ASH CLOUD
ASH CLOUD
The politics and science of addressing the 2050 global demand for protein with Alison Van Eenennaam UC Davis
Low- and middle-income countries house 76% of the global cattle herd, and by 2050 will be home to 8 billion people. They are the projected epicenter of both increased animal source food demand, and livestock-related emissions. The most promising approach to address this demand while limiting greenhouse gas emissions is to improve the efficiency of livestock production systems in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia through interventions in genetics, feeding and health. Boosting livestock productivity can improve both food security and producer incomes. Alternative proteins may play a limited role in addressing projected demand, but currently most companies are located in high-income countries Moreover, given the multifaceted roles that ruminants play in global agri-food systems, the social, economic and economic trade-offs associated with replacing meat and milk with alternative proteins must be evaluated holistically.
Today we are joined by Alison Van Eenennaam from UC Davis who is leading the
animal Genomics and Biotechnology Program is to provide research and education on the use of animal genomics and biotechnology in livestock production systems.
Alison recently wrote this paper outlining the challenges alternative proteins face in meeting the increased demand across the Global South.
Welcome to the AshCloud. I'm Ash Sweeting. The role and sustainability of global livestock production systems is increasingly an impassioned topic of discussion. Today we are joined by Alison von Endemann, who leads animal biotechnology and genomics at UC Davis, to discuss the opportunities technology can play in improving the sustainability and productivity of livestock, the increased politicization of this debate, especially in light of the misinformation campaign targeting the methane livestock inhibitor Beau Vair in recent weeks. And where alternative proteins fit into the picture to meet the growing demand for protein across the global north and the global south. Alison, thank you very much for joining me today.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having me here, Ash.
Ash Sweeting:So you've been working at UC Davis on biotech for agriculture, especially for animal production, for a number of decades. And what's happened over that time in terms of the new technologies that have come in and then how they have been taken by both by farmers or how the the perception of farmers and consumers?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, as I'm a geneticist and so I'm kind of interested in technologies that can improve genetics in general. And some technologies have come and been adopted very widely, something like genomic selection, where you can actually test the DNA of an animal and determine what how good it's going to be, and basically select animals like that. That has come in the last decade with almost no public pushback whatsoever. But other technologies, and I'm thinking here specifically of things like genetic engineering or GMOs, more commonly known, or recombinant bovine somatotropin, have met with considerable hostility in the public arena. And I think it's been a little bit perhaps confusing for people working in this field, in that there's not a huge distinction sometimes between what enrages the kind of the public debate and others that just kind of go through without any pushback. Because to me, they're all technologies that help to improve the basic footprint of agriculture and the sustainability. And anytime you block a technology from coming to be used, you kind of have this what's called an opportunity cost of basically improvements you could have done if you could have used that technology, but it got removed because you didn't have the, I hate this term, but the social license to use it, or there was a lot of pushback from competing business interests that kind of said, hey, our product doesn't contain XYZ, whatever that is. You should buy our product because XYZ might, you know, give you cancer or give your kid autism or make your testicles small or whatever the whatever the thing is. And it's been really hard to kind of counter that narrative because fear is kind of so much more newsworthy than reassurance from scientists saying, no, no, it's it's all good. You know, there's there's no safety concerns here. That the data just doesn't support that.
Ash Sweeting:There's a lot in that. And one of the first things that comes to mind, and I think GMO is, or genetically modified organisms, is a is a great example of this, that there's been a lot of pushback, uh, especially 10, 20 years ago, or 50 or plus, uh, in terms of GMO for corn and soy and for crops. But yet at the same time, most or not most, but many, many of the medicines and pharmaceuticals that people use are also made through GMO technologies, and you'll have have consumers that are protesting about uh a GMO crop, but then they're taking a GMO medicine um without seeing a contradiction in the fact that they're protesting against the use for one form and not the other. Um does that just I guess highlight that the complexity is us as humans and how we we can look at two different things that are basically the same technology and and see have a very different opinion on them or see them through a different lens.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean I think it's a little bit the benefit. So let's just take insulin, for example, which is created using genetically engineered organisms and is widely used by type 1 diabetics and type 2. Uh, but you know, type 1 diabetics, it's not like they can get an alternative form of um insulin that is gonna take care of their needs and they will survive. So I I can't sell you a, I don't know, an herbal remedy that's gonna do the same thing as what this medicine actually does. And there's a very real benefit to that person. So if they don't take it, they die. So I would call that perhaps the most benefit you could get from something. Versus GM food, especially in the developed world where we have choice in the marketplace, there's not a lot of risk, so to speak, in selecting a product that doesn't contain XYZ, um, and maybe paying a little bit more because it doesn't contain that. Um, and you you have you're still getting food. Um, and so it's not like there's a big um uh drawback to that. And so there's been this constant contradiction between medicine and food, as you alluded to. And part of it, I think, is that the groups that are really promoting the fear and selling their alternative products, they can do that in the food space because there's really no harm in either eating GMOs or not eating GMOs, versus they really can't do that in the medicine space. It's like, yeah, don't take your insulin, you know, get my dodgy pill and you can take this and you'll be fine, but you won't, you'll be dead. Um, and so I think the very real benefit of the medicines is is perhaps what distinguishes it. Whereas in the food space, there are options and there's no real consequence to either eating it or not eating it in terms of your actual health.
