Currently over 50% of the world’s population is undernourished. There is generally not a shortage of food calories but a shortage of nutrients. This issue exists in rich countries, middle income countries, and poor countries. The traditional solution that has provided these nutrients to human populations for thousands of years is animals, both farmed livestock and hunted wild species.
In recent decades the vast increase in the numbers of farmed livestock and how they are produced has created severe environmental burdens which are unsustainable. The larger the concentration of these systems the higher is the risk of environmental hazards. However, with good management these risks can be mitigated.
I recently caught up with Dr. Peer Ederer to discuss the complex role livestock systems have in our food systems, the positive and negative environmental and social burdens of these systems, and the vital role they provide nutritionally. In our conversation Dr. Ederer the role of small holder family farms in our food systems and the need for empathy when developing innovations and solutions to these global challenges.
Currently over 50% of the world’s population is undernourished. There is generally not a shortage of food calories but a shortage of nutrients. This issue exists in rich countries, middle income countries, and poor countries. The traditional solution that has provided these nutrients to human populations for thousands of years is animals, both farmed livestock and hunted wild species.
In recent decades the vast increase in the numbers of farmed livestock and how they are produced has created severe environmental burdens which are unsustainable. The larger the concentration of these systems the higher is the risk of environmental hazards. However, with good management these risks can be mitigated.
I recently caught up with Dr. Peer Ederer to discuss the complex role livestock systems have in our food systems, the positive and negative environmental and social burdens of these systems, and the vital role they provide nutritionally. In our conversation Dr. Ederer the role of small holder family farms in our food systems and the need for empathy when developing innovations and solutions to these global challenges.
The future future food strategies and the opportunities and challenges that the world is facing in this space. That's an area that you've been focusing all your focus on and it's become mean evermore complex. Can you tell us a bit about an overview of how you see that and where the opportunities and challenges lie Unknown 0:27 that the largest challenge by a distance is the fact that as of today, more than 50% of the global population is undernourished and do not have the right amount of food nutrients on their dish. We do not have a shortage by and large we do not have a shortage of food calories, but we have a shortage of food nutrients. And this is a problem that cuts right across all societies. So we have rich and wealthy societies where a significant portion of the population is not properly nourished. And obviously this extends all the way down to a middle income countries into low income countries where large portions of the population do not have proper nutrient nutritious food on their plate. And that is the largest challenge that we have worldwide. Unknown 1:29 So what are the opportunities to actually address that challenge? And are there any specific areas in terms of nutrients that are of greater concern or greater importance than others? Unknown 1:43 On balance, you can say it strikes all the higher value, nutrients. So we're talking about the vitamins, we're talking about minerals, and of course, we're talking about proteins. So anything anything that is not just an energy supply in terms of either carbohydrates or fats of which we have enough, but proteins and minerals, vitamins, and also fibers. We were short of that across the board in the global dish. Unknown 2:21 So you mentioned that there was it 2% of the world's population is undernourished and it's not necessarily linked. It's in wealthy countries and middle income countries and poor countries. The same challenges is it a is there a one size fits all solution or do we need to look at this in different approaches for different countries depending on the income level globally. Unknown 2:49 So income does play a role obviously is so the poorer the country is the poorer the society is and the poorer a population segment is the worst the nutritional situation becomes. We do not we need to look at this in a differentiated way, not only by income, but also by climate zones by religious and cultural backgrounds. So for sure, there is no one size fits all situation whatsoever. With this, this is this needs to be looked at country by country and region by region, culture by culture. Even within countries you will you will need to look for different solutions in the cities than then in the rural countryside. So we need a wide portfolio of different solutions to address those that nutrient under supply. Unknown 3:50 One of the things a former interviewer, on my podcast on the podcast said to me, a man called Richard aircard at the University of Melbourne. He said no fewer than 10% of the world's population actually has a choice. On what they eat every single