:                          Talking about profitability, what about the cost of purchasing and deploying these technologies. How do you make it affordable to small farms, in particular, that might be interested but may be discouraged by the cost?

Dr. Chandra:             This is where we want — well, that’s one of the other problems with agriculture, is you want to be providing a lot of these insights, and you want to get data from a lot of places that do not have great connectivity, but you also want to bring the cost of these devices down to a point where they’re affordable. And that’s been one thread of what we have been trying to pursue as part of the research, is (what) we (can) use to bring down the cost of these data-driven agriculture technologies.

                                    For example, I talked about leveraging TV white spaces for connectivity, leveraging artificial intelligence, so that you need much fewer sensors than what you would otherwise need to build out these maps for farms. And that’s been a concentration of the research teams that they are pursuing at Microsoft, in my team. And we are continuing to push the bar even lower (and) come up with new technologies to make it more and more affordable for the growers.

                                    If growers want to use any of these technologies, I think there are solutions, and we are working with partners on building solutions that can be affordable for the growers, that can be at the price point the growers can afford. Because, even for us, the eventual question that technology providers and our partners are trying to address is: What is the price of technology such that the return on investment for the grower is much more than the amount that they are investing in these technologies? For example, through sensors or whatever, we want to provide insights that can help the farmer be much more profitable than the amount that they’re investing in deploying these technologies in the farm.

Tom:                          If any of our listeners would like to actually see this technology in action, is a demonstration available?

Dr. Chandra:             Yes, Tom. There are few places where the people can see this in action. Of course, we are working — we have announced partnerships with other companies, which are starting to use this technology.

For example, we announced this partnership with the USDA, where — there’s a farm in Beltsville, Maryland, where we have deployed this. We also have a demo farm on the Microsoft campus; we do several demos here. And there’s actually another farm in eastern Washington. This is 9,000-acre farm spread over 45 miles. And there is a farmer I work with very closely, Andrew Nelson, he’s a fifth-generation wheat farmer, and he’s been using technology in his farm. He’s been using FarmBeats, he uses TV white spaces, (and) that is because his farm spreads over 45 miles, he doesn’t have to go everywhere every day. Using the connectivity, he can monitor where what’s going on.

He uses drones. He uses the drone’s information and combines that with leveraging FarmBeats. And then, he’s able to do the right application, the right intervention at the correct time in his farm. And there’s a video on the FarmBeats website where he talks about his experiences and how technology has benefitted what he’s doing in the farm.

And, in fact, his story just tells a very good story even otherwise that, as you probably know, one of the big problems in agriculture is the aging population of the farmers. The next generation of growers don’t want to get into farming. And, Andrew’s story — Andrew is, as I said, is a fifth-generation farmer. Like many others (in the) next generation of farmers, he came to Seattle, he did his undergrad in the University of Washington in computer science, and then he worked in the city for a while. And then, because of technology, he decided to go back to agriculture. And he’s going, he’s gone back, he’s farming again, (and) he’s using technology, he’s using all of the latest cutting-edge tech in his farm.

And this is a story which, as you can see, it appeals to many farmers of the next generation, the younger farmers, where you can then start using the latest in technology for your farm to see the benefits of how technology can help you farm better, help you produce more. And in the process, you actually use the latest and best in technology that’s out there.

Tom:                          You know, that brings me to a question I wanted to run by you anyway, and that’s how you’re using these technologies to have a societal impact.

Dr. Chandra:             So, these technologies can help with sustainability. That’s one direction where we are actively working on leveraging these technologies, to estimate the amount of carbon that’s sequestered in soil. That is, using these technologies, a farmer can reduce their emissions because, you know — like, for example, they’re not using more chemicals than needed; they could be using good sustainable agriculture practices, like regenerative agriculture, like the distill. But not just that. Growers can use this technology to help increase the amount of carbon that’s sequestered in soil.

                                    At the (same) time, when people have realized the importance of doing something for climate change, for reducing the amount of carbon emissions, agriculture can actually help provide the solution. Farmers can help put some of this carbon back into the soil. So, if you’re thinking of companies who want to, companies or organizations who are looking to reduce their carbon footprint, agriculture could provide the solution.

                                    And using technology, farmers can use these regenerative agriculture methods while still staying profitable — not reducing their profitability — and yet, enabling a new income stream by putting carbon into soil. So, that’s one of the things that technology could enable.

                                    In addition to that, we are also, at Microsoft, through Microsoft philanthropy, we are looking to bring technology to the rural population, enable the skilling of the rural population. For example, there is a skill gap, where there are quite a few jobs, but there’s not enough skilled population to fill those jobs.

                                    And with FarmBeats, one of the things we’ve done is we’ve created FarmBeats student kits, we’ve created partnerships with the FFA with 4-H, where we are working with these organizations. And (we’re) working with, for example, the FFA chapters to bring technology into the curriculum of high school students even when they are in school, helping introduce them to the latest in technology, so that when they graduate, they are fully skilled in all of these technology methods, and they also know how would you apply these technologies in agriculture.

                                    So, on the social good side, we are working on sustainability, on rural skilling, on air band, which is about providing connectivity to rural areas. We’re working on multiple directions to bring technology to the rural population in the U.S. and all over the world.

Tom:                          I wonder if the work with the FFA, the Future Farmers of America, is helping to overcome that reluctance of this emerging generation to go into the field of agriculture?

Dr. Chandra:             I think so. And I think, as you show what’s possible with technology, more and more of the younger farmers will get excited to stay back in agriculture. In fact, when I talk to them, I tell them how, with agriculture, you’re seeing the latest in technology being applied to agriculture — with artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, with cloud computing, edge computing, all of that, the latest is coming to agriculture. And some of the FFA students that I have met, they’ve been so excited to be flying drones, to be using the latest in robotics in the farm. I think this exposure would help the next generation of farmers see the opportunities of what is possible by staying back in the farm.

                                    Like, for example, the agriculture industry is not going away. We all still need food. And in fact, the importance of growing good food — the importance of growing food in a sustainable way — has never been more visible. Now, there is a bigger need for that, and technology can help address that.