Ash Sweeting:So I guess that leads to the risks and you know, climate change, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, all those sorts of things that are heavily tied to uh our food system. So there is real risk there. And however, it's not as immediate and necessarily on your doorstep. The countries that are most vulnerable to climate change are bordering the equator, parts of Africa, parts of Asia, and you know, sitting here in California, we're a long, long way from from well, probably not as far away as we think we are, but it we have the perception we're a long long way from that. But on that note, you took part in a debate about GMO a number of years ago, and there was and and the side you're on actually when the audience voted, um, won the debate, which was for the benefits of GMO. Whereas I think 10 or 15 years before that, that would have been much less likely. So consumer perception is evolving in terms of what's I guess new science and what's old science, even though the safety concerns or all those things haven't really changed. So, how do you how do you see all of that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the the the debate you alluded to was a decade ago, almost exactly to the day, um, and it was basically arguing the merits of genetically modified food. And quite frankly, the the group that was supporting it, so myself and Rob Fraley, um, didn't think we would win that urban audience because they don't necessarily have a stake in the existing GMO products that are on the market. But there are very real benefits associated with that. That's why millions of farmers grow them. And to be able to have a calm discussion uh with a very skilled moderator about the technology for an hour and a half, we were actually able to get a sizable group of the audience that were undecided about the technology to actually see the benefits and vote for the product. But how often do you get an opportunity to strap people down into a seat for 90 minutes and listen to a science-based debate around technology? I mean, that's like the you know, the dream. Uh, if we could do that with all technologies, maybe we could, you know, have something better than the discussion we're having at the moment, which tends to be very much fueled by you know little snippets in on social media and amplified by um, well, groups that are often um in um competing business interests with products that have genetically modified organisms. Or more generally, I think what I find in my social media feed is just random bots that kind of pick up on, oh, you're talking about this technology, we're gonna just throw a bomb in here and you know, with my 10 followers or whatever. And so you've got this really toxic kind of um social media um amplification of basically misinformation that is really hard to counter, I think. And and I I'm a little, as a public communicator around agricultural science, which after all feeding ourselves is about the most important thing we can do, pretty discouraged at the moment in terms of um objective data and and evidence being used to make decisions around uh agricultural um systems. And uh I think it's a pretty dangerous um precedent. And I I, you know, I looked historically when we've had ideology driving uh agricultural decisions, like for example, Lysenko in Russia, um, and you know, suggesting that plants like to act in a socialist way rather than a kind of the Mendelian, more capitalist way. And you know, that led to a horrific famine because basically agriculture doesn't care what what party you belong to, it it depends on science-based facts. And if we're not making policy based on that, um, I think it it has really big ramifications for food security globally, and uh that concerns me as someone that works in this field.
Ash Sweeting:The situation with the GMOs and then what happened with um whenever it was the last decade or so with RBST and how that was not used in the market because of these sort of campaigns, and then in recent days there's been a a growing or evolving situation with DSM's methane inhibitor Bovaire. How do you see the the similarities between those? And what do you think we can learn from past experience in terms of uh addressing these these kind of fear campaigns that that people are are putting out there?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so well RBST, so recombinant bovine somatotrophin, for those in the audience that are not familiar with that, that was came out about 30 years ago now. Um and it was basically a protein that was given to dairy cattle to improve their production, and it was created, it's a it's a genetically engineered product, in the same way insulin is that we give to diabetes human diabetics. This was created in that way. And there was um some groups around at that time, led by an activist called Jeremy Rifkin, really, that um basically had this pure food campaign that was really against the use of biotechnology in agriculture in general and created um a lot of uh fear around the milk from these cows that have been given this protein, suggesting that it was going to be, you know, cut cancer, cancer-causing and you know, the usual scary kind of words. Um and what happened back then, 30 years ago, so this is kind of before Twitter and all of that, um, was that you had um people basically um petitioning the creameries, so that's the the groups that make the milk. So you're probably familiar with, you know, crystal, for example, as the one in Sacramento, and um telling them that they didn't want milk from cows that had been treated with recombinant bovine sematotropin. And so then the creameries who said to their suppliers, the dairy farmers, don't you can't use this product if you want to ship to us. Um and so you kind of had this um this cascade where the technology was prohibited or or not allowed to be used if you wanted to ship to these particular creameries, and those creameries did it to protect their reputation because they didn't want to get targeted by activist groups saying, oh, you've got, you know, this poison in your milk or whatever. And there was this kind of domino effect where eventually all the creameries said that, and basically that technology went away. Um, and that's fine if we own the fact that therefore the environmental footprint of the dairy industry is about 7% higher than what it would have been if that technology had been allowed. That's some, if you look at the period paper that says that. So now we've got this product called Bovier, which is basically a feed additive that's given to dairy cows to basically stop the last little phase of um digestion in the first stomach of a cow that reduces the methane that they burp up, not fart. I'm so sick of hearing about farts. It's not farts, it's burps, it's erectation, is what it's called. Um, and basically it's about a 30% reduction in the methane they produce, dairy cows. Um, and this can be given to cows, they eat it, it stops the methane, and then it gets digested, and it's not present in the milk or meat. And there's been basically 30 years worth of studies, or they've been doing studies on this for a number of years. And they've been quite public about it. And I guess that's what I find a little bit kind of weird here is there's been a lot of um, you know, discussion about it. I think it was in Times best, I don't know, development of 1920. It's it's not been hidden and it's been quite explicit, but there was an advertisement, I guess, that came out in England from some company that said that they're participating in this trial. And that kind of spawned this social media, I don't know, kind of craziness in the last week, where now we've got people saying to their creameries, we don't want you to use this product. And it's like, oh my God, this is like Groundhog's Day. It's exactly the same strategy. Um, and yep, sure, we cannot use this product. We can tell the company that developed it that thanks for the millions of dollars of investment to try to get this methane-decreasing product to market, um, but we're just going to be arbitrarily against it because it's not natural or whatever their concerns are. And then we're going to have that consequent, resultant increase, or at least lack of a decrease, if you will, in methane production because we just said no to a safe technology for really no good reason. And I think the misinformation I'm seeing on social media around this and the kind of this targeted campaign is so reminiscent of what happened to RBST and in 30 years ago, uh, that it's it's a very effective way to target technology. But what company is going to develop technologies if they go to all of the incredible um expense and and very detailed science to show it's safe, and then they get to market and then just a group of random people, you know, kind of suggest that it's unsafe. Not that all of the food safety authorities in the world have said it's safe, and I think it's approved in over 50 countries now. But you know, Joe Blow on his couch on the internet's decided it's not safe, and therefore, uh, you know, is that going to actually drive the technology from being removed from the marketplace? And that's a that's a scary um concept for any anyone thinking of introducing innovation to agriculture. Are you going to be the next RBST, so to speak? Um, and uh, you know, can we prevent that? And I I, you know, I hate to say it because it's my field, and maybe I'm a really bad communicator, but um I I don't think we're winning this. Uh you know, science is not winning this game, and um we need to do something different, I guess, to um to move the needle because it is very easy for misinformation and kind of these influence peddlers to get the upper hand and and basically for false narratives to drive the outcomes of what happens in global ag systems.
