ASH CLOUD

Creating a win win for farmers/ranchers and the environment would be game changing across the whole livestock climate space. The key is to understand the kinetics of methane production by the rumen microbiome and identify opportunities to capture that energy within the animal for production. This approach mitigates methane emissions and decreases feed costs. Plus, creating this win win overcomes the not insignificant implementations/uptake challenge. 

Methane is the end point of a whole series of complex microbial metabolism in the rumen of cattle and sheep. Most current research is simply trying to prevent this last step where Hydrogen in converted to methane. Professor Rod Mackie, a gut microbial ecologist from the University of Illinois is leading an international research team pursuing a very different approach to mitigating livestock methane.

The team is looking at the biomolecular mechanisms that lead to these precursors of methane which they hope will open up broader opportunities for intervention and productivity gains. The team has recently been awarded $2.5 million grant from the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research through their Greener Cattle Initiative. 

The team has six hubs spread across the USA, New Zealand, Canada, Europe, Israel,  and Australia.  Further conversations with key researchers from the team can be found below:

• Sharon Huws -Hydrogen warfare in the rumen - the source of livestock methane emissions, Queens University, Belfast
• Itzik Mizrahi - Microbial good guys and bad guys, and their duplicitous nature, Ben Gurion University of the Negev 
• Athol Klieve - Learning from nature how to eliminate livestock methane emissions, University of Queensland
• Matthias Hess - Ruminant Methane Production, UC Davis

The two key papers published in conjunction with AgResearch NZ are:

• Hydrogen and formate production and utilisation in the rumen and the human colon
• Electron flow: key to mitigating ruminant methanogenesis

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Management is the greatest limitation to reducing the environmental impact of livestock systems. Farming is managing an ecosystem. When we work with nature to manage that ecosystem, then nature works with us to improve the water cycle, improve the nutrient cycle, and to sequester more carbon in the soil. The challenge is, how do we improve every individual farmer understanding of their landscapes, the ecology, and businesses so they are managing their properties in an optimal manner.

Currently the management of only 5% of Australian livestock producers is at an optimal level. The greatest barrier to improving management is education. Terry estimates that an investment of $50-100 million over 5-10 years could increase the percentage of farmers managing their land regeneratively from 5% to 30%.

Terry McCosker has been pioneering regenerative agriculture for over 50 years. His work has focused on bridging the gap between the contesting paradigms of traditional agriculture and regenerative agriculture to help to ensure the long-term sustainability of Australian agriculture and the nations’ farming families. Terry founded RCS to provide education and build capacity across the industry. Terry founded Carbonlink to make carbon farming more accessible to producers.

I recently caught up with Terry to hear more about his work, you can listen to a short summary followed by our full conversation here. 

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In East Africa, what we are now calling regenerative agriculture is basically kitchen gardening for food security, without the reliance on inputs, which is the traditional method of growing food. How do we evaluate the sustainability of  production systems in the Global South and how do these compare to those in the Global North?

Comparisons are challenging. In the Global South most animals are multifunctional providing food, income, ecosystem services, finance, services, and cultural status.  Evaluating the environmental footprint of livestock is largely through tools developed by the Global North which do not account for the other functions these animals provide.

The millions of small holder farmers across East Africa typically have two or three cows plus another two or three species of livestock such as goats, sheep,  chickens, and pigs. They are typically on two or three acres and for most farmers the milk is used for the family first with surplus going to the market. All animal waste products is recycled back into the soils. 

Today my  guests, Su Kahumbu, Bernard Kimoro, and Claudia Arndt, who are working together to improve food security and sustainability across the millions of small holder farms and the traditional pastoral systems across East Africa. Su Kahumbu is a Kenyan Farmer and entrepreneur who works with small holder farmers to improve food security, nutritional security, and environmental sustainability. Her focus is developing mobile phone based education tools. Bernard Kimoro leads climate change and livestock sustainability for the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture and livestock. He is especially focused on working across the traditional pastoral systems. Claudia Arndt leads leads the Mazingira Centre where her team are investigating the environmental impact of livestock with focus on GHG emissions. The Mazingira Centre is part of the sustainably livestock program for the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi. Her research focuses on optimizing nutrient utilization efficient to reduce the environmental impact of animal agriculture, including the climate impact of methane emissions. 

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Microbes communicate, they make decisions, they collaborate, and they fight. Sometimes they are good guys and other times they are bad guys. Understanding the importance of individual species withing the ecosystem and how species interact is critical for navigating our food sustainability challenges.

The good news is that animals with higher feed efficiency produce less methane. However, our understanding of the ecological forces driving that double benefit is limited and the natural variation is huge with a five fold difference in methane emissions from animals in the same herd. 

Itzik Mizrahi is a microbial ecologist studying the ecological and evolutionary forces that shape microbial communities in nature and specifically, in gut environments. His work investigating the ecology of rumen microbiome focuses on understand the cooperative and antagonistic interactions between species with the aim of improving food security and minimizing the environmental impacts of livestock production.