                                    And this is an opportunity: the more of the next-generation farmers, the more they see technology as a way to bridge that gap, the more entrepreneurial opportunities that exist. We see that more and more of the next-generation farmers would stay back, would want to, in fact, contribute — either leverage this technology or invent new technologies — to help agriculture be more sustainable, to help feed the world.

Tom:                          I don’t want to diminish or downplay the hard, hard work that is farming and the seriousness of farming and the things we’ve been talking about, but I have to say, what you’re talking about here sounds kind of fun.

Dr. Chandra:             Yeah. And, of course, all of this is possible, as it builds on top of all the hard work that farmers do to ensure that all of us are getting good food.

Tom:                          What are the focuses of your current research?

Dr. Chandra:             Right now, we are continuing to push the boundaries of technology for digital agriculture to make it even more affordable for the growers.

And one of the things — like, for example, we talked about how we’re looking to bring down the cost using artificial intelligence, using new connectivity technologies, but even then, the cost of a probe, a sensor probing the farm, is still a few hundred dollars. Like, for example, if you go look at sensors out there on the internet, it will be a few hundred (or) even, in some cases, a thousand dollars, which, while for some farmers here, it’s affordable, but a lot of farmers in the developing world, that still puts it out of their budget. They won’t spend like someone who’s farming an acre or a couple of acres; they won’t spend a few hundred dollars to put sensors in the farm.

                                    And this is what we are doing with — one of the things we are continuing to investigate is: how do you bring down the cost of these sensors even more? How do you make sure that farmers can get data from the farm at an even lower cost?

                                    One of the ideas we’ve come up with is to leverage Wi-Fi to send soil. Many farmers, they won’t spend a few hundred dollars to purchase a new sensor, but then they have a smart phone, even though it is an inexpensive smart phone. If they have a smart phone, it has Wi-Fi. And one of the new technologies we have built is where you can use the time of light of a Wi-Fi signal to estimate the soil moisture and soil electrical conductivity.

So, we’re envisioning a future where anyone can go to a farm, any farmer who has a phone can just bring their phone close to soil and can get the information about what’s happening in the soil, (or) can actually drive around, maybe, in a bicycle, and then you have a map of what the farm looks like.

So, these are things, this is just one example, but we are continuing to invent new technologies to significantly bring down the cost of data-driven agriculture. We want farmers everywhere in the world to be able to get information about what’s happening in their farm, things that they can see and things that they cannot see, at the price point which they can afford, so that once they get the data, you can then start bringing the benefits of artificial intelligence to every farmer in the world.

The vision here is to democratize technology, democratize data-driven agriculture, so that every farmer everywhere in the world can benefit from data and data-driven insight.

Tom:                          This has been so fascinating. Dr. Ranveer Chandra, the chief scientist at Microsoft Azure Global. Thank you so much for taking time for us.

Dr. Chandra:             Thank you, Tom. Nice talking to you.

Nori is a Seattle-based startup that aims to reverse climate change through their marketplace for carbon removal. Aldyen Donnelly, director of carbon economics with Nori, discusses how the company is helping farmers get paid to fight climate change, how these carbon removal practices can benefit farmers' productivity and what she believes are the keys for encouraging the corporate world to commit to reducing their production emissions.

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

Tom:                          Welcome to Ag Future, presented by Alltech. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities facing the global food supply chain and speak with experts working to support a Planet of Plenty™.

Tom:                          I'm Tom Martin, and I'm joined by Aldyen Donnelly, a small-business developer and consultant who, in the 1990s, began working on market-driven strategies to reduce the atmospheric carbon concentrations now known to contribute to climate change. She coauthored Nova Scotia’s 2009 greenhouse gas emissions regulations, a first in North America. Nori, the Seattle-based startup Aldyen cofounded, aims to reverse climate change by incentivizing the removal of excess carbon from our atmosphere. It's a significant undertaking in an economic system that makes it easier and more profitable to emit carbon than to avoid doing so. Appropriately, Alden is the company's director of carbon economics, and she's joining us from Vancouver. Greetings, Aldyen.

Aldyen:                      Nice to meet you.

Tom:                          So, tell us first, briefly, about Nori. How did a company form around the goal of reversing climate change?

Aldyen:                      Nori’s original three founders are a couple of individuals who were doing well and in the high-tech space, Silicon Valley kind of world, and one who was part of the Climate Change Advisory Institute at Berkeley. And they met and realized that, personally, they wanted to focus their time and energy on something that would deliver a great social good. So, they came up with this idea, as well as the name, started saving their money and coming up with ideas about what they'd like to do in this regard. And I met them later, when a friend of one of the three original founders’ dad suggested they meet me, and it’s been fine ever since. We are actually a total of seven founding partners, and there are 10 of us in the company in total at the moment.

Tom:                          And what motivates this focus on the connection between carbon emissions and climate change?

Aldyen:                      For me, to be perfectly honest, it's not carbon emissions and climate change, per se. I have spent a lot of my life on sailboats, likely using sailboats, and I'm an old lady now, but about 30 years ago, I started seeing very dramatic changes in the ocean life and the way sea life movement patterns were changing while I was on the water so much of the time, and I started asking what was this all about, if it's good or bad. And that's when I first — and this is in the mid-’80s — started reading about the science that related the increasing concentrations of heat-trapping gases, mostly CO₂, in the atmosphere and the impact it could have on ocean and sea life.

                                    So, what drove me was what was happening in the ocean. It’s more than climate change. I must admit, that’s still my primary driver. I think the disruption to ocean life has such large potential that that's enough reason to take this very, very seriously. So, yes, there's a broader story about climate change and extreme weather events, which even makes the situation more dramatic, but I think the original events that drew me in were dramatic enough. Thank you very much.

Tom:                          And just briefly, Aldyen, just curious, what's the story behind the name of the company, Nori?