Ash Sweeting:I interviewed Mike Kinderman, who led the whole development process for DC DSM of Bovair uh on a previous episode where he explained that the rigor that they put into developing that. Um my understanding is it's now approved in 68 jurisdictions, including across the EU and the US. And you know, all those different jurisdictions have their own regulatory processes which require safety studies. Many of them require well they would if it's into going to the food systems, they require studies in terms of residues in food. Um there's there's a very, very rigorous process to put something through the FDA, through the EMA, the European Medical Association. So and and I know that CSM has has navigated that whole process um you know without taking shortcuts and and going through all those processes with all those regulatory authorities. And I guess that leads me to to look at that balance between, you know, society's trust in the regulatory authorities and those processes, and how you know a relatively small number of actors can can disrupt that and um what your thoughts are on that side of things.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's I and I I think that there have been some historical um events that have created distrust in the food system. And I'm thinking specifically here of a it's a long time ago now, but the um uh mad cow disease outbreak, and specifically there was um some um assurance in, I believe it was particularly in the UK that that this was safe to eat, and then it turned out that there wasn't. And in the end, it it wasn't a huge number of people that were affected, but it was more that it was stated that this is safe, and then it was shown not to be. And and I think what happened after that was there was this um cry for what's called long-term safety studies. Um, and that sounds pretty innocuous, right? Like, of course you'd want long-term safety studies. But if you think about it, um any technology that's coming to market on day zero is not going to have long-term safety studies because it's a new innovation. And so what is the you know, asking for long-term safety studies is kind of a little bit of a proving a negative kind of a situation. So prove that this is safe. And as any scientist will tell you, you cannot prove a negative. You can provide data that shows that it appears safe as DSM has done, but you can't prove it, and you can't prove something in the future. Um and so asking to prove long-term safety studies sounds innocent enough, but it's also, well, what exactly would you have done for Bovier, for example, that would give you assurance? And that's, I think, an interesting question to ask people that are pushing back. So if they say they would like, you know, a 50-year study in a million cows, that's potentially doable, but obviously would be absolutely cost prohibitive. And so what is a level of study that's appropriate that provides enough data to show the benefits and risks that enables risk regulators to make a determination? And that's basically what we do is we provide enough data to suggest that it's safe or suggest it's not safe, and and basically using that data will make an inference. Um, and the the demand for long-term safety studies proving safety is not something that that we can do as risk regulators, we or the regulatory authorities can't do. They're always weighing pros and cons. I mean, anyone that takes any medication is like that insert you get of all the contraindications, right? And yet you're still putting whatever it is in your mouth because it's got the benefit of whatever it's trying to treat. And and I think we we have to have, there is no such thing as zero risk. Um, and this demand for uh long-term safety is is demanding zero risk. Um and I just think not that it's likely to be unsafe, but we just we can only get so much data. And and that nuance, I think, is really difficult to explain, especially in a soundbite or on Twitter. And so it's easier to say we need long-term safety studies. Um, but how would that look when you know? I think probably the company that's developed this has been at this for, I don't know, 10 or 15 years already. Um, you know, what how much more data would would satisfy people? And if the answer's none, like or you'd never satisfy me, then I think you've got your answer. Is that actually this isn't a science question. This is more a philosophical question of I don't like unnatural things, or you know, I don't think you should add feed additives or whatever the concern is. But it's really not about the science at that stage, it becomes almost philosophical.
Ash Sweeting:I I I very much agree that it's evolved into a philosophical or I'd even say a political debate and the the Mad cow disease side of things is is very interesting because that was actually feeding um processed meat meal uh to cows, which was it's exactly it's a natural product anyway. Meat is meat is not a something that's come out of a factory, it's something that's been grown on an animal. Um there was it was seen as cannibalism because it was feeding cows to cows. So obviously there's there's some denying there's issues there, but there's no regulatory process for that because it is a natural product. And then when we start looking at the safety of other things that we routinely um put into our our bodies or eat um without seeming to be overly concerned, there's all of the artificial sweeteners, um, the high fructose corn syrup, all those those modified um feed ingredients that are in so so many products these days that um there's growing evidence that are leading to you know increased levels of obesity and and metabolic disease and all that sort of stuff, but they you know they don't seem to get that same um you know dramatic response. Maybe because they're so ubiquitous, there's no one person to target them that. But um I guess I guess what I'm saying is we are you know we seem to have different lenses that we we look through many, many different things.
SPEAKER_00:Well, different levels of risk tolerance, I think. And I guess the most classic thing that and I'll I'll put my hand up for putting this into my body, um, is alcohol is is a well-known carcinogen. Um, but does that stop me having a glass of wine at night? No. Um, because it's it's a it's a dose situation, right? And and I think that you know, relatively, and certainly you you do the risk calculation in your brain, and um plenty of people have done that in their brain and and said that it's okay to have a glass of wine. So I think we do that with with everything in our lives, is there's no such thing as zero risk, but we look at the benefits and and weigh how we're going to behave accordingly.