day. That 90% plus of the world's population, they they eat essentially what they can what they can either afford to get or physically can manage to have available where they where they live. Is that consistent? With your research and your understanding of the world's leading nutritional challenges? Unknown 4:37 I so 10% sounds a little bit small to me. I think I mean the view if you think 8 billion people out of that 800 million will live in North America and Europe. Then we have East Asian people as well. And granted, not all of them have free food choice. But I think the the group of people in Latin America in Asia, that has the choice to to eat a good meal. I would not put it at just 800 million or about as twice as that. So let's say 20%. But that's still a low number, right? I mean, I don't want to go into hairsplitting, whether we're talking about 10 or 20%. Even if it's 20% it's too low. That would still mean that 80% of the people do not have a choice to eat. Out of that 80%. Probably, probably 20 to 30 percentage points may not have a choice, but they still nonetheless are well fed so they have a sufficient meal and that that leaves them about the 50% that does not have a sufficient meal in front of them. Unknown 6:07 And in terms of the innovation that's required to address this huge challenge. If you've got this high percentage of population time the Fed what is what what sort of innovation is needed in that space? Unknown 6:22 Well, we have a solution to this. The solution the technology that has been able to to feed the world properly, over the 1000s of years, has been to use animals to use livestock animals. So it's not so much that we need a new innovation in the in the methodology itself. We know we know what the methodology is the methodology is called livestock animal. So the big ones would be cattle, pigs and poultry. But then we should not forget that we have some minor species as well like don't cheap camel, rabbits, fish. So they all have a role to play. And, and in essence, what this methodology does, it takes low quality plant material that that we as humans are not very well not very good. At and digesting that takes them and turns that into high quality nutrient dense meat, dairy and egg products. And, and and this way we can we can nourish ourselves as an omnivore type of animal that the human species is we can we can get the nutrients from from those from those livestock animals. Now over the last few decades not centuries, but decades. We we've been running into two issues here. The one issue is that keeping animals has been economically it's expensive, so it has been economically more expensive than many people were able to afford. And so therefore they were not able to buy the meat, dairy and egg products that they would need that traditionally would also be part of their diet to feed themselves properly. And the the second aspect is that with the with the growing number of animals we have, we have gone come into contact with environmental barriers. Where were some of these production forms of these animals are creating severe environmental burdens and therefore create the risk of a backlash of environmental conditions. So these are the two limits that we went into. So now now we're with the challenge of having to reduce these environmental burdens and at the same time, make animals source foods more affordable to the global population so that that more specifically speaking when we say our challenge is to feed more people to properly this specific challenge is we need to reduce the environmental burden of animals and at the same time make them more affordable to the population. That is the specific challenge. Unknown 9:51 Is your research showing that the amount of animal protein is not insufficient? Or is that also about distribution? There are people that ate too much and there are also many, many people that have Unknown 10:06 so that depends very much on what your view is. What is enough proteins for a healthy diet? And that question is surprisingly difficult to answer. So that requires a little detour in order to understand why this answer is so contentious. When so, so before going into that detour generally speaking, it is recommended that an adult person eats between 50 and 60 grams of protein per day in order to meet this personal requirements. And if we would assume that level of 50 to 60 grams per day, then globally we have enough of these proteins available. So we have enough for everybody to eat 50 to 60 grams of protein. So then you would say okay, well, in that case, it's just a reallocation issue, and we just need to make sure that everybody has properly access to it. Now here comes the complication. You need, you need 50 to 60 grams of exactly the right types of protein at exactly the right time of the day. Okay, so it's not just it's not enough to eat 60 grams of protein in one evening deal with a big chunk of meat because your body can only digest 20 grams of protein at any given meal. So you actually need at every meal every meal of the day, preferably from four meals a day. You need a good chunk of proteins in there. So So you need an evenly spaced throughout the day. And and you need those proteins in the right amino acid composition. So the amino acid composition so a protein