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Our food systems are orders of magnitude more complex than other sectors of our economy so how can tools such as Artificial intelligence help farmers across the world make better decisions to improve the sustainability and productivity of our food systems.
Today we are joined by Aidan Connolly a animal agtech entrepreneur, investor, and author of The Future of Agriculture who has spend his career working on agricultural innovation.
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Today Ash Cloud is partnering with CSIRO to bring you Andy Sheppard, the Chief Research Scientist Biosecurity at CSIRO where he leads efforts to protect Australia, it’s neighbours, and trading partners from plant, animal and human pests and disease threats. Building local and global partnerships to understand the biology of the threats across their native and invaded range so intervention opportnities can be implemented is a key part of his work. Andy is also the Co-Executive Director of Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and CSIRO Catalysing Australia's Biosecurity Initiative.
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The US military has recognized climate change as a national security threat for decades our guest today, Sherri Goodman, has been credited with educating a generation of US military officers and government officials about the complex interactions between climate change and national security. She is Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate & Security and the author of Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.
I recently spoke with Sherri about her 30 odd years experience working on the nexus of climate and security, including the risks posed by climate change and the many indirect ways they can be manifested, the challenges in changing the mindset at DoD around how they think about climate change, what can be learned from her experience, and opportunities to intervene.
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The intersection between climate change and armed conflict is complex. For those who have not witnessed the difference between the devestation and social upheaval that results from war compared with any other form of social upheaval it is almost impossible to explain. This is why I see great importance in further understanding these intersections. Climate related violence is a messy marriage of climate stress and poor governance.
ISIS profited from collapsing agricultural positions to bolster its ranks in Iraq and Syria. The recruitment rate of jihadis was three times higher from villages reliant solely on rain than from similar villages with access to irrigation water.
The developed world is not immune, above and beyond the global impacts of migration it has been documented that violence against women in Greece appears to increase almost in lockstep with summer temperates. In the United States, 85% of the mass shootings that accrued in 2022 took place between the June and September with the physiological changes unleashed by higher temperatures appearing to be a determining factor.
The migration stories that make the headlines are only the tip of the iceberg. These are based on the 10% of people that flee their homes due to conflict and migrate internationally. The other 90% impact the towns and cities within their countries. However, as it's generally the best educated and wealthiest people that can actually afford to leave this also undermines the governance and financial security of the impacted villages further undermining these societies.
The urban rural divide a growing issue globally. ISIS recruitment around Mosul was facilitated by the growing disparity between agricultural and urban livelihoods that led to some of the greatest concentrations of ISIS recruits. The proximity to the city led ensured that villages were very conscious of this growing disparity making them easy targets for the ISIS recruiters.Peter Schwartzstein is an environmental journalist who has reported on water, food security, and the conflict-climate nexus across some 30 countries in the Middle East, Africa, and occasionally further afield. Peter is a Global Fellow with the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program.
The Heat and The Fury, is published in September 2024.Send us a text
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Depending on who you speak with cattle can be vital to the sustainability of our food systems and our ability to provide health nutrition to humanity or they can be one of the largest sources of climate pollution. The culprit in this debate is methane, especially enteric methane emissions that is derived from the foregut of all ruminants including cattle.
Frank Mitloehner is the Director of the UC Davis Clear Center that researches the intersection of animal agriculture and the environment and leads communication efforts across the complex interactions between the environmental health, human health, our food systems, and livestock. Frank’s work has significantly focused on methane emissions. I recently caught up with Frank to hear his perspective on how the conversation around methane has evolved, including the increasingly passionate positions on the role of ruminants in our food systems that are being advocated by different groups focused on addressing climate change.
It is widely accepted that reducing methane emissions is the emergency brake when it comes to mitigating warming, with a reduction of methane by 20, 30, or 40% having a significant impact due to the high warming potential of methane and it's rapid natural breakdown in the atmosphere. Where there is much more disagreement among those advocating for methane reduction is which sectors to target most urgently for methane reductions with oil and gas, waste, livestock, and domestic leaks being the most frequently discussed. Where there is no disagreement is the need for increased funding on research and innovations to reduce livestock methane.Send us a text
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Regenerative ranching has recently gained traction across the main stream media but the idea of using livestock to mimic nature and managing a landscape holistically was largely led by Allan Savory from the 1980s. Rich Bradbury' parents attended the Savory Institute in the 1980's which was when he was first exposed to the holistic approach that Allan Savory brings to ranching. I recently caught up with Rich to hear how this has impacted his thinking and the way he manages his ranch to this day.