Ash Sweeting:Moving on to food and and what we eat, and you recently wrote a paper and a blog about the growing need for protein, um, where that will be between the global north and the global south, or where the greatest growth will be in that demand, and uh opportunities to meet that demand. Do you want to give us an outline of what you wrote in that in that paper and how you see uh the global demand for protein in the in the coming years and decades?
SPEAKER_00:Sure. So yeah, this was a paper that came out in PNAS um in an issue this week they had on uh alternative proteins. So um things like veggie burgers and and cultured meat and what have you. Um and I, you know, I I guess I write this from Davis here in California, which is about an hour's south or north of um Silicon Valley. Um and I was watching in the last decade the kind of the emergence of the alternative meat um um sphere, if you will, um, and some rather crazy pronouncements that were coming out of um some of the CEOs of the companies down there in terms of we are gonna eliminate all animal agriculture from the globe by 2030, I think is his classic quote, which is let me see, 2024, we're six years from uh eliminating all animals from our global food supply, according to this um CEO. And for someone to say something like that was just so ludicrous in my brain. Um, and you know, we're a large ag university. You think maybe we could have a discussion um as to whether that's likely, because animals are such an important part of our global food supply and global agricultural systems, that um it's it's difficult to overstate their role. Um, and it's not just in the developed world where maybe they're just seen as hamburgers in the case of cows, but in the developing world where most of these ruminants live and the vast amount of animal protein is being produced, is that there um they actually have really big needs for more um high nutrition protein. Um, this, in other words, a lot of their population doesn't get enough animal source foods, and they're not very efficient at producing them relative to the first world, where we've used all the innovations we've been talking about to basically really reduce the environmental footprint of a kilogram of beef or a glass of milk. Um, and so when we talk about eliminating all animals from animal agriculture, I think you have to understand that where they are is mostly in low and middle income countries, and where the demand is projected to be by 2050 is in those countries. And so if we want to address that demand, which is coming as a result of human population increase and human um increase in wealth, and this kind of what's called the transition from a low-quality diet to a diet that includes um highly nutritious um animal sourced foods, then you get that's where that demand is coming from. So we can either address that demand by um having more animals, more efficient animals of the same number, but more efficient animals, so improved production systems. And obviously, as a geneticist, that's that's my preference because we can make incredible improvements with genetics, or have some have argued that we could have these alternative protein sources, such as um, you know, cultured meat and stuff. And I I guess I just look at the logistics of developing factories to produce alternative protein sources in these countries that are already um, you know, not wealthy and already have people that can't afford conventional food. And it just doesn't gel in my mind. Like these companies are mostly in the first world and you know, kind of enjoying venture capital funding. They're not really located in where the demand is. And to me, and I think the FAO food and ag organization agrees with me, that the really the need is to try to improve the efficiencies of existing animal production systems in low and middle income countries using well-known, well-proven technologies that we already use in the developed world. And it's like it's actually, and I realize my bias is extension, which is taking science to the farmers, it's really trying to enable the util the use of these improved innovations in those countries to basically produce more product per animal. Um, and that is the history that we've had in the in the developed world on why we can very efficiently produce milk, meat, and eggs in the developed world. Um, and can we transfer those technologies to the developing world?
Ash Sweeting:I think there's if we just take a step back on that just to give an outline about where you know global populations within the top 10 most populous countries in the world, the United States is the only one that is a high-income country. You've got the you've also got China, India, both with over a billion, um, and then you know, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil. Um, so there's middle-income countries in there as well, but you you certainly don't have any other high-income countries in there. And then you've also got India, which has the highest uh cow population on the planet, but they also have some of the highest rates of vegetarianism on the planet. So getting people to stop eating meat who already don't eat meat um uh is not going to be an effective approach. Not that not that as eating patterns aren't evolving slightly in in India as that as they become more wealthy, but um and then you've got the areas across um places like Nigeria where you've got um very young populations and very, very high high birth rates, and you know, thinking about those countries and how they function and their societies and their infrastructure and you know and and their cultures, uh and if if if these companies that are developing these products are having a difficulty getting market share in places like the US, the UK, and Europe, um I imagine those difficulties in getting market share would be exponentially higher in places like um Nigeria and Pakistan and Indonesia and and those sorts of countries.
SPEAKER_00:Undoubtedly. You know, I think India's actually an interesting situation because it is actually the biggest dairy producer in in the globe. Um and it actually, if you look at the numbers, it it it actually is peaked. Brazil now has more cattle than India, but what makes the Indian bovid population bigger is the fact that there's a lot of buffalo there. Um and I think it's like, I don't know, 100 million buffalo that kind of together makes that the biggest bovid um population on earth. And I even there, like just as I was alluding to earlier, things that could be done to improve efficiency. So the female cow is obviously the one that produces milk. Um, I think we all understand that. So a male bovine in in India doesn't have a lot of utility. And there are some technologies now where we have sex semen, where you can produce a semen that is got just the ex-swimming um sperm that would only produce female offspring. Um, and if you think about it, if you're producing an offspring that's male that's got no utility, if you can just switch that um and just have girls born, you've doubled the efficiency of that giant population in terms of its function because you've eliminated the, in this case, the sex that doesn't produce the product you want because meat has or beef has no um value there. So there are relatively simple things, and and I'm not under I'm not um saying that that's would be simple to implement because obviously you'd have to use um AI artificial insemination and get the semen and blah, blah, blah, a lot, a lot to do that. But there are innovations like that that I think can help address the efficiencies and reduce the populations of unwanted animals that kind of are a win-win for sustainability, that don't step on people's cultural norms in terms of what they want to eat or choose to eat or choose not to eat, um, and that gives um just basically improves the efficiency of the agricultural system without kind of um changing the the diet of or what the the preferences are of those populations. And I think that's a really important um thing that's often not considered is you can't just dictate to people, oh, well, you know, you have to eat insects today or you, you know, whatever. It's like that's that is never going to go down. And so how how can we work to improve the efficiencies of the systems that produce culturally appropriate food for populations?