does not equal a protein. So you need you need the right amino acid composition. And a pure plant based proteins do not provide the amino acid composition that we as human beings need. So the more plant proteins you have, the more proteins you need overall in order to meet those threshold amounts and then comes another complication if if you're a special needs person, so I mean, if you're young, or if you're old or if you're ill or if you're pregnant or if you're lactating or if you have some genetic, you know, metabolic issue in your life. You're you're required amino acid composition might actually be different individually different from the general profile. So for all these individual situations, you may need different amino acid composition send a drug that the normal average healthy adult requires. So if we don't want to be turning every single citizen of the world into a PhD biologist on understanding exactly what type of amino acid composition this person needs, at what times during the day, then the correct answer is we need to over supply a daily meal with proteins in order to make sure that everybody has received the minimum amount of amino acids that they needed. So that's the long answer. If you got the amino acid composition exactly right, four times a day, then 60 grams would be enough. But if you don't get it right, then you need at 90 100 grams a day to make sure that you have the required composition at every meal of the day available. And if you then think that for that reason, because I think it's safe to assume that the global population will not fall get a PhD in Biology. For that reason, we will need an oversupply of proteins on the daily meals and then we are not we do not have enough I mean depending on what scenario you utilize. We are the 50% short or 80% short or even 100% Short of the amount of proteins that we would need in order to feed everybody properly. Unknown 14:43 And obviously with with proteins, milk, eggs, meat, they're all perishable goods. So the logistics of moving them around are also a challenge and that's especially the case when we move into some of the lower income countries where the road infrastructure the refrigeration infrastructure, is not there. So how does that side of the distribution side of it come into it as well? Unknown 15:15 Yes, yes and no, I mean, eggs are actually a surprisingly non perishable products. Eggs can stay in good condition for quite a while. Having said that, eggs of course are also not so easy to transport so but eggs are really a wonder food, especially for poorly developed regions because eggs can be laid by a small animal but just a chicken so you don't need the large stables and barns and huge operations. So egg production is something that can happen very decentralized. And eggs have been there falls identified as one of the cornerstones of improving the micronutrient situation, especially for areas of the world in rural areas that are difficult to access. On the dairy side. That is, that is a lot more difficult. And then on the dairy side, it's not even the issue of the finished product. I mean, you can you can create butter milks and cheeses in particular, I mean, the whole the whole the whole thing about creating cheese is in order to make to make a very healthy dairy product long term. Long term non perishable i i am a big connoisseur of the five year old Parmesan cheese I have I have my whole fridge stocked with five year old Parmesan cheese and that's fantastic and it's unbelievable this this food is five years old. It's not even refrigerated and it tastes just wonderful. So, so we have traditional methods of making dairy products non perishable. But the whole collecting the milk and tweeting the milk until you don't have cheese made out of it and so on. Is a challenge on the meat side. Yes, of course once you have slaughtered the animal, the meat becomes perishable. But one of the one of the advantages of animals is that you can slaughter them as needed. You know a plant production plants they have to be harvested when when the time is right you know when harvest periods comes when when the sun and the rain and the season of the year decided now as far as theory and then you have to harvest them right then and then you have to eat them right then all you have to store them and process them and so on and so forth. To make them non perishable. But the animals, you slaughter the animal as you need it, and until the moment while it's still alive. It is a perfect storage mechanism of that of that meat. So that's actually the advantage of the animals that you don't need a coach or you just assaulted them when you need them. Unknown 18:23 We if we look across the glide, we've got quite different systems in the Global North and the global south in terms of the centralization of MapAction and all the decentralization and as you said, there's there's the farm somewhere in say rural Africa or remote parts of Asia where there's a few chickens running around the yard. That's a vitally important protein source whereas when you start looking to here in North America, you've got very big animal production units, whether they poultry, dairy or beef, that are then shipped out through industrial processing facilities to supermarkets and onto onto people to eat. How