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Nitrogen is absolutely essential for all forms of life, plants, animals and microbes. Nitrogen is the basis for making amino acids, and amino acids are the basis for making proteins, enzymes. The historic nitrogen system was balanced and based on microbial activity transforming atmospheric nitrogen into soluble forms usable by plants and microbes.
Feeding nitrogen directly to livestockDecreasing the nitrogen required by and provided to cropsIncreasing the recycling of nitrogen in manure back into our cropping systems
Eric Davidson's has been working to transform our food systems through better understanding terrestrial nutrient cycling, cycling, greenhouse gas emissions from soils, global biogeochemical cycles, and how they impact sustainable agriculture.
Charles Brooke has been working to accelerate the rate of action and innovation in reducing the climate impact of livestock production. He leads Spark Climate Solutions livestock enteric methane mitigation program.
The modern nitrogen system is based on the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilzers produced through the energy intensive Haber-Bosch process developed just prior to World War I to manufacture munitions. The impact of this synthetic nitrogen has spread far beyond conflict. Synthetic nitrogen has enabled our modern food systems to produce enough food to feed 8 billion people. It has also resulted in widespread nitrogen pollution in water ways and ever increasing levels of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Synthetic fertiliser production has been so successful that today 50 - 60% of all the nitrogen in human bodies in humans actually comes from Haber-Bosch processes.
From a warming perspective nitrous oxide (or N2O) is about 270 times more potent than is carbon dioxide. However, unlike CO2 where levels are somewhat plateauing, N2O levels continue to rise.
The use of nitrogen fertilizer is hugely inefficient. Half of all fertilizer put on the ground is lost. Additional losses occur when plant proteins are fed to animals prior to human consumption.
Nitrogen 2.0 is focused on reducing nitrogen wastage and pollution, and increasing the circularity of nitrogen use. The three components are:Eric Davidson is Professor of the Appalachian Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He is also a Principal Scientist at Spark Climate Solutions. His most recent book Science for a Green New Deal; Connecting Climate, Economics, and Social Justice was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2022.
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The efficacy of methane reducing feed additives constantly varies between cows and herds because the rumen microbiome is constantly changing. Certain feed additives that worked really well at that one given her may stop working, or the other way around. Feed additives that were not working can become effective. Using AI based on the genome sequences within the microbiome so that the right additive is used at the right time can triple the impact of feed additives.
Yaniv Altshuler has been working on Artificial Intelligence for the over 20 years focusing on decentralized and scalable AI methods. He is a researcher at MIT and the founder and CEO of Metha.ai where he is using decentralized AI algorthims that are ubiquitous across nature to predict the efficacy of methane reducing feed additives based on the cows microbiome.
More details on how AI can increase the efficacy of feed additives can be found in Yaniv's white paper here:
From Microbes to Methane: AI-Based Predictive Modeling of Feed Additive Efficacy in Dairy CowsYaniv holds a PhD in Computer Science, and is the author of over 70 scientific papers and 15 patents. He is also the author of several books including "Security and Privacy in Social Networks" and "Applied Swarm Intelligence".
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California has been leading efforts to implement climate change policy since Governor Schwarzeneger signed the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006 to begin the transition to a carbon neutral economy with food and agriculture are a key component of California’s strategy.
Agriculture sits right in the middle of the climate debate, agriculture is a significant emitter and that needs to be acknowleded. Agriculture also has the potential be big part of the solution and the conversation needs to evolve beyond blame into how can we work together to address this ciritcal issue.
Secretary Karen Ross has been leading California Department of Food and Agriculture since 2019 and she is global leader in sustainable and climate smart agricultural where she has been driving progressive food climate policy in California, leveraging the state’s innovative start up culture to create new technologies, working to build resiliant local food systems, and building global partnerships that are critical to addressing cliamte change at scale. California has signed climate smart agriculture MOUs firstly with the Netherlands, followed Denmark, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Mexico, and Vietnam.
“Leadership is not just talking to who we know and feel comfortable with. It's the willingness to reach out and to truly listen. And to first understand if I want to be understood.”