Microbes are everywhere and the Mizrahi Lab studies what makes them live together.

I recently caught up with Itzik to hear more about his work, you can listen to a short summary followed by our full conversation here. 

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Humans are the cause of climate change.  Climate change is also biodiversity loss, desertification, mega fires and climate change that are all feeding off each other and spiralling out of control.

The way humans manage fossil fuels, livestock, and the the environment is what is leading to the continual degradation of the natural world.

In the 1960's Allan initiated an elephant culling program in an effort to protect native habitats in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe today) from over grazing. The results were devastating.  Not only were thousands of elephants killed, but the land degradation became worse. This led Allan to the conclusion that grazing animals were a critical component of all grassland systems. In fact, there is nothing available in the world that can reverse desertification other than livestock. In 1983, Allan and 2000 scientists from across the world identified that universal reductionist management was the key driver of climate change and developed the holistic framework.  In 2009 Allan founded the Savory Institute  to  facilitate regeneration of the world's grasslands and the livelihoods of their inhabitants through holistic management. 

Reductionist management ignores the complexity of our societies, economies, and nature and focuses primarily on addressing symptoms rather than the root cause. Reductionist management of our resources has led over thousands of years to the ever increasing degradation of the natural life support systems we all rely on for our survival. According to Allan government policies that cut fossil fuel use and livestock numbers will do little to address climate change if they are developed holistically.

The reason governments as so critical to our ability to combat climate change is that governments are the only institutions that can manage at scale. To address the unintended environmental consequences of our current managements of all natural resources policies need to be implemented at the scale required to achieve real impact. 

I recently caught up with Allan to hear more about his work, you can listen to a short summary followed by our full conversation here. 

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The question of what is a good microbiome all depends on the perspective you are asking. The answer differs if your lens from the perspective of the animal, humans, the microbes, or the climate. The relationships are complex. Microbes produce vital energy and nutrients for the animal. They allow our grazing animals to transform fibrous herbs, shrubs, and grasses into nutrient dense food. They recycle plant carbon and nutrients back into the soils. 

Since the first ruminants evolved around 50 million years ago the microbiome and these animals have coevolved together. Our understanding of this process is still very limited but the more we learn the more we realize the importance of this relationship to our society and the natural world. Today there are almost 200 living species of ruminants, nine of which have been domesticated over the last 10,000 years. 

I recently caught up with Todd to hear more about his work, you can listen to a short summary followed by our full conversation here. 

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Climate policy has been weaponised in Australia over recent decades. The situation in other countries is frequently not dissimilar. The lack of real action on climate change resulted in over one third of Australian voters rejecting the major parties in preference of environmentally progressive ‘Teal’ independents at the 2022 federal election. Zoe Daniel is one of seven Teal Independent who are now working to drive positive and constructive climate policy changes across the Australian Federal Parliament. 

The political will to generate and implement policies that effectively address climate change, including the economic mechanisms required for these policies to succeed, is frequently highlighted as a critical gap that needs to be overcome. Entrenched two party systems, each pandering to their base, make it easy for disruptive climate policies to remain off the agenda. Impact on climate change will remain limited without broad government leadership and policies despite the efforts of the NGO community, civil society, entrepreneurs, and the private sector.

So how does a new MP make an impact in one the rougher federal parliaments globally?

“If you come in, particularly as a new MP and expect to create massive systems change overnight, you’re going to be disappointed. So you have to convince yourself that you can make a difference by doing the kind of nudging that myself and the other independents have been doing.”

By using this approach Zoe managed to negotiate that the 43% emission reduction stipulated in the recent Climate Change Act was a floor rather than a ceiling. Her real impact came from being in the same room and having the opportunity to negotiate directly with the Climate Change Minister. 

Zoe has taken a pragmatic and broad approach that prioritises creating the social license for government to implement change and bringing the community along. She expects massive economic and social changes that people will need to adjust to a compressed period and for this to be successful broad community engagement and transparency are critical. This includes managing the expectation of her constituents who are pushing from much more rapid change and ensuring there is just transition for communities who have traditionally relied on the sunset industries. 

The continuing weaponization of energy, water, and food globally is a big concern. It becomes very challenging when these become bargain chips to undermine the existing global order. Drawing on her 15 years reporting from Africa, Asia, and North America she understands the cascading effects of climate induced food insecurity, water insecurity and natural disasters on political stability and displacement. Zoe also highlights the increasingly delicate balance required to keep vital communications channels open with our geopolitical rivals and adversaries. 

As a foreign correspondent she frequently witnessed the suffering and destruction climate change has on the most vulnerable societies and natural ecosystems. Her time as a journalist also exposed her to the frequently divisive nature of the media, where creating conflict in the name of good story is often favoured over promoting constructive conversations. 

I recently caught up with Zoe to hear more about her work, you can listen to a short summary followed by our full conversation here. 