do you and obviously the the environmental footprint of those different systems as well as the numbers of people they feed is is hugely, hugely different. How do you see marrying up those environmental challenges with the need to actually produce this protein efficiently and then get it to the people to eat to solve those nutritional challenges? Unknown 19:41 Not quite forever. I understand your question. So from a centralization happens less so on the animal production site. So the animals are still there, the animal production is still happening in comparatively small units. So the majority of the animals are are being bred and maintained and fed and family sized operations. Now of course in some countries, especially the United States, or also Brazil, you have these these mega farms with 30,000 Animals 50,000 A few cases even 100,000 animals, but that's still the exception. Most animal farming is small, decentralized operations around the world. And and that actually creates quite a lot of resilience in the system, that you have these decentralized production units. So I don't I don't share your your notion that the animal production has become centralized. It's it's compared to any other industry. I mean, take take car manufacturing, how many car manufacturing plants do you have in the United States? I mean, a dozen or so. So but how many how many animal production sites do they have in the United States? They have 10s of 1000s, maybe even hundreds of 1000s of animal production sites. So so it is it is a decentralized industry. Now that's different on the abattoir side on the slaughter side. There has been a centralization of the of the slaughterhouse side and that is probably not a good development for all kinds of reasons. It's it has been driven by economies of scale. So clearly, yes. But it has also been driven by regulatory pressure that that communities have felt that they didn't want to have a smelly average bar anymore in their vicinity. So it's been closed down or or permits to expand them or modernize them have not been granted and so they shut down and then everything moves to these huge facilities. Now these these facilities means that the animals need to travel for longer distances when which in itself is an environmental burden. But it also means that some of the smaller animals and now I'm talking about sheep's, sheeps and goats, or some, you know, specialty breeds that they that they that it's often not economical anymore for them to be to be grazing or to be to be used in a certain area because there was no abattoir that can that can receive them. Because the average farmer might be too far away might be 100 miles or 150 miles away or maybe even even further than that. And for a small size animals that's often not a not a distance that that makes it possible to to do that in a lucrative fashion. And so what that means is that many of the ecological needs niche or the ecological environments where it would be good to have these animals that are not being serviced by these animals anymore, with various kinds of negative impact on the on that on that environment. Unknown 23:27 There's that has gotten me thinking so I appreciate what you how you answer that because I think the the big the feedlots that being based there, rather than dairy farms, etc. Tend to generate much more media coverage than the globally millions and millions of smallholder farms that are out there. So there probably is a perception where a much greater percentage of the world's animal population lives in these kind of mega farm situations and is actually the fact and then back to perceptions. There's the media likes to have things to talk about, but keep things simple the crowd headlines so there's a lot of discussion about methane at the moment and the importance of that. There's various different countries. There's a lot of discussion about nitrogen and effluent and those sorts of things. But when you actually look at animal production, you you see the relationship between those animals and our food systems is vastly complex and for centuries and centuries the animals were the recyclers, they were the fertilizers they enabled all the other horticultural and farming practices to be efficient without the nutrients animals provided that wouldn't the world society and population would have grown to where it is today. So where do you see in the broader context, the greatest environmental challenges with livestock production. Unknown 25:00 So, as as in any mono culture, right, whether you have whether you do sugar, cane sugar, plantations that cover the areas of entire countries or or wheat mono culture plantations or or banana mono cultural plantations. If you have an animal mono culture, the situation you will run the risk of creating an environmental hazard. And, and the reason is, because that concentration of a single species on a single piece of on a small piece of land invites the chance of pathogens invites the problem of how to how to fuse, how to distribute again, the highly concentrated amount of manual material that that gets accumulated in such a case and you know, the huge amounts of material that needs to be trucked there in order to feed the animals and so on. So, so the larger the concentration of an agricultural production is