Ash Sweeting:Going just going back very quickly to I think um a guy called Andy Jarvis who works for Bezos Earth Fund, and they're putting a lot of effort into methane um and and um mitigation and livestock or protein sustainability. And he he said they have the and yes approach or the yes and approach, sorry, which is yes, we need livestock, yes, we need more efficient livestock and and ways of um reducing their emissions, and yes, we also need to invest in alternatives um that may be able to take some of the pressure off um off livestock systems or increase demand, especially in the global north. And I I I very much think that all all doors should be opened um in terms of the op opportunities, but I think we also need to be very realistic in terms of where those opportunities will fit into a market and and align investment um and research into where you get the the biggest bang for your buck, um, to use that expression.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I mean I more more power to you if you want to have a you know an impossible burger or or a cultured meat, chicken, whatever. Um, no problem in in the first world. I guess what concerns me is when these CEOs get up there and make these bold pronouncements of eliminating all animal agriculture. Um that to me is bombastic and kind of unnecessary. Like if it's a yes and discussion, then don't paint your kind of your competing business interests, if you will, um, with a negative brush. And I think we see that in a lot in agriculture, and it gets back to our previous discussion where my superior product doesn't have unicorn poo, um, but everybody else's does. And so buy my stuff that's labeled unicorn poo-free. Um, it's more expensive, but you'll you know protect your kids from potentially being exposed to unicorn poo. And that business model is basically throwing your competitors, you know, in the in the in the trash to make you look better. And and I think that in fact, can we not have that? Yes, we need efficient animal production systems, and yes, we need efficient um protein sources, and that that is going to vary depending upon where we are on Earth, um, and that actually where the big need is, is in the developing world. And what can we do that works there? Um, and you know, in countries with unreliable power sources, I don't even know how you run a cultured meat factory or even a factory factory that makes plant-based proteins if you've got unreliable power, for example. And and um, is that actually the best solution in those environments? And and I think that more nuanced conversation is lacking in because it's a very simple kind of you know venture capital pitch. We we are going to produce product and we'll put all of you know the competitors or the existing um thing out of business. And that that's kind of that Silicon Valley run fast and break things mentality, which maybe works fine with cell phones, but don't do that to the global food system, please. Please don't break the global food system without considerable thought as to the implications to the livelihoods and um effects on the countries that you're suggesting to introduce such technologies.
Ash Sweeting:Well, I think I think to address the question of how you uh how you run a big factory in a country with an unreliable power source is you get a very, very big generator or a very, very series of very, very big generators that burn a lot of diesel. And um use that to power your factory. And um obviously that has a a that feeds into the the sustainability and greenhouse gas um emission side of the equation. So um you know there's ways of doing things, but it it goes back to that holistic approach that if you need to have a generator to run as an example to run something, then is that gonna be producing a more sustainable product than having some animals going around? I think there's there's two things I want to move on to next. Firstly, just very briefly, you know, livestock in many of these countries are much, much more than milk or meat. They provide draft power, they can be used as a bank account, or they they have very important roles socially and culturally, especially in some of the pastoral communities. Um they can be used as collateral for loans, so that's once again financial. The livestock animal agri agriculture and livestock agriculture is often a significant employer and empower of women in many of these societies as well. So do you want to is there anything else that needs to be added to to what I just said in terms of the roles of livestock in in many of these cultures?
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I mean I think they're also incredibly important um ecosystem services that are provided by ruminants, whether it's digesting otherwise undigestible cellulose and producing a highly nutritious product. Um, and also um, you know, obviously the poop and the manure coming back is a really important source of fertilizer for for those countries. And more generally, I think the metrics we use to look at the quote unquote sustainability of ruminant agricultural systems are myopic and not fit for purpose. And what I mean by that is if your single metric of sustainability is greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of product, whatever the product is, with lower being better, um, and you don't have any any other metrics in there, you're really looking at one little component of sustainability, that is environmental, in this case, greenhouse gases, you're not looking at the economics and the social aspects. Um, and it it that metric will drive you to have very um monocult highly monocultural um systems that produce a lot of calories per per acre. Um and here, you know, if you actually look at the greenhouse gas footprint of um oils and sugar on a per calorie basis, they have the lowest footprint. So if you're trying to minimize your diet, you know, or your greenhouse gas emissions, you should eat a lot of sugars and oils. Well, ask a nutritionist if they think that's a good plan for your health. Um and I think that there's this tension there. If you just use that single metric, you'll get driven in a direction of monocultures and I would argue not the healthiest food choices. And in fact, I think we need to look at optimal diets rather than minimizing greenhouse gas um emissions, because actually the the nutrient components of a kilogram of product is vastly different between meat and I don't know, watermelon or whatever. Um and that has to be in factored in there somewhere too, because you the re presumably the reason you're eating is for your health and to provide you know nutrients to your body, not to minimize your greenhouse gas emissions. And that to me is um just too simplistic. And I think ag scientists, particularly animal scientists, have been pushing back on that simplistic narrative because it it just doesn't make sense given the complexities and the multiple roles that these animals play. They're not just food, they're much more than food.