Aldyen:                      The original founders picked Nori before I became involved, which is quite a coincidence. Nori is Japanese for seaweed. And in the Japanese history, people have been growing and eating seaweeds since the 700s. Many algae-based seaweed species are potentially an ideal example of a sustainable food source. But also, in the history of seaweed, which is obviously now a long history, there was a point in time where seaweed production almost died out and was rebuilt. And also, it's now an industry that has to be paying attention to the difference between the sustainable and extractive industrial practices. So, that whole history of nori, the seaweed and the future potential role of seaweed as a long-term, sustainable nutrient source is really important. So, it was a great four-letter word through the history, which was exactly what we are thinking about and working on every day.

Tom:                          Our focus is going to be on regenerative agriculture. Can you give us just a brief definition of that term?

Aldyen:                      Regenerative agriculture is the new term that was probably mostly thought of as conservation cropping practices when the idea first started to get legs, 30 and 40 years ago. It's also been called “sustainable” agriculture in the past, but that fell out of fashion, and so, that new word is “regenerative” agriculture. And I hope, as many hope, that we will come up with a better, easier-to-say term option sooner rather than later.

                                    But historically, when all nations, not just North America, shifted to highly productive food and fiber production practices, we introduced a bunch of ways of doing things that have the positive effect of producing way more food per acre but (also have) a number of negative effects. To keep the soil in production, we started adding synthetic chemicals, because we were depleting the capacity of the soil to naturally support the food production. In that process, we've done many things. One of the most important things that we have done (is) it’s estimated that, over the last 300 years, we've permanently removed 50% of the carbon that our soils used to support and retain and sustain (themselves) year to year. And we use synthetic chemicals and other processes to make up for that loss.

                                    Over the last 30 or 40 years, a lot of great research has proved that there are ways of changing how we manage the soil and how we manage cropping practices, too, (while working) at the same time, to maintain very high levels of crop production per acre. We turn the soil to its healthiest state and rebuild that present stock, and that's a very, very large opportunity to do two things at the same time. First, (get) extra CO₂ out of the atmosphere and store the recovered carbon in soils, which has that huge capacity to retain more carbon than they are right now — and also, in so doing, building a much healthier topsoil. The top 30 centimeters of the soil is what most people are talking about, which is exactly what we need to ensure that our growing territories are resilient in the event of global warming. So, it's one of the only investments you can make that, coincidentally, reduces the risk of climate change while preparing the soil to be more resilient and stay productive in the event of climate change. Best investment anybody could ever make.

Tom:                          What does it mean that 1.5 to 2 degrees of global warming by 2100 is almost inevitable? It that's a given, what are the likely consequences?

Aldyen:                      First of all, they say “inevitable” because when we release a ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, its life in the atmosphere is at least 100 years. So, the warming impact of adding that heat-trapping gas to the atmosphere lasts for 100 years after we release it. So, even though it's only 2020, we already know how much CO₂ is up there and how much we're likely to release over the next 10 years or so. And that adds up, if you look at the modeling, to that very high risk. By the end of this century, we will have that amount of warming.

                                    Two degrees doesn't sound like much, but it has a lot of potential to make land we think of as productive now (become) unproductive. You know, verification goes with that scenario — massively shifting where food can be produced and how much it can be produced. The model suggests it’s likely due to change weather patterns and result in many more extreme weather events: hurricanes, tornados, rainstorms, thunderstorms, floods and droughts. It's not just drought; it’s floods and droughts. One of the pictures of global warming that is always in my head is just gray, total gray, in that future. Where (there) is snow during the winter now, that’s more likely to be rain and freezing rain (in the future). Freezing after rain is much more destructive than a normal snow event. And it's not a nice picture.

Tom:                          You know, 2100 may seem distant, it may seem like a long way off, but a person born today likely is going to live to experience this.

Aldyen:                      They’re going to live to experience it, and everything they do in their lifetime will determine whether or not it happens.

Tom:                          Your projects have included using emission reduction credits to finance carbon sequestration in agricultural soils. What are emission reduction credits, and how can they be used to finance carbon sequestration in farmland?

Aldyen:                      Now, I'm going to go all Nori promotional on you because I use the term “emission reduction credits” in my general language, and you're right about that. In Nori, we’re calling them Nori carbon removal times (NRTs). And so, I’m gonna pitch NRTs for the rest of the —

Tom:                          That’s quite all right.

Aldyen:                      What we are saying is, (in the) U.S. or anywhere in the world, a farmer can elect to reduce their pillage activity, the amount of plowing of their fields and (subsequently) releasing soil carbon to the atmosphere and exposing it to the atmosphere. That is common practice: to change their crop rotations, to change how they do irrigation, to add cover crops and do other things that essentially accelerate microbial activity in that biogeochemical process that includes photosynthesis, the work that plants do.

                                    So, plants draw CO₂ out of the atmosphere and microbes down by the roots of the plant, and soil breaks down that CO₂, and some of the carbon goes into plant growth. Some of it goes back up to the atmosphere, and some of it stays in the soil. And the more we retain in the soil, the more productive our plants are and the greater the service they provide in pulling CO₂ out of the atmosphere. So, we are saying to farmers, “Find the best combination of changing how you grow food so that you’re maximizing the amount of CO₂ you’re drawing out of the atmosphere and, of that CO₂, you're maximizing the amount of incremental carbon you store in the soil. And when you do that and we can demonstrate that you have drawn an incremental ton of heat-trapping gas out of the atmosphere, we issue an NRT, and then corporations and individuals who want to offset their own carbon footprint can buy those NRTs (with the) confidence that they know they have bought real interest in 1 ton of heat-trapping gas pulled out of the atmosphere.” And even more attractive (is) that they’ve invested in a healthier, more productive food system at the same time.

Tom:                          Am I correct that you have created a marketplace for carbon removal? And this sets up ways for farmers to actually be paid to store carbon in their soil? That's the sequestration. How does that work?

Aldyen:                      Yes. We invite farmers to provide us a bunch of operating data — that’s information we need to know, both historical and going forward, to be confident that they are building up their soil carbon stocks. And when they provide us the data and then an independent third-party verifier provides us assurance that the data is reasonable and replicable — that’s the term we use, “reasonably accurate” — then we issue NRTs to the farmer in our marketplace. And the NRTs are offered for sale. And we only started offering NRTs for sale for our suppliers last September. And to date, when NRTs are listed for sale, they've been selling out within 24 hours.