and that applies to plants and for animals, the higher is the risk of an environmental hazard unfold unfolding. That's not to say that these cannot be mitigated. So I would think even in highly intensive, let's say feedlot operation, if it manages its its manure properly, why, you know, why, why should that be an environmental hazard? But, but it requires that much more attention. So the more intensify you do something, the more you need to pay attention to risk mitigation. The the environmental benefits that animals in our agricultural system can provide. They derive mostly from having decentralized operations. And so having cows on the meadows free grazing systems where the manure is equally spread the pigs and chicken operations they, you could be using pigs as grazing animals as well, by the way, but that's typically not done for good reasons. That nonetheless, we could be even there. If we have smaller and more decentralized units, then also their manual situation can be more easily spread across a larger environment and serve as a natural fertilizer and where you have these natural fertilizers, you can you can also then get carbon sequestration benefits. You typically get biodiversity benefits, you out of natural fertilizer, you generally have better soil health, you have a larger insect population, the insect population supports a larger bird population, larger bird and insect population, again, promote the natural biodiversity going on in the whole area. So animals being properly used in as much a decentralized fashion as possible. A can be a significant contributor of biodiversity services, soil health services, water retention services, that are that are very important benefits to have and which are typically not appreciated enough in the in the discussion that we have. Unknown 28:55 So what can be done about that? I completely agree that that side of things is underappreciated doesn't get the headlines that and the discussion time it deserves what can we do in that space? Unknown 29:09 Well, I think two things. So one side is science has to become better at at noticing these benefits and measuring these benefits and describing them. So science, Sciences has in the past, not done enough of a job to to pay attention to these things and record them and publish them and make them available. So on the scientific side, we have homework to do and and secondly, I think the farming community needs to do good things and talk about them. The farming community and every country I go to whether it's from from Mali to Germany, from New Zealand to the United States, you you have these absolutely fantastic farming operations where where you get through, you know, triple or quadruple winds of profit, people environment. Unknown 0:42 Planet biodiversity, everything and when these farmers are truly guarding, guarding the resources of the land, for themselves and for future generations, and and their story is not being, you know, known enough. So we need to, we need to give more visibility and these farmers themselves need to need to find more ways to be visible of how they really are the guardian of the of the resources of the land and the waters and empty animals. So we there's more storytelling that is necessary here of all the wonderful, great solutions that are being practiced in every corner of the world. On that note, are there any of those farmers stories that particularly come to mind that you could share? Unknown 1:37 I don't know if there's so many of them. Unknown 1:42 I mean, let's take one from anything. can have a farmer in the northeast of Netherlands. She she converted her whole pig operation into a into a farm where the pigs have have you know, they have a free flows of the pigs can easily go into the open and they're not confined in very small narrow places. And the whole farm is essentially fully circular. So the whole farm grows, what the pigs eat and vice versa. The manure is being put out again, the other biogas thing there. But what I also particularly liked is that she then she genetically selected and created her own breed of pigs, so she did not just take the normal genetics but she actually created or led by the genetics of their genetic breeding program that we demanded. She kind of created her own brand, her own genetic breed and put a marketing brand on that. So So customers in her environment, you know, in that region where she lives, they recognize that they are buying a piece of meat from this branded product, that that also has a different genetic composition and a particular way of of a circular agricultural system. So this is really closing the loop, not just in terms of having a different agricultural production system, but connecting that to all the way to the consumer on the one end and connecting it to high technology of genetic selection methods. On the other hand, this is a story of a fantastic farmer who, who really understands how to operate the whole chain, how to operate the whole system, using the best of technology and making it a great storage for the consumers. Unknown 3:54 That's a great story. And as you said, it's it's marrying the the environmental side of the food production farming side of it as well as the business side of it. And would I would I be wrong to assume that many of the