Looking towards the future we also need to ask how can we grow food in a changing climate both in highly developed econmoies such as California and also across the Global South. The vast majority of farmers are small a subsustance farmers, frequently living in povery and food insecurity. These people also make up the vast majority of malnourished people globally.
“Hunger drives desperation and creates unrest. Look at the migration patterns that are happening on a multitude of continents because of drought. There's not water to grow the crops. There's not the ability to feed the animals which are their sole income and ability to feed themselves."
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Rob Jackson is a climate scientist who has been leading global efforts to reduce millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions and improve human health, safety, and air and water quality. Methane emissions are a major focus of Rob’s work as there is nothing else that gives as much power to slow global warming over the next decade or two.
Rob’s new book, "Into The Clear Blue Sky” the path to restoring our atmosphere is being released at the end of July by Simon & Schuster. In the book Rob tells the story of the people creating and driving some of the boldest and most impactful climate solutions under development and what motivates and inspires these people to dedicate their careers to addressing climate change.Rob Jackson is the Chair of the Global Carbon Project, a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy, and a professor of earth science at Stanford University.
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The Zero Net Emissions from Agriculture Cooperative Research Council (ZNE-Ag CRC) is a key component of achieving the commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2040. The CRC comprises of 73 partenrs who have committed $AU87 million in cash which is matched by the Austrlain Federal Government. This becomes a $AU300 million program when in kind contributions are included.
Richard Heath is the CEO of the ZNE-Ag CRC who brings decades of experience across research policy and hands on farming. I recently caught up with Richard to hear more about the pans for the ZNE-Ag CRC. You can listen to our conversation here.
The ZNE-Ag CRC has four pillars that will foster collaborative researtch that includes industry partners and farmers to adress the key opportunities for emissions reduction across australian agriculture. Given the nature of food prodiuction across australia enteric methane reduction is the number one priority.1: Low-emissions plant solutions
Focused on reducing nitreous oxide and carbon diaoxide emissions across acre cropping, horticulture, and improving pasture species and grazing management to reduce enteric emissions.2: Towards methane-free cattle and sheep
Focused on breeding for lower emissions, imporved grazing management and delivery of feed additives to grazing animals. All of which require greatly expanded methane monitoring capitcty to be implementable.3: Whole-farm and mixed enterprise systems analysis
As there will be no silver bullet this is pillar will integrate all the learnings to provide farmers with the guidelines and tools to implement lower emissions management practices and technologies4: Delivering Value from Net Zero
This pillar will be integrating renewable energy and circvular economy solutions into autralian farming systemsSend us a text
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Maik Kindermann, the inventor of the methane inhibitor 3-NOP or Bovaer®. Earlier this week it was announced that Boaver has been approved for use by the FDA adding the United States to the other 59 countries where its available. Following a directive in 2008 from Feike Sifbesma, the former Chairman and CEO of dsm-firmenich Maik began working on a product to inhibit enteric methane. 16 years later Maik and his team have completed trials 119 and published 80 peer reviewed papers with another 31 in the pipeline. I recently caught up with Maik to hear about his journey developing Boaver and how the conversation on enteric methane has changed over that time.
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The security communities around the world including European, UK, US, and Australia have all recognized climate change as a National Security threat with climate change not being necessarily a direct cause of conflict but compounding the risks of conflict. The impact of climate change on food and water security is a key component of this increased threat.
Neil Morisetti leads efforts to develop society's and policy makers understanding of the security implications of a changing climate, including the impact on the key natural resources of food, water and land at University College London and Chatham House. His work focuses on the relationship between these emerging challenges and more traditional threats to national security. Neil has previously served as the UK Government Climate and Energy Security Envoy, the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change and he is a retired Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy.
The complex problem with climate change is it does not impact everyone at the same rate. Currently conflict and climate change are primarily correlated in a belt tuning just north and south of the equator, countries well away from Europe, North America, and Australia.
Neil is also an International Fellow of the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group who just released Too Hot To Handle report that highlights the reality of Australia’s climate–security failure.
I recently caught up with Neil and you can listen to our conversation here:
This conversation follows on from these previous episodes on the links between conflict and climate change.
Agriculture is not just about food security, it’s about national and regional security with Air Vice Marshal (retired) John Blackburn, former Deputy Chief of the Royal Australian Air ForceConflict, climate change, and food insecurity with David Tuck International Committee of the Red Cross
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There are currently 350 million people globally living with extreme hunger, with a plus 2°C rise in global temperatures this is forecast to rise to 539 million people, and with a plus 4°C temperature rise it is predicted that 2.1 billion people worldwide will be living with extreme hunger. Failing to adequately address this rise in extreme hunger will be a growing national security and global security issue as food insecurity is linked to increased migration and clonflict.