Ash Sweeting:I I couldn't agree with you more on the fact that there's much more than food. And I think there's many, many more nuances, and and that oversimplistic debate um is is very, very damaging. And just as an example, uh you've got, you know, ruminants um provide manure, which is a fertilizer, and obviously there's the impact or the climate impact or the environmental impact of those animals, but then that needs to be balanced up against the climate impact of alternative fertilizers to grow whatever crops you're growing. And then a lot of those fert alternative fertilizers will be produced in other countries, Russia or Ukraine. Russia produces uh uh has has traditionally produced a lot, uh a huge percentage of the world's nitrogen fertilizer, and then you start to link in geopolitical risk in that s in that situation if there is conflict or something like that, and that fertilizer um supply changes, and then also you've got the the the price risk if availability goes down, and then that makes it more expensive. So you've got so many factors coming in from so many different directions, um which all need to be accounted for, and as you said, with the myopic approach, you you lose you lose so many of those angles, and so your your equation isn't actually going to be or your outcome isn't actually necessarily going to be the best thing for the environment or the climate anyway, because you're not taking all those other things into account.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, and I I think you bring in a much more global perspective than um than I do, but I I a hundred percent agree. And um I I just think agricultural systems are always by definition um intricate and complicated and also very regional. Um and there's not going to be a single solution for global agricultural systems, and um I think it has to be on a place place-based nature because that's how agriculture operates on the competitive advantages of different locations to grow different products.
Ash Sweeting:So, in terms of improving the sustainability of agriculture and especially animal agriculture, and the use of genetics as a tool to do that, where do you see the the greatest opportunities and I guess what's needed to actually realize those opportunities and get the impact? Um, and obviously with the nuance of how that may vary across the global north and the global south.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm gonna come at this as a geneticist. And I I I was trained in animal science too. So there are kind of three components to improving animal agricultural systems. That's veterinary care, um, nutrition, and um genetics. So I'm gonna focus on genetics, although I do acknowledge that the other two are really important as well. I think we lose something like, I don't know, 20% of all animal protein to disease. So let's just say we could get rid of disease overnight. We've just made ourselves 20% more efficient. Um, and and actually we can with some technologies, and I'll get to that in a minute, but more generally, just typical selection. So the reason that your chihuahua doesn't look like a wolf uh is traditional selection. Traditional selection on food producing animals. Has had a huge impact in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions or the environmental footprint of a glass of milk. So a glass of milk today is about a third of the environmental footprint it had in the 50s due to improved production per cow, improved feed, and food, improved medication. So if you're interested in sustainability, geneticists are really your best friend and have actually made substantial contributions, whether it's plant or animal geneticists, over time to improve the efficiency and productivity of our an acre of corn or a dairy cow. So that's that's where we are now. There have been some technologies we have not been able to use, and we alluded to earlier RBST, GMOs, basically an animal ag. We haven't produced genetically engineered organisms other than the fast-growing aqua advantaged salmon. That's pretty much the only product that's been commercially gone through the FDA approval process. But with new technologies and a research focus of my lab is things like genome editing, there is the opportunity to go in using these tools to tweak the innate genome of animals to give them particular characteristics. And I'll use the example of disease resistance because that is actually the first product going through the approval process here in the United States for pigs to produce pigs that are no longer susceptible to a disease called PERS, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus. And basically, by inactivating a gene or a little segment of a gene, you remove the target site where that virus gains access to the pigs and produce pigs that are no longer susceptible to that disease, which is a horrible disease, very widespread in the world, and creates a lot of death destruction and abortions and reproductive issues, which dramatically decreases the efficiency of pig production. So if you could have disease-resistant pigs, then that would be a benefit for the sustainability of the pig industry. And so there's a company called Genus out of the UK that's taking that product through that regulatory process and plans to commercialize these pigs in multiple countries, but not the EU. And you might, well, well, why? Well, because the regulations around genetically modified organisms are so difficult to get through in the EU that it's not even worth bothering. And so you have this really interesting juxtaposition where you're going to have this block that says they're very interested in sustainability, but you're not able to actually introduce a product that's going to be more sustainable, that is a disease-resistant pig, because of their philosophical objection to basically advanced breeding technologies or genetic modifications, if you will. So that region will still have the disease-susceptible pigs. And there's real sustainability implications. So they've done an LC a life cycle assessment of pigs with or without the disease-resistant trait. And obviously, those with the resistant trait have much better environmental metrics because you don't have all these animals dying and getting sick and not being healthy. So that tension, that conflict between what do I dislike more? Do I dislike high levels of environmental impact of animal source foods? Or do I like dislike GMOs more? Because here's a solution, but it uses a technology I don't like. But I'm in support of the solutions. So where do I draw the line? And I think that's an interesting juxtaposition to put people in because it makes them actually look at the trade-offs and go, you know what? Yeah, I don't like GMOs. But in this case, I actually think this is quite a good use because it's kind of a triple win for sustainability. And I'm going to let that override my my philosophical objection to altering the genome of an animal, for example. And so I think there's some interesting discussions to be had uh around some of these, what I would argue very um worthwhile uses of the technology in the future.