great stories that you have to have that in similar as a similar factor that they've been looking at across those different parts of the production system or the whole business model. Unknown 4:22 So so the world isn't good and getting incredibly diverse place and so you have so many different solutions and so many different farmers will interpret their, their way of guarding the land for for the next generations in so many different ways. Unknown 4:41 So but the but the most successful of those would always include components of a consumer orientation to make sure that this product really has a superior value creation opportunity towards the consumer, the consumer can really taste or feel or or or knows for sure that this is a different and a better product. So they will always have that consumer orientation element in it. And they will have a strong technology component to it in order to make best usage of those resources that are being given to them. So I think the best stories always have both of these components in them. Yes. Unknown 5:31 Politics of protein production of meat production has become much more divisive over the last decade or so. Unknown 5:47 How do you how do you and in some ways you've got both sides are looking at you know, the farmers I've never met a farmer who doesn't want to actually look after their land who's actively out there to try and damage their land. And I've met many of them. And likewise, there's a lot of people who are very passionate about the environment that see reducing animal production as the solution and I would say both groups care deeply about the land that they've become divided into, into quite different and often not quite competitive, combative, but also, you know, they don't get on very well. How do you see that political debates going or unfolding so I think first of all, what you say is very important to recognize. Unknown 6:41 All sides really want the same thing. I don't know a single farmer who's out there saying, Well, I intentionally ruin my land because I don't care what comes after me and and the same is also for industry. I, I don't see that industry, our agribusiness industry as a short term, exploiter of you know, the devil may care what comes after me. i i anybody I know in this industry is very mindful of the fact that we're producing food. The food has to be safe, it has to be secure. And and nobody wants to live with a blemish on their, on their code that they've been ruining the planet and in the process of I think across the board, we all want the same thing. We want a healthy, nutritious, sufficient meal that does not ruin the planet while while we produce that meal. Now, why? Why the debate has become so divisive and so polarized. I'm not quite sure. Unknown 7:51 I'm also not sure whether we've become more polarized than then any other field. It seems like polarization is the, you know, has become a feature of our societies and I mean you you start a war and some corner of the world and the next day you have only either people who are completely forward or other people who are completely on the other side. And, and suddenly, you know, within days it's already not possible to have a middle ground position. So it's that is a question to a sociologist of why by the world reacted towards an abundance of information thanks to the internet. Unknown 8:41 It reacted with extreme polarization. I don't I don't know what the cultural tool has to overcome this. But that's that's really a task for sociologists to figure out. Unknown 8:55 So, back to our group, I think I think we just need to find ways to stay in dialogue and engage in dialogue. I was last week at a large meet event in Germany, where we're inside the meeting, we had 500 executives just talking about the future of the industry, and I was I was one of the keynote speakers. And outside we had Greenpeace running very large protests. And you know, the couple of typical Greenpeace type of activities that use posters and so on support. Unknown 9:38 But I then actually made a point to go outside of the hall and talk to some of these Greenpeace activists. Unknown 9:47 And I'd say we had a very polite and very open and curious driven discussion. I I was not I could not say that, that it was impossible to have a discussion with these Greenpeace protesters on the other side, you know, outside of the hall on the contrary, we had a very good and constructive discussion we had, we had different viewpoints. Unknown 10:15 But I took some some good ideas away from that discussion, and I hope they did as well. So until the sociologists come up with a better solution of how we're going to conduct our societies. I think what we need to do as we need to seek the dialog and first of all really understand that we all want the same thing. Unknown 10:38 That's, I don't have an answer to the polarization side of things, but that is something that you see increasingly, I think that's a that's a not a huge challenge for for our societies, but probably beyond our expertise as you as you mentioned, in terms of I you know, creating, creating those dialogues and having I guess people who don't necessarily agree with each other speak together. Unknown 11:11 And on a personal note, I think you know, you frequently if you go into a room where