                                    We often have a backlog of demand for NRTs, and farmers have been earning $15 a ton for those NRTs on average so far. To put that in context, the typical farmer who decides they want to pursue this objective is generating, on average, revenues in the order of $27–40 per acre per year before government subsidies. Now, that represents a wide range of earnings in U.S. farmland, ranging from, say, a loss of $9 per acre to earnings of $80 per acre. The typical farmer can adopt practices that will draw down roughly 1 ton per acre per year. So, adding $15 per acre per year to the earning potential of farmers for whom $27–40 is the normal range is very significant financially. So, again, you're able to deliver new revenues to farmers who really need it. At the same time, you're delivering this very significant environmental service to society.

Tom:                          In your (Alltech ONE Virtual Experience) presentation, you begin by sharing quite a lot of data to allow your audience to form their own opinions about what it says and how they should react to the information. And in your first slide, you note that even if all nations complied with the aims of the Paris Accord, the world would still need to cut or offset about 15 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas discharges annually by 2030. Of course, we know that all nations are not complying —  most conspicuously, the United States, which has pulled out of the agreement. As long as the U.S. refrains from meeting this goal, is it futile for the others to even try?

Aldyen:                      No. It means a couple of things. It means we've got to do our best, and then we have to figure out how to mitigate the impacts of warming given that, as you said earlier in the interview, it's probably inevitable, for the reasons you just outlined. So, the first part is (that) U.S. crop producers, on their own, have the capacity to draw down — while they're becoming more profitable — up to 1.5 billion tons a year. And all crop producers worldwide do have the capacity to draw down by docking regenerative ag practices anywhere. We're not sure, but (that would equal something) between 10 billion and 25 billion tons per year. Now, we’re not going to mobilize 100% of that capacity tomorrow afternoon, but that is the way to take a significant bite in that 15-billion-ton-per-year deficit that we’ve got to address by 2030. I just don’t see any argument why not (to do this) because, again, when we invest in regenerative ag, we are doing two things: We are taking a bite (out of) that 15-billion-ton-per-year deficit, and we're doing it in such a way that we're making the soils more resilient if the warming that we're worried about actually occurs. So, we should be optimistic that we can do a lot and start doing it.

Tom:                          How about the corporate world? How’s the corporate world responding to calls to reduce their contributions to climate change?

Aldyen:                      I perceive — I’m an eternal optimist — that things are changing for the better here. There is a history that’s evidenced in some of the slide that you just referred to, that I present often. There is a history of corporate talking the talk (but) not walking the walk.

                                    Fifty corporations worldwide account for 57% of all of the manmade greenhouse gas emissions, when we account for their production emissions and also the emissions that you and I discharge when we use their product, like the emissions that go out of the tailpipe of our gasoline-powered car. That's only 50 companies. And to be frank, while everybody is saying the right things, none of those companies have yet made a commitment or produced a plan to reorient their core business description to move away from fossil fuels as their revenue source. Again, many are talking the talk. But if you actually look at their financial statements, if you're looking at all of the big oil companies, they are saying the right things, but it's still the case that, year after year, more than 50% of their capital spending plan is dedicated to finding and extracting more fossil fuels.

                                    It really feels like we're on the brink. It really feels like at least some of the big leaders are considering change seriously for the first time. It's really going to be important for the companies we think of as big oil to change their image of themselves and think of themselves as “big energy.” And in that future, they're going to be way, way more focused on supplying electricity and storage capacity, battery storage capacity, than oil and gas. We're not there yet, but it’s starting to feel like we’re on the brink.

Tom:                          So, you just began to sketch out what, I take, an aggressive climate change action plan would look like, correct? And could you expand on that?

Aldyen:                      Well, an aggressive climate change action would, again, involve —  and it’s big, big companies, but we only need to get to 50 of them — it’s not thousands and thousands — to really change their idea of what their core business is and to think of themselves as in the core business of supplying energy broadly, not just oil and gas. And the really exciting thing about that is, you know what? That's not doing something they've never done before. That's very much like returning their business model back toward something much like what it was in the ’40s and ’50s.

                                    You know, when I was growing up in the ’60s, the first credit card my father had was from a company called Home Oil. And the same company that delivers oil to the tank in our house that we used to heat our home also ran the gas station we took our car to. So, going forward, that energy company is going to want to be both delivering electricity and heat to our home as well as electricity that we need for mobile transport. So, it’s just about them returning to a business model that they executed very, very successfully 50 years ago with different energy sources behind that business model. It's hard to make change, but they can. And that’s one of the key parts of what we need to see happen. I think we need to do a better job of inventing shifts in that direction both in terms of how we design policy and regulations as a society and how we communicate their options to consumers.

Tom:                          If “the big 50” got on board and everybody involved engaged in a very aggressive action plan, is it impossible to say how long it would take to draw down emissions to acceptable levels?

Aldyen:                      History tells us — it's not possible to say how long, but history tells us two things. So, we have some amazing pollution reduction success stories in our history — the whole industrialized world, not just North America. We got the lead out of gasoline and paint. We lowered sulfur levels in diesel and in the electricity supply chain. We got the ozone-depleting substances out of refrigerant chemicals and saw that hole in the ozone layer shrink. And in all three of those precedents, once we got rolling, we achieved the environmental goal way faster than we had thought we were going to before we got started.

                                    Whenever we look back, we see two things. If, in policy and regulation, governments decide that it's the role of government to set price or pick the solution and, then, put incentives in place to make the market adopt that solution, we fail. Every time we take that approach, we give up, and it takes a long, long time to achieve our environmental goal — if we even stick to our commitment to achieve it. Alternatively, if you look at all of our historical success stories, whenever a government said, “Okay, you guys, this thing that you’ve embedded in the products and services you sell is creating pollution that's damaging; reduce that input in your supply chain (to) this mandatory rate,” you figure out how to do it. So, you leave it to industry and the private sector to figure out how to price and what solutions to choose. Every time we’ve said to industry, “Take it out over time; you've got this much time; clear it out yourself,” we have actually achieved our pollution-reduction goals ahead of schedule and at way lower cost than anybody imagined when we started.