Ash Sweeting:How important do you think it is to have those discussions as early as possible so that uh you know consumers have a have a chance to hear about it in the in the press, gather a um an opinion on it, potentially research it before they turn up to the supermarket shelf and find out that what they've been eating has has been changed and they they haven't realized it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think if history is any guide, super important. Um perhaps that's why I'm sitting here on your podcast today, um, because I think we are trying to be much more transparent. And that company, uh Genius, has like got peer-reviewed publications that they've put out and have actually been doing things like the LCA to look at what the consequences of of that particular edit is. Um, do I still, and and I would argue, you know, we're trying to have this conversation with the general public. The question will be: are the competing business interests and and for example the marketers of organic products going to do the same thing they did with GMOs, which was a very lucrative outlet for them, and that is to create fear around conventional products that use genetic modifications and then therefore buy our product which doesn't use that technology for a higher price. And I that business model has been so successful that I fear that they will not change that behavior because it's worked so well in the past. And and the the kind of the detritus as a result of that marketing model is the abandonment of safe technologies that could reduce the environmental footprint of our of our production systems. And that that will be a tragedy, I think, um if if in fact, you know, the scientists of the world are working to develop innovations, showing they're um, you know, are not associated with food safety risks, and then those technologies still get removed from the market due to misinformation that's being spread by competing business interests to enhance their business share without acknowledging, yeah, we're actually going to have this really bad impact on the overall environmental sustainability of the system, but our little company is gonna have better profits, so that's worth it. Um, and I I think that that that kind of un that hidden opportunity cost of not allowing safe technology to be used in systems has to be more um discussed. And and it wasn't in the past. It it just, you know, organic kind of got a free ride for its trade-offs. Um and I I think it's important for people that kind of work in this field to talk about that um because I do think there are compelling reasons to use these technologies and disease-resistant pigs, for example. I I I would say that's that does have a triple sustainability win. Um, and if we're gonna not allow it, there better be a pretty damn good reason why. And if it's just eh, I don't like the sounds of that, that I don't think is a good enough reason to to stop the technology from coming to the market.
Ash Sweeting:Um I guess firstly, is uh are there natural examples of this disease resistance gene out there or only the the edited versions of that? And um then if you were to go through a natural approach by selecting only those pigs and breeding um with breeding the resistance through that way, how much longer would it take to actually get um the levels of resistance you need to stop the disease?
SPEAKER_00:So the answer to your first question is is there naturally occurring examples of this? The answer is if if the mutation is compatible with life, given how many billions of pigs there are, that mutation will have occurred in a pig somewhere. There's just no doubt on earth that that's going to occur in a pig somewhere if it's compatible with life, right? Which in this case it is because we've we've actually done it using genome editing, and those pigs are fine, they just are resistant to the disease. So I think what people perhaps miss is that these breeding programs that produce our commercial pigs that are basically the source of our bacon and pork are are um elite selected animals. So they are, you know, they are the chihuahuas as compared to the wolves of selection. So they've been selected for a very specific characteristic or phenotype. And in this case, it's it's obviously producing pork very efficiently. And so these elite lines are where you have to have that alteration in that particular gene that gives them the resistance. So you need to basically introduce that alteration into these, uh, there's basically four different lines, the grandparent lines in a pig breeding program. The chances of all them having that mutation is low. Um, and then if you if you did find a random pig that had that mutation and then you crossed it in to those four lines, you've just now tanked your genetic progress because you've introduced, you know, half your genetics from some random pig that's not improved, and you're you're not going to be producing commercial level pigs. So you really need to introduce it into those elite lines. And that's what editing does is it allows you to do it in these elite lines. So you tweak this one gene, you don't interfere with the rest of the genetics that makes those pigs so ideal for production, and you've now made them resistant to disease or that particular one disease PERS. Um and that that's its its power, I guess, is to introduce a trait, useful trait, into elite breeding lines that then can be genetically passed from generation to generation.
Ash Sweeting:So it's a bit like if you have um, you know, it's a bit like putting a lawnmower engine in your Porsche, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00:Just right. You'd much rather leave your Porsche's engine and maybe just change the tire or whatever it is that's wrong with your Porsche. But yeah, 100%. And and I think that the introduction into the elite lines is perhaps the bit that most people that aren't familiar with animal breeding probably don't even know there are elite lines of pigs. Um, and so it's it's really that's the power of this genome editing technology.
Ash Sweeting:And where do you see, are there any um, well that's a great example, but are there any other other other exciting or interesting examples um of using genetics uh to improve productivity, food security, sustainability that are on the horizon?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, I would argue every single breeding program on Earth has done that. Um, so just conventional selection gets you a long way to reducing the environmental footprint and improving sustainability, period. Um if you're asking specifically what new innovations are coming along that um potentially will alter um that. You you know, obviously genome editing is one and not only for disease resistance, but for things like heat tolerance. So there's a slick mutation that in cattle that helps them adapt to hot temperatures, for example. Um actually there's some products that are being sold in Japan, uh so genome edited fish that basically get to market weight in half the time. Um, and that's um actually been commercialized and is available to consumers in um in uh Japan. Um and so I think you know what generally what I say the general the the um global breeding community, if you will, is working towards is trying to improve not only production, which is actually not a not the most important feature of selection programs, but to improve things like feed efficiency and also to select potentially for animals that produce less methane in the case of ruminants. So, for example, New Zealand has selection programs in sheep to select sheep that still grow well, but they produce less methane naturally because they're biologically doing so. And the and it's a heritable trait, as in there's some genetic component to it, and you can select for that. So trying to basically get optimal animals that are sustainable and well suited to their environment, you know, disease-resistant, uh productive, reproductively, you know, knock the knock it out of the park. So they do everything right, and that's really what we what we aim for. And if we achieve those animals, that really has this huge impact on sustainability and is a really important component of it. Um, because if you've got healthy animals that are reproducing and getting pregnant and and you know, fertile for cund, all the rest of it, that all of that improves the environmental impact of of that production system.