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We are always going to have emissions from growing food. There is no way agriculture can get to zero emissions. More than any other industry climate change affects agriculture and agriculture effects climate change. Britt Groosman leads efforts to decrease the environmental footprint of food production at the Environmental defense Fund (https://www.edf.org/). The initial focus are the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, the United States, China, India, and Europe. Her team concentrates on understanding where emissions come from, how these emissions affect farmers, rural communities, broader society, and nature, then identifying big leverage points for change. 

The first big leverage point is methane, especially livestock methane. Britt sees an urgent need to find practical ways of reducing methane emissions in the next 20 year.  “We are in a hurry here. We are not going to convince everybody to become vegan in the next five, or 10, or even 20 years, and maybe we don’t need to.”

The challenges vary significantly across the different geopolitical landscapes. In India her team is developing partnerships with dairy cooperatives to provide advice and financing to millions of small holder farmers to increase productivity, improve livelihoods, and reduce their methane emissions. Digital technology is being deployed to decouple economic development from climate issues, helping enable India to avoid taking the high emitting pathway to economic development we made in the West. In the United States EDF has brought together and fostered uncomfortable partnerships that include Big Ag, The Farm Bureau, and other environmental groups to negotiate climate policy. This group, The Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance,  (https://agclimatealliance.com/) recently published 40 joint recommendations to the Farm Bill. These achievements have been based on a pragmatic approach that listens to their audience and does not try and advocate change without first walking a mile in the other person’s shoes.  

Technology innovation alone is not a pathway to food sustainability, despite all the current energy, discussion, and investment in innovation.  Britt and her team have identified two additional gaps that need to be overcome. Firstly, without political will or the ambition to want to do things differently nothing will change. Despite the US Ministry of Defence identifying climate change as a near and imminent threat almost two decades ago, until quite recently climate change and agriculture were not discussed in the same sentence. Secondly, there is a huge implementation gap. In many cases we know what we need to do but we haven’t figured out how to incentivize the necessary behavioural change. 

There is no one size fits all solution. “It’s really dangerous to look at just one indicator. Yes, we’re all in about climate, and yes, we can’t have it being to the detriment of other important factors such as community, social cohesion, environmental justice issues, biodiversity issues, etc.”

Personally, Britt fees very deeply for the developing counties at sticky end of climate change. Frequently these countries did not create the pollution that is causing current levels of warming. She personally feels we need reduce emissions, invest in adaptation and that western world owes it to the global south to help them. 

I recently caught up with Britt to hear more about her work, you can listen to the conversation here. 

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There is arguably more land under the management of people producing beef, sheep, and goats than under any other industry. Having access to all these people and the land they manage provides an opportunity to impact a significant percentage of the world’s land area. Creating the incentives to encourage and reward climate friendly and nature positive livestock management practices is both one of the greatest challenges and largest opportunities to limit global warming.

The Global Roundtable on Sustainable Beef (https://grsbeef.org/) has grown to include 24 countries across 12 Roundtables. In 2021 GRSB set three goals, to reduce the net global warming impact of beef by 30% by 2030 on the pathway to climate neutrality, to become a net positive contributor to nature by 2030, and on animal welfare, to Provide cattle with an environment in which they can thrive. GRSB is now adding a fourth goal focusing on the social role of beef production from both the producer side and more broadly across society. Livestock have a key role in the maintenance of landscape, provision of nutrition, employment, religious and cultural events, and social status. This is especially relevant in many arid and lower income countries where livestock frequently is a cornerstone of food production and rural economies. 

When the precursor to the GRSB first met in Denver in 2010 many people at the meeting had never sat in a room together. The meeting included a number of fairly beefy security guards because Ruaraidh was concerned things may get heated. It was a question of trust.

As people continued to meet over the next 10-12 years and got to know each other trust was built, especially as people realized they all wanted to head in the same direction, and they could actually learn from each other.

Methane emission is something that the industry has the ability to limit. Breeding companies are currently looking into using genetics to limit methane emission, improved grazing management also has a big role to play.

I recently caught up with Ruaraidh to hear more about his work. You can listen to his conversation here. 

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When Lance Baumgard first started working with the Arizona dairy industry, he quickly noticed the existing dogma around metabolic disease, inflammatory disease, and animal productivity didn’t stack up. Questioning why the aggressive attempts to treat metabolic disease over the previous 30 years had led to no reduction in disease incidence he concluded that the industry could be focusing on the symptoms rather than the cause.

Cellular health is key to maintaining productivity and profitability in agricultural systems. When Lance began leveraging cross species scientific data and adjusted his focus to infectious disease and the resulting inflammation, things started to make much more sense. The energetic demands of managing inflammation and all forms of inflammatory disease frequently contribute to the snowballing negative impact these diseases have on our farm animals, pets, and ourselves. 

Early diagnosis of immune activation and the resulting inflammation is critical.  Failure to do so has significant animal welfare, environmental, productivity, and farm profitability impacts. 

I recently caught up with Lance to hear more about his work. You can listen to his conversation here. 

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