                                    So, the greenhouse gas version of that would be a simple regulation that says, “If you supply energy in the United States, you report your global supply chain fossil carbon content in that energy supply chain, and you cut it by …” And then we have a big fight over whether that “by,” what comes after “by,” is 3% or 5% per annum — but you don't tell them what to put in, and you don't tell them how to price things and, you know, allocate rights to do things. You just say, you know, “Get the fossil carbon out of your products and services you’re suppling us. Here’s how much time you have, and figure it out.” And I’m sure that if we just moved to that way of thinking, markets like the one we're building in Nori will become commonplace, where participants in the market will, on their own, trade credits to comply with the rule — and we will be surprised. We will be very pleasantly surprised.

Tom:                          You've noted that 100% of corporate investments in new energy solutions rely on continuing revenues from sales of fossil fuels. Isn't that a pretty serious contradiction, and is it possible to break out of that cycle?

Aldyen:                      When I say (that) the big companies have talked the talk and not walked (the walk) so far, it’s because, yes, what you just attributed to me is true. And more than that, when you look at the investments they’ve made in new energy solutions, yes, their commitments have always been conditional. And they maintain some revenues from fossil fuels and have margins that they then dedicate (to) new energy solutions. But in fact, most of the time, too, the private-sector investment is conditional on also getting a government subsidy. And as I said, when we get into that trap where reducing pollution requires government to say, “Oh, gee, yes, I approve the solution, and I'm gonna give it this subsidy,” it’s never worked. It's never worked in the past.

                                    It's not just about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. It's about every pollutant we've tried to move out of our supply chain. We get into this very, very difficult, slow process where market signals are perverted and the ability of the market to do what it does, which is innovate and compete on price, is impaired. So, yeah, I know (that) when we move off that way of thinking and say, “Okay, like I said, if you deliver energy, report your global fossil carbon content per million BTU of energy delivered, I don't care if the energy, you know, what the makeup of the energy product portfolio is you deliver, and leave it to the marketplace to find solutions,” the market will just bloom, and they’ll come up with ideas that you and I have never thought of to date.

Tom:                          Well, Aldyen, can most of us just go on with business as usual and rely on science and technology to save us from climate change?

Aldyen:                      No. As I think you’ve heard in my comments so far, I think we need to, as citizens, ask our government to seriously consider moving forward with the kind of command regulation that I just mentioned — again, the key being (that) it’s a command to reduce the fossil carbon content in the product supply chain and not to dictate what they sell and how they price it. We do need that regulation. I would argue we all know that, for example — and I know this is a source of debate in the U.S. at this time — but I think most experts, certainly, agree that the energy efficiency accomplishments we’ve seen realized in the traditional car fleet wouldn't have happened unless our government had said to the manufacturers, “You have to increase the efficiency of the fleet of cars you produce every year on this schedule over time.” That's called the cafe standard.

                                    One of the reasons you need regulations is because even when everyone who’s a leader in the industry thinks they know how to achieve a higher efficiency or deliver a better product, they still have to make a very risky up-front in investment. And often, when you’re in a competitive marketplace, you can’t afford to take the risk of doing that on your own and being the only one. So, sometimes, a simple, straightforward regulation levels the playing field, and then you’re motivating all of those very, very capable companies to compete for market share in the new context, where the requirement to lower the pollution — it’s called the pollution precursor — content in the supply chain exists. When you take that approach of basic regulation to level the playing field and leave it for the private sector to go for it in that context, we have lots of history that tells us (that) we surprise ourselves every time.

Tom:                          Aldyen Donnelly is a cofounder and director of carbon economics at Nori, a carbon-removal marketplace based in Seattle. She joins us from Vancouver. Thanks, Aldyen.

Aldyen:                      Thanks for having me.

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

While food can be a very emotional experience that brings people together, food producers must use technology and rigid analysis to recognize trends in consumer eating habits. Jarrod Sutton, senior vice president of Strategy and Innovation at the National Pork Board, joins us to discuss his role in making the pork industry more responsive to consumers through data-driven insights.

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

Tom: Welcome to AgFuture, presented by Alltech. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities facing the global food supply chain and speak with experts working to support a Planet of Plenty.

This is Tom Martin, and joining me is Jarrod Sutton, senior vice president of strategy and innovation at the National Pork Board. Greetings, Jarrod.

Jarrod: Hello, Tom. Thank you for having me.

Tell us briefly, if you would, for starters, about the mission of the Pork Board.

Well, the U.S. National Pork Board is the organization that represents all of America’s pork producers, and, quite candidly, our job is to strengthen the value of pork in the marketplace.

But really, we’re out to change the world. We’re out to feed the growing population, and we do that by, essentially, doing what’s right by pigs, doing what’s right by people and doing what’s right by the planet.

And do I understand correctly that you focus on what you just told us and that you don’t focus on lobbying or influencing policy?

Yeah. That’s correct. The National Pork Board is a quasi-governmental organization, so it falls under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Agriculture, and as such, we’re prohibited from doing any type of lobbying and advocacy influence in the political stage.

That being said, we do invest in research and in promotion, as well as consumer information. And that’s part of our mandate, which is part of the 1985 Farm Bill and is referred to as the Pork Act and Order.

Okay. I know that you’ve had marketing and social responsibility roles in the pork industry, and I’ve read that your current role is to help the industry be more future-focused, insight-driven and responsive to customers. And I’d like to look at each of those one at a time.

The first one (is) focusing on the future of the pork industry, especially in these times, when the food service industry has been knocked back on its heels by the coronavirus pandemic. What do you see in the future of the industry?

Well, clearly, it’s been a tremendous challenge for pork producers the last several months, given not only the closures in food service but the issues that have happened at the processing plant-level. You had people getting sick, and obviously, that’s a real problem. And those workers at the plant level were deemed essential workers by the current administration, but we knew they were essential workers long before the rest of the world did.