you're rude Iran you don't particularly challenge yourself or, or learn very much and when you do start to speak or speak to people who don't agree with you, you often do learn more. So I think that's highly useful. How do you see from the meat industry side of things, or the protein or the human health side of things, ways, any ways of trying to broaden those conversations to include more people and get those other people in a room? Unknown 11:44 I think the traditionally the meat industry has been reluctant to communicate. Unknown 11:54 It's a it's a traditional it's a traditional posture of the meat industry, not to talk with the public. Unknown 12:06 And I don't know maybe it's sort of just accidentally happened like this. Unknown 12:12 But you could also think maybe it's has to do with the fact that it's just one of those things that that's, you know, it's a bit awkward to talk about, because the reality is, in order to be able to serve a piece of meat in the local butchery or in the local supermarket. Unknown 12:35 The connection to the cute animal that's been standing outside and the metals beforehand is that somebody had to kill this animal. Unknown 12:44 And since this is an awkward, awkward step in the life of the animal, maybe the traditional default position was let's not talk about it, let's just do it, you know. And, and so what I observed among the business industry, in in meat related sector, is they they really, really don't quite know how to talk with the general public. They really kind of learning how to do this. Unknown 13:21 Because they've now seen that they're performing a vital function for society, but society has, has reduced or in some cases, maybe even totally withdrawn the social licence to operate. And without a social licence to operate, you cannot operate a business whether it's legal or not. So so what I keep on telling captains of the industry is not just now but like, you know, write it into your taskbar for the next 100 years, that every business every industry in every society needs to continuously make clear why it should have a social licence to operate. Because without that social licence to operate, you don't have a business. And I think the industry has woken up to this need. And so it's learning now how to communicate it's learning how to bring out its messages. It's learning how to be transparent. Unknown 14:26 And I think this is showing first very good results. Unknown 14:32 What I find completely laughable is that some of the opponents of the of the meat industry or meat or animal in general, that the opponents say that there would be massive meat industry lobbying efforts. Unknown 14:52 That's completely laughable because I know for certain that doesn't exist. Unknown 14:57 The meat industry does not lounged massive lobbying efforts. It doesn't know how to do it, it doesn't it doesn't have the profit margins to do it, to compare to compare the meat industry with the tobacco industry or with the with the fossil oil fuel industry, is it complete? That's just completely ridiculous notion. Unknown 15:23 Because the meat industry is not organized like that. It doesn't have the profit margins to do this. And it has traditionally never done that. So so the industry is beginning to find its voice towards society, and that's a good thing. Unknown 15:41 Over the last 10 or so years, there's been a lot of innovation into alternative ways of making proteins. Be that various fermentation mechanisms or cell cultures. Unknown 15:56 Weigh Do you see those and obviously those businesses there's been a lot of investment, huge amount of investment in some cases. Unknown 16:05 And then the challenges of actually turning, turning those those products into profitable and those businesses into profitable businesses. Where do you see that technology and that innovation fitting into the food system? Unknown 16:22 So most of it has a proper place in the food system. And is to be encouraged to be welcomed. Unknown 16:31 So the the overall challenge to create to to have a more micronutrient rich nutrition on our tables is so large that we should not be discounting or should not be pushing away. Any single method for it. So, so, overall, it is to be welcomed and to be appreciated. Now, having said that, we also need to understand what are the likely technological limitations to this over the next, you know, foreseeable 20 to 30 years. Unknown 17:09 So when we when we look at alternative meats, they come in at least three broad categories. So the one the one is the classic tofu burger, or these days that would be more likely to be a pea burger. So these you take plant proteins, and you do a high ultra high amount of processing on these plant proteins in order to make them look like a piece of meat. So so this is not a new technology. It's been around forever. Unknown 17:43 And and it has its market. But the but let's face it, it's an ultra high processed food in order to make it taste anywhere remotely palpable. You you need to put an enormous amount of color rooms and the odor rooms and stabilizers and and and into this type of food. So most people, rightly so will say, Well, why don't I just take the real thing at least that's not processed. So. Unknown 18:19 So that's one one part of it. And the second on this