Ismahane Elouafi is the Executive Managing Director of CGIAR here she is building on her experience leading agrifood research and advocacy to deal with some the world’s most pressing environmental and human challenges. Her work focuses on the urgent challenge of providing nutritious food for all by ensuring that small-scale farmers across the global South have access to the science and technologies they need to adapt to a growing number of challenges, including climate change.
In low income countries most recent agricultural production gains have come from clearing more land, there have been no improvements in efficiency. This provides a huge opportunity to provide existing technology so the 500 hundred millions small holder farmers can increase productivity. Ethiopia has successfully achieved significant increases in productivity over recent years through the adoption of technology.
I recently caught up with Ismahane to discuss how our food systems are broken and whether we have realistic expectations of farmers across the world. The big question that arose is whether it is realistic to expect farmers to fix the issues of agriculture's impact on climate, biodiversity, the environment, and resource use, while addressing the growing issues of malnutrition and producing affordable food, and contributing to local and global economies.
You can listen to our conversation here.
Additional Links:
Periodic Table of Food Ingredients: https://foodperiodictable.org/
Virginia Tech Report: https://globalagriculturalproductivity.org/2023-gap-report/
IFPRI: https://www.ifpri.org/
Bezos Earth Fund: https://www.bezosearthfund.org/Send us a text
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This episode of Ash Cloud is brought to you in partnership with CSIRO.
Proteins play many critical roles in our bodies, and in the plants, animals, fungi and microbes that are our source of food and nutrition. Disease, brain function, appetite, movement, allergies, and thousands of other metabolic process all require proteins. This is in addition to the need for protein to build and maintain muscle. Growing global populations are dramatically increasing protein demand and this demand is putting ever greater pressure on our climate and environment. Meeting this demand sustainably requires new thinking on how we produce and consume protein.
Michelle Colgrave is the Deputy Director (Impact) at CSIRO Agriculture and Food where she uses her scientific background in the study of proteins across agriculture and food science to benefit human health and food sustainability. Together with her CSIRO team and partner organizations she is working to deliver more sustainable, productive, and resilient agricultural and food systems.
Balancing the roles of plant protein, animal protein, and novel non meat proteins is an opportunity to enhance the amount of protein we can produce sustainably. Michelle and her team prefer the term complimentary protein to describe the suite of new and emerging protein technologies including fermentation, algae, fungi, insect, and cell cultures that can improve productivity, nutrient composition, bioavailability, and the flavour of novels foods.
I recently caught up with Michelle to discuss opportunities to improve the sustainability of protein production, the important research her team is doing to alleviate the negative affects that allergy causing anti-nutritional proteins have on the lives of thousand of people globally, opportunities to enhance hybrid foods by incorporating legumes, and the work she is doing with New Mexico University to improve reproductive efficiency in livestock.
You can listen to our conversation here.
Additional information on the work of CSIRO Agriculture and Food that we discussed in this episode can be found at these links:https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2022/january/whats-brewing-precision-fermentation
https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2022/november/proteins-of-the-future-using-precision-fermentation-to-develop-new-ingredients
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Climate change is a global challenge, but interventions can only be implemented locally. Understanding the local cultures, economies, politics, language, and production systems is critical for any intervention to make an impact. Across the developing world the greatest opportunity to limit livestock methane emissions and improve food security is through improved animal nutrition and livestock genetics. In the developed world the opportunity lies in absolute methane emission reductions with genetics, the use of feed additives, and increasingly through a much improved understanding of the microbiome having the greatest potential to make significant impact.
Ermias Kebreab from UC Davis has been leading efforts to improve sustainability and reduce the climate impact of agriculture across the developed and developing worlds.
Across the Global South he has been working with farmers to develop digital tools and feed libraries in local languages to enable farmers to improve their productivity, efficiency of production, and reduce methane emissions. He started working in Vietnam alongside the State Department 10 years ago. Through the support of the Global Methane Hub these programs have now been extended to include Thailand, Philippines, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and a number of West African countries coordinated in Cameroon.