And so, when people start getting sick, clearly, that presents tremendous issues and challenges for the industry to overcome. We’re so glad that the government has been able to step in and provide the assistance and the proper equipment to help reduce the risk of those important workers from getting sick.

And so, that slowed down both the food service as well (and), at the processing level, created some challenges to farmers — just backing the system up, quite candidly. But when you look at things from a consumer lens, obviously, the buying habits shifted like we’ve not seen before, where people were rushing to their grocer or, certainly, purchasing online and stocking up on products, and the meat department benefitted from that.

What we saw and have seen, actually, through the first week of June is the most current data. The total meat department sales — and (the) meat department is leading all categories in the retail supermarket space. There is 24.2% (growth) versus in 2019, which is pretty significant. Pork itself is at 30%, so it has actually surpassed the growth of the entire category.

So, clearly, more people in the United States are eating more pork at home than at any given point in the history of the data and the record-keeping. (We’re) giving consumers information, which is, frankly, easier than ever before, right? Digitally, we can provide consumers videos and recipes. With more people with more pork on hand at home than ever before, we want to deliver those tools to people to ensure that they can have a successful eating experience so that (we can) sustain demand as food service starts to open back up.

And that’s really an important part of our focus as well, is to ensure that we’ve got all of our distributor partners, all of our restaurant partners, chefs included, really geared up and ready with the latest consumer-trend information to be as successful as they possibly can be with not only the products that they’re menuing — which, likely, will be a limited assortment — but also to menu in the right way to be most relevant with how consumer needs and demands have shifted.

And so, (we’re) really focused on sustaining that demand and experience and growth at the retail point of purchase and helping prepare our food service partners to be successful as they begin to reopen.

I mentioned that another of your roles is to help the industry become more insight-driven, and I would assume that that has to do with data and so forth, but can you elaborate? Tell us what it means to be insight-driven.

Yeah. Food is very emotional. It’s what brings people together. It’s what comforts us in times of uncertainties and unknowns. And, certainly, when we think about buying and selling and producing food, it can oftentimes be emotional as well. And it’s become, really, a central part of dialogue and debate and technology and innovation, obviously, in the geopolitical issues.

And so, I’ve learned a long time ago, Tom, that really everybody’s got ideas, everybody’s got opinions — that’s what makes the world go round — but data really is what it is. And if you can collect smart data and spend time strategically analyzing that data, you can quickly see, really, the trends that are taking shape.

So we just do trend-spotting, right? Then, you can anchor in on those things that are truly the certainties, the real moments of human truths. And given the digital technology and many people walking around with smart phone devices that, you know, really are demonstrating, by the hour, how we live — all that digital exhaust that we’re leaving a trail of is captured and reported back to organizations like the U.S. National Pork Board to effectively understand where to place that and how we can effectively drive innovation in our industry to ensure that pork remains relevant and continues to meet those changing consumer needs.

So, we talk about being data-heavy and assumption-light. The assumptions, I think — people say maybe they weren’t, and those are important points for dialogue, for sure. But I want to see a source and a reference. I want to be data-driven in the decisions that we’re making on behalf of a big pig industry to feed the world.

So, Jarrod, it sounds like that connects to the third leg of the stool, which is to help the industry become more responsive to customers. Has there been a need for improvement in that area?

Absolutely. I think the biggest challenge for our industry is truly understanding the implications for pork that these changing consumer needs present. And so, that’s why we set out on this journey, back in 2017, to conduct a comprehensive demand landscape throughout the entire United States to really get to know the different segments of consumers from coast to coast and how their lives had changed, how food plays a role in those lives and, you know, the expectations for the protein, specifically, that they are determining whether or not to purchase.

And that helped us. It’s kind of like the Stockdale paradox. You know, we’ve got a great product and we’re very optimistic and confident that, clearly, we’ll continue to be relevant with consumers. We had to face the brutal facts that there’s an awful lot of consumers in this country that just aren’t as comfortable, they’re not very confident in the kitchen, and they told us that (in) pretty massive quantitative surveys.

Of course, we have a lot of qualitative interaction with people, and (it’s) probably no surprise to many folks that, generationally, we’re mostly less confident in the kitchen. And so, that creates opportunities for businesses and industries to really innovate and deliver these products to be more relevant to fit into the way that people live today, their lifestyles today.

So, again, that’s the brutal facts that we had to really recognize and come to terms with and really (use to) fuel innovative ideas in terms of product development processing for their cooking, etc., to make our products fit into consumers’ busy lifestyles.

I’m just wondering: Are the numbers in? Do you have the data to know yet whether there has been a massive shift from dining out to preparing meals at home and — well, we know that’s happened, but how has it impacted pork sales?

Yeah. Well, pork sales are up. They are up significantly. And that’s a tremendous story, given the challenges that we’re facing, you know, globally with the pandemic. My goodness, it’s just been devastating, and you know, our hearts go out to all those that have been affected by the coronavirus. Certainly, our industry has.

But, in the same breath, when you look at the end product and the distribution channels that we have, we have been able, as a pork industry, to successfully grow the demand for pork and the sales, specifically at the retail point of purchase, and what a seismic shift — from food service and eating out on a regular basis to, now, obviously, almost exclusively, in most areas, eating at home.

And so, again, the entire meat department sales in this year, 2020, compared to 2019, are up 24.2% and that additional $6.2 billion in the retail meat category versus a year ago. It’s a huge, huge swing and shift in consumer behavior. For pork specifically, pork is actually ahead of the game and (is) taking some share from competing proteins in the category — beef and chicken, specifically.

Pork sales are up 30% in 2020 versus 2019. So, again, the category is growing significantly, and I’m proud to say that pork is ahead of the game (and is) significant percentage points ahead of the category as a whole.

During your (Alltech ONE Virtual Experience) presentation, you noted that pork is the number-one consumed protein globally, but fresh pork is the featured protein in less than 7% of entrée options when dining out in the U.S., as opposed to cooking at home. I wonder: What accounts for such low interest in pork on the part of American diners? Is there some kind of perception issue, do you think?