Ash Sweeting:And on with the with those those New Zealand sheep, what levels of reduction in emissions are they uh do you know what they're what they what they think is possible?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, not going to be huge. So obviously um it's it's a it's a it's a heritable trait, but it's not highly heritable. Um and I think I saw somewhere it would be like um uh you know like a 1% improvement per per generation. And obviously a generation in sheep is well, they um they're about five months gestation, maybe it's a two years or something like that, because you have to have the sheep that you select that then has offspring and then has offspring, blah, blah, blah. Um, but the thing with genetics that's beautiful, and I do realize I I'm very biased here, is that it's permanent and cumulative. And what I mean by that is once you've made a genetic improvement to an animal, you don't need to keep giving it a feed additive to reduce methane, or you don't need to give it a you know an injection or anything. It's genetically got that in it. It's it's permanent. And then it gets passed on to the next generation and it's cumulative. So if this year we're 1% better and their offspring are 2% better, then the next one are going to be 3% better. So it takes a longer time than just maybe giving it a feed additive, but it's permanent and cumulative. And and why not do both, right? To to your yes and discussion. Like it to me, there's we need all of the um the tools of of um animal production systems to work together to to achieve these outcomes. And so um I think that it it makes sense to to not only genetically select them, but have feed additives and better health and vaccines and you know, even mRNA vaccines, my God. Um uh, you know, and so I sound like a you know real heretic here, but I I'm pretty I'm pretty supportive of safe innovations that can reduce the environmental footprint of animal agriculture.
Ash Sweeting:This is probably going to be about the easiest question to ask a geneticist, so um just take that in mind. But um my impression is that that farmers ranchers across the world um see breeding as a tool that they trust and that they like to use. It's one of their favorite from farmers and ranchers, I've spoken it's one of their favorite tools in the toolkit. Is that something that you have also seen, or how do you see the the the approach or the enthusiasm by farmers and ranchers for breeding as a tool?
SPEAKER_00:Ah, it's a it's an interesting one because there's there's um what I'll call business-minded farmers and ranchers who are very much about the bottom line, and they for the most part are 100% on board with things like um genetic merit estimates of animals, or they're called um EPDs or expected progeny differences, or EBVs in America in Australia, expected breeding values. It's basically the geneticists' best guess as to how superior those animals are. Um, and people that have kind of swallowed that concept will use it without question. Um, those whose animals maybe don't rate so well in those systems because they're actually not genetically superior will tend to be the ones that will raise um questions about whether it's scientifically valid or, you know, I don't trust those numbers, or you know, it's better to this look at this bull, don't worry about his numbers because look at him, he's a stud. Um and it's it's very difficult to look at an animal and know genetically if he's superior or not, um, because you can look very good and not necessarily produce the best calves. And so I think that the the kind of the incentive, economically incentive-minded producers are 100% on board with it. And then there are others where it's a lifestyle and they really like the looks of, for example, black Angus cows on green grass. And so they're gonna use straight-bred Angus, even though a geneticist might tell them, you know what, you should crossbreed and get more heterosis, but it's like, no, I like the looks of how my black cows look. And so I think it depends a little bit on the values of those producers. And and in other countries, it might be, you know, this one's a better um, I don't know, animal to fool my wagon, you know, he's better phenotype, so it might not be the most productive animal, but it's it has this other use. And so I think you have to look at the breeding objectives of the people you're working with, and they can change dramatically from you know, just phenotype to very business-minded decision people.
Ash Sweeting:Before we go, is there anything else that you'd like to add that we haven't previously discussed?
SPEAKER_00:Um I don't think so, other than I I guess I can't over-emphasize the importance of um agricultural decisions being based on um objective data, um, because ideologic ideology driving food production decisions does not have a good track record. Uh, and I it um concerns me as someone that works in the field of cutting-edge technologies and have been working in this space talking about these more controversial technologies, GMOs, for my entire career, um, is that the the fear and misinformation really can take these technologies out of the market. And it has this huge impact on our ability to basically produce food in an environmentally sustainable way. And um I I hope we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to some of these newer things like the methane reduction, feed additives, and um genome editing, just based on a kind of a gut reaction to that's not natural. Um, because you know, chihuahua's not natural either, guys. Um and I I think in when we're talking food production and agricultural systems, it's it's just such an important um component. We can live without a lot of things, but we can't live without food. Uh and it's um I I worry that at the moment the the balance is off um and that the objective information is is not winning, and that's frightening.
Ash Sweeting:One one could argue that driving a car or riding in an aeroplane or talking on a talking to a computer screen to someone else in a different place are also uh not natural things, um, which is one of the uh curiosities of us human beings. Um the only other thing I think is important to add to what you just said is that DSM invested tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in this whole process to develop um this feed additive and you know, is it perfect? Is anything perfect? One could say, you know, of course it's not perfect. But if if we have people who are willing to lead and invest money in trying to develop new things that will help drive the sustainability of our food systems and they fail, um where do you how do you see that impacting other innovators and and the willingness to invest in new ideas and new science?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think I think we've seen it already with GMOs. So um when I first started uh at at Davis in um I actually worked at Calgene, the the Flavor Saver Tomato genetically engineered company. My idea was to bring um some um genetically engineered cows to produce heart-healthy milk, so high omega-3 milk. But two years after I started my position, um, the USDA said, you know what, the public's against GMOs, so we're not going to fund any more research in um genetically modified animals for food production. Um and that stayed in place for basically 20 years. So for 20 years, there was no publicly available funding to do research in genetic engineering in in animals. Um, and so it didn't happen. Um, and the and there was no capital invested in it either because there was no path to market. And I can understand those companies doing that, but effectively that precluded the use of the technology. And so with genome editing, there has been um, you know, more public funding and also private enterprise um interest in this technology, but that won't stick around if, in fact, you can't actually get a product to market or it gets to market, and then there's like these big um, you know, pushbacks against them that eventually take it off the market. And so, yeah, you you will not get people investing in innovations. Um, and that's that's the last thing agriculture needs. I I would argue we need more people investing in innovations for agriculture to um address the the kind of the food demand and also in uh climate change um in in our systems.
Ash Sweeting:Alison, thank you very, very much for joining me today.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much, Ash. It was a pleasure.
Ash Sweeting:Thank you for listening to the Ashcloud with me, Ash Sweeting, in conversation with Alison von Einemann. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to Ashcloud, where I continue to discuss food sustainability with guests who bring a deep understanding of the environmental, political, and cultural challenges facing our society and creative ideas on how to address them.