To achieve the absolute reduction in emissions needed across the Global North Ermias is working with UC Berkeley using CRISPR and meta genomics to identify microbes and the genes that are responsible for methanogenesis. A critical component of this is also understanding what happens to the hydrogen because if you can redirect the hydrogen away from methane you can improve productivity and feed efficiency at the same time as reducing emissions. This win win is a huge advantage in achieving wide spread farmer adoption and is equally applicable to lower income countries and wealthy countries.
I recently caught up with Ermias to discuss his work. You can listen to the conversation here.Send us a text
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Reducing methane emissions is the greatest opportunity to limit warming in the short term. With roughly 30% of current temperature increases are caused by methane, global food systems being responsible for 60% of methane emissions as a continuum from production to waste, and 80% of recent emissions have come from non-OECD countries the methane challenge intimately linked to the International development challenge.
To address this solution that are fit for purpose need to be developed. With feed additive solutions being only applicable to 2% of global production systems other mechanisms to reduce methane are needed that do not compromise livelihoods and food security.
Marcelo Mena is Chief Executive Office at the Global Methane Hub and the former Environment Minister for Chile from 2014 to 2018. Together with his team, the Global Methane Hub is bringing together philanthropic funding from the likes of Bezos Earth Fund and the Gates Foundation alongside government and private sector funds to create collaborative solutions across the Global South and the Global North.
I recently caught up with Marcelo to discuss the importance of addressing methane emissions globally, the need for solutions that align with the sources of those emissions and the collaborative partnerships and funding mechanisms that must be developed to have a real impact.
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Recent farmer protests across Europe have highlighted the political battleground around sustainable agriculture. The absence of effective policies and support for a just transition to Net Zero is positioning farmers as political pawns who are being exploitation by people outside the farming community pushing their own agendas.
Farmers are increasingly being squeezed between decreasing margins, increasing costs, increasing regulations, less market power. At the same time the growing politicisation of the rural urban divide is not focused on actually addressing farmer livelihoods but is being fuelled to drive the political agendas of people outside the agricultural community. At the same time the increasing fiscal demands of extreme weather events and geopolitical instability are in direct competition with funding for climate mitigation strategies.
Tim Benton is Research Director for the Environment, and society at Chatham House where he studies food security and food systems and how to increase their resilience to climate change, reduce their environmental footprints and improve public health through nutrition. In his recent paper on the European farmer protests he highlighted the need for a just transition as farmers are being squeezed between increasing regulatory framework and prices they are receiving for their produce. I recently caught up with Tim to discuss the politics around these global farmer protests, the costs involved in managing the impacts of climate change on our economies compared, and the lack of political will to take on the necessary investment.
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The climate impact of animal agriculture is only one of the aspects that needs to be addressed for sustainable productions systems. The importance and urgency to mitigate methane emissions must be integrated with the social and economic aspects of livestock production and the other environmental issues such as nutrient management and biodiversity.
The current state of our food systems are the result of decades and even centuries of the choices people have made which will take time to change. When it comes to global warming methane is the emergency brake that can limit temperature rises in the short term. Methane from livestock is one of the global methane sources and a key focus of Sara Place’s work.
Over the last 12 months her team has collected and analysed samples from over 900 animals. This research showed over 30% variation in emissions from similar animals under similar conditions, the cause of which is yet to be understood. This huge variation is an opportunity to use selecting breeding to permanently lower livestock emission. However, to achieve this there will need to be a vast increase in the numbers of animals monitored.
Sara Place is an expert in livestock systems sustainability for AgNext at Colorado State University where she brings where she combines her methane mitigation work with her experience in all aspects of livestock sustainability across academia, industry associations, and private industry. I recently caught up with Sara to discuss his work. You can listen to the conversation here.
AgNext at Colorado State University is wholly focused on researching, teaching and communicating their work on sustainable animal agriculture.Send us a text
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Growing anthropocentrism is one of the underlying root causes of our ecological crisis. In recent decades humans have become increasingly disconnected from our food. While for thousands of years obtaining food and water was the top priority of most human societies. Today, this is no longer the case and in today's society food is increasing becoming an a political issue, especially for meat and animal products.
I recently caught up with Dr Sparsha Saha from Harvard University to discuss research focuses on how voters respond to issues around meat, animal rights, and the links between animal agriculture, food accessibility, and climate change. Sparsha is the only empirical political scientist studying meat politics. You can listen to the conversation here.Send us a text
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