Well, that’s a great question. The fresh pork — you have to distinguish between fresh and the further-cooked or value-added pork.

Aha.

So, we look at bacon; bacon is ubiquitous. So, that’s sort of the outlier. We have to look at bacon somewhat separately because it’s across almost all menus.

Yes, we must have bacon.

[Laughs] Yeah. My job is to not screw that up. People love their bacon, and that’s a great thing.

Oh, this is the land of the BLT, I think.

Absolutely. And we’re in that season, and hopefully, that season will be extended. The challenge is — with fresh pork, candidly — is the perceptions of the labor and the time that it takes in the food service space. And as you know, prior to COVID-19, that was in-demand, right? And just in time, things were moving fast and got to be quick on the grill, and so, there’s this perception for most that perhaps fresh pork doesn’t fit into that systematic process as well as competing proteins do.

However, that being said, those in the know have proven to be tremendously successful with fresh pork on their menus. And they’re celebrity, high-profile chefs, like Matt Abdoo at Pig Beach in Brooklyn, as an example, or Jose Mendin at Pubbelly in Miami or Adam Sappington at Country Cat in Portland, Oregon. The list goes on and on. These well-known chefs that are truly on the cutting edge and driving trends in the food-service industry have embraced that farm-to-pork story and, really, sustainability in general, in terms of using all pieces and parts of the pig, specifically. And the tremendous value that comes from that (is) the story that comes from that and, obviously, the great flavor and variety of dishes that can be prepared with that.

And we know that a lot of food service operators are watching people like that. So, that’s why we choose to really spend a lot of time with those well-known chefs and have some great partnerships (with those) that are demonstrating pork on the menu differently than most people are probably accustomed to.

Well, Jarrod, you have said that you are data-heavy and assumption-light, and that’s an interesting phrase. Can you elaborate for us?

Yeah. We’ve built a confidence here at U.S. National Pork Board to capture big data. And you know, there’s a lot of businesses and industries that, obviously, are spending a lot of time looking at data, but the U.S. National Pork Board is looking at it a bit differently than any one of our stakeholders does individually.

For us, we’re capturing consumer trends through syndicated data sources. We’re fielding customers’ search stories — or studies, excuse me — to essentially, you know, discover some of the specific questions that we have and answer those through these quantitative studies. We’re obviously partnering with a number of land-grant universities to do production-related research, and the list goes on and on.

And so, the confidence we have at the U.S. National Pork Board is really building this data ecosystem, right? An ecosystem of partners, each having a very specific role for the information that they provide to give us a unique, holistic picture of what the world is telling us. That data exists because of, as I was mentioning earlier, the exhaust, the digital exhaust that we’re all leaving a trail of on a daily basis.

If you think about it smartly and you weave this, you know, ecosystem of data partners together, you can get a very unique view of how the world continues to evolve and its expectations for your industry and for your product. And that’s what exactly we’ve attempted to do. We continue to refine it, but our secret sauce, if you will, is truly that unique set of data partners that, essentially, can answer any question that we bring forward. And I’d say that’s a pretty unique offering at the U.S. National Pork Board.

Speaking of data, last year, the Pork Board released research looking at trends in consumer behavior related to dining out. More than 10,000 consumers were surveyed, many food-service operators were interviewed, and all of that was paired with volumetric data and syndicated food-service data. The study is said to have uncovered why consumers decide to eat the proteins they eat. What did you learn from that?

That’s exactly right, Tom, and that’s a great example of how to become data-heavy and assumption-light. It’s essentially a consumer decision (in) three (parts). You know, it starts with: What type of dish do I want? Am I looking at indulging taste? Am I looking for nurturing health? Do I just need something quick and convenient on the go?

And the next piece in the consideration set: Who am I dining with? Am I going out with friends or co-workers, my family? Do I have a date? Is it just me? Am I in my car? Right?

The third piece, then, is: What kind of moment is it? Are we going out as part of a celebration? Is this a business luncheon or dinner? And, at the last minute, (will) I need something in the car on the go?

All of these things are critically important to understand in terms of the consumers’ decision-making process, so that you can, obviously, position your products accordingly.

For pork, what we know (that) the number-one reason that people order pork is the flavor. It’s culturally relevant, it’s culturally exciting. Essentially, what that means is it just tastes good; it’s all about the flavor.

The next piece — which, candidly, is a tremendous opportunity for pork — is the whole idea of if it’s good for me or not. That’s the whole nutritional story that, unfortunately, we’ve got some work to do. People have the misperception that — a lot of people, I should say — that, maybe, “Pork isn’t as good for me as other proteins,” and that’s just simply not true. We have an opportunity, using the data, to convey that in a very, you know, story-friendly way. It’s an important piece of the consideration set.

And then, the third and final piece: Is it good for the planet? Am I making a responsible choice? That sort of “permission to eat” is really becoming much more prominent with the consumer decision-making process — especially away from home, right, in food-service restaurants, because of the stories that (have) really been brought in on the menus as well as the, you know, the story of the proprietor or the restaurant owner and how they source what foods, from farm to pork to locally sourced to et cetera, et cetera.

So, flavor, “Is it good for me?” and “Is it good for the planet?” are really three important parts of the consideration process for consumers determining which protein they’re going to consume.

So, Jarrod, what about antibiotics? There is concern about whether or not pork is good for the planet, as you mentioned. How is the industry addressing consumer concerns about antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance?

By being very transparent. We have public reporting to ensure that anybody who’s interested in knowing what antibiotics are used, how often, for what purpose — this information is readily available and easily accessible for consumers.

More importantly, there are production practices longstanding in the U.S. pork industry in place to literally reduce the need for the use of antibiotics. I have the experience — I actually grew up on a farm in north-central Indiana. And I have a lot of family and friends that farm back there. Antibiotics cost money, and if you have to use antibiotics, that means you’ve got some illness disease issues. No farmer wants to spend any more money than they have to, so point being, they’re not going to use these antibiotics haphazardly, by any means.