issue is, once you're done with all that processing, the cost is more or less the same again. So you're not even getting a cost benefit. The same as by the way tool for the environmental benefits. Or once you once you once you adjust all these foods for on a on a nutrient based basis, comparison of environmental burdens, they are more or less all come out the same thing so you're not gaining any money you're not gaining any environmental benefits. Unknown 18:56 The second category of alternative meats are where you express the proteins from funghi or algae or from bacteria. So so you get micro organisms to create an animal like kind of protein. So this as well, we've been having this, for instance the market leader in Dallas corn from United Kingdom a chicken meat replacement product and is there to ever be we've done it for decades. The technology is well matured know how to do it. And it has its market some people like it, most people don't. Unknown 19:44 But again there's really no cost benefit to this talk was sort of product it's not cheaper to do. And on the environmental assessment side it performs slightly better yes, but not not in magnitude better. Unknown 20:01 So if we can, if we can harness micro organisms to express proteins that then become ingredients to food, that's to be welcomed. It's fantastic. If we can if we can, for instance, use these ingredients to fortify dishes and as you know, artificially enrich them with proteins to make them more nutritious. Fantastic, you know, absolutely welcome. Unknown 20:31 Now the third category is the idea of creating cellularly cultured meat right so we are creating a cell a meat that is that is actually an animal cell and from that create not a replacement product but you actually recreate the cell of the meat muscle. Now from what I hear from my colleagues, this technology has no opportunity has no chance to to realize itself on any scale of economics over the next 20 or 30 years. This is not going to become a mass market. product. It is probably viable for some old or special products. So the things that always been talked about is for agua an artificial liver or or yellowfin tuna so these kinds of things, is a very, very expensive luxury products that at the same time have all kinds of ethical problems with them. If we can replace them with silver based wonderful, you know, why not? But is that going to become a mass application product? My colleagues tell me not not in a distant sight. If we never know what happens in 30 years but with what we know about technology today. This is does not have the viability to become a mass market application. Unknown 22:13 Thank you very much for that is there we're getting near the end of our time. So is there anything that you would like to add that we haven't already discussed? Unknown 22:28 We touched on it but I would like to emphasize one more thing more explicitly. Unknown 22:34 When we're talking about the environmental impacts of, of an animal and indirectly therefore, meats and eggs and dairy. Unknown 22:49 Then then these impacts happen along four different dimensions or mainly four different dimensions. So one dimension is biodiversity. One dimension is soil health. The third dimension is water. Management and the fourth is climate. Unknown 23:06 Now every kind of animal so poultry, pigs and cattle. Unknown 23:14 They have different types of impacts both negative and positive impacts. Along each of the four dimensions. Unknown 23:27 And the reality of it is the complexity of it is that they are not there no they are not trade off about you know you cannot say okay, I can somehow take a negative climate impact and trade that off against a positive soil health impact. Unknown 23:47 Because we're talking about different units. So we need to accept that the environmental dimensions of animals in our global food system are real, but they are multi dimensional. And we need to we need to manage every dimension we need to manage and monitor every dimension by itself and respect that every dimension needs to be needs to be monitored and managed. independent of each other. Unknown 24:27 And, and then we need to accept that each animal can have an each of these dimensions, either positive or negative, or even both at the same time impacts along each of these dimensions, we need to accept the multi dimensionality of that of that system. Otherwise we will we will for sure get it wrong to define the the right animal production system for the right kind of environment. Unknown 24:58 Some that we need to learn more about the complexity of these systems and embrace that complexity wholeheartedly. Unknown 25:08 We there is no shortcut to it. Unknown 25:12 It we live in an age of wanting to have very brief and simple implausible solutions. But unfortunately, this is not an error. This is not an area where we can just sort of, you know, use one dimension and optimize everything into that direction. It will bite us back on the other dimensions. We need to accept that this is this is complex. And that if we do not appreciate and respect that complexity, we will most likely get wrong solutions that that come and bite us in other ways. Unknown 25:49 Yeah, thank you very, very much for joining. I absolutely. Appreciate it very much for the discussion.