Secondly, farmers wake up every day to ensure that they’re giving the best care for those animals, and that means protecting their health. That’s why we have (the) veterinary-client relationship status that’s required as part of the pork quality-assurance program, which is required to sell pigs at any given farming house in the United States. The veterinary-client relationship is critically important. That means you’ve got a trained veterinarian who’s overseeing any type of administration of antibiotics — but more importantly, (is following the) process to exhaust all other options before prescribing any of those antibiotics.

The second piece — and, arguably, the most important — is biosecurity. (There are) lots of questions about U.S. pork production and pigs in these barns, and you know, there’s signs up, and you’ve got to shower in before you can actually enter into the barn. What are they keeping secret in there? The reality is it’s because humans are carrying around, as we now know, more than ever, all kinds of potential viruses and diseases and things that could — bacteria — that could potentially give (or) introduce the sickness to the pigs. It’s not protecting us from the pigs; it’s protecting the pigs from us.

And so, by improving biosecurity and really, you know, being smart about how we provide the most cleanliness, the best climate-controlled facilities for these pigs to grow in, we’ve been able to improve overall herd health and reduce the need to use antibiotics.

And so, again, being very transparent is critically important, (and establishing a) close working relationship with a veterinarian is, obviously, the most important. And then third is to improve our overall production practices, and biosecurity in particular, to reduce the need (for antibiotics).

A couple of years ago, when you were vice president of domestic marketing at the Pork Board, you noted then a need to know, from the value consumer all the way to the premium consumer, how they are thinking about their food needs and how pork currently fits into those needs. Have those questions been answered?

That, Tom, is a constantly evolving opportunity. I’m tired of saying the word “challenge.” It’s an opportunity for us — especially in the challenging economic times that we’re facing. There are more value-conscientious shoppers, and pork — especially fresh pork — is positioned well, versus competing proteins, as a valuable offering. The price is positioned well, especially as you look across the meat case.

And so, that’s a good thing for a number of reasons, but it’s not really something you want to anchor in on as your overall marketing strategy, right? We want to create more value, and so, thankfully, because of the versatility of the pig and the various cuts that come from the animal, we have a number of products that fit well into “white tablecloth restaurant” menus, which oftentimes get a premium for those products.

I mentioned those three chefs earlier; Adam Sappington in Portland, Oregon; Matt Abdoo in Brooklyn, New York; Jose Mendin in Miami. Those three restaurants, those three gentlemen’s restaurants — the County Cat in Portland and Pig Beach in Brooklyn, Pubbelly in Miami — those three are pork-centric restaurants. They’re incredibly successful and, again, clearly have, you know, positioned pork as a premium to likely introduce to a great number of consumers a different cut or a different way to prepare and serve that cut.

So, it continues to evolve. We obviously have a really important role to play in feeding a growing population in need, and thankfully, we have low-cost operating here in the middle of the United States, which gives us that value proposition and low-cost but also premium products that fit well into those five-star dining restaurant menus and really can meet both ends of the spectrum’s needs.

Okay. To briefly change the subject, if you could, tell us about your partnerships with Google and with YouTube.

Yeah. Google and YouTube really have been a tremendous experience for the U.S. National Pork Board — Google in particular, because I learned a long time ago that every sale starts with Google. Again, thinking data-heavy, assumption-light, Google is a tremendous partner to just give you a glimpse at culture (and) how trends continue to evolve, how they start to, you know, become a trend, and you really get a direct line of sight into what, you know, different segments of the population are thinking and how culture swings affect the actual search and purchase behavior. So, that partnership in it of itself has been tremendously valuable, because we want to make sure that when people are searching for information about pork, specifically, that we’ve got the factual, you know, right information at the right time. That’s critically important, and Google search enables that.

The YouTube partnership is really pretty interesting because, as we all know, YouTube continues to be a main stage for a number of up-and-coming content creators, and anybody who’s got a mobile device can post, you know, content onto YouTube. But there are a number of influencers who have millions of followers on YouTube who are delivering messaging and delivering information and, certainly, entertainment on a regular basis. So, with YouTube, we’ve been able to identify content creators that have significant numbers of followers — obviously, (we’re) primarily food-focused — where we can engage with them and, certainly, sponsor some episodes of their video series to feature pork.

The beautiful thing about YouTube is we just kind of give them some very broad talking points and direction. Obviously, we give them support, and then we watch them do what they do. That authenticity and that passion for pork and, you know, all of the things that make their videos worth watching — it wouldn’t work as a paid commercial; you’ve got to let those creators do what they do. And so, that means you got to release some of the control, and we’ve had a lot of great success doing that, with five videos over the last 24 months that the U.S. Pork Board has invested in with partnerships on YouTube. They’ve been trending videos, which means they’re at the top of YouTube worldwide, which is really a tremendous feat. It just doesn’t happen with “sponsored” videos.

So, it speaks to the authenticity and creativity of the content creators, the loyalty that they have in the fans that subscribe to their content — and, obviously, both of their passions for pork. And thankfully, we’ve seen a growth in favorability and, certainly, a growth in, you know, loyalty for pork products as a result of it.

Well, Jarrod, I have to ask, because I think inquiring minds want to know, but what’s your favorite pork dish?

[Laughs] I get that question a lot. You know, I’m the pork guy in a lot of circles — my social circles, in particular. And I never get tired of it, to be honest with you. If I had to choose, I’ve got to say two. One is barbecue ribs. You can’t beat barbecue ribs. Number two is tonkatsu, a Japanese dish, and it’s one of my favorites, for sure. So, I’d have to say it’s a tie: barbecue ribs and tonkatsu.

Jarrod Sutton, senior vice president of strategy and innovation at the National Pork Board. Thanks so much, Jarrod.

Yeah, Tom. Thanks for having me. It’s a great pleasure.

I’m Tom Martin, and this has been AgFuture, presented by Alltech. Thank you for joining us, and be sure to subscribe to AgFuture wherever you listen to podcasts. And leave a review if you’ve enjoyed this episode.

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