Why telling people to eat less meat will never work - and what we can do instead with Bruce Friedrich, The Good Food Institute

Meat consumption has risen every single year that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has been measuring. Despite warnings about climate impacts spanning over a century, from carbon and methane's  effects to James Hansen's congressional testimony in 1986, to a book called "Diet for a Small Planet" published 52 years ago, global meat production continues its upward trajectory. All available analysis indicates the world will eat at least 50% more meat by 2050.

But here's the challenge: human beings struggle with anything requiring self-denial. Energy consumption keeps rising. Miles driven keeps rising. Meat consumption keeps rising. This is not a failure of knowledge or information, it's rooted in human nature itself. Consuming more feels like improvement in quality of life.

Today we are joined by Bruce Friedrich, founder and CEO of the Good Food Institute, whose new book "Meat" (meatbook.org) articulates this systems-level thinking. Friedrich offers pragmatic frameworks rather than ideological purity. He recognizes that renewable energy succeeded not by asking people to consume less energy, but by providing better alternatives at competitive prices, enabled by decades of government policy coordinating R&D support, manufacturing incentives, tax credits, and infrastructure investment. He argues that alternative proteins require similar government commitment including: sustained funding for open-source R&D, manufacturing scale-up support, regulatory clarity, and policies that genuinely protect farmer prosperity rather than threatening it. Without government policy as the coordinating force, tribalism, geopolitics, and farmer opposition will likely ensure failure.

Friedrich highlights how ranchers and farmers face genuine economic threats that current policy fails to address. Without deliberate government policy protecting their interests, alternative proteins can be seen as an existential threat rather than an opportunity. Ranchers worry about market cannibalization, stranded assets, and unfair competition subsidized by tech investment. These concerns are legitimate and can be addressed by government policy that actively ensures traditional livestock producers share in the opportunities including to where alternative proteins address commodity demand and beef becomes an increasingly valuable luxury product commanding higher prices.

The geopolitical dimension cannot be ignored. Eight of the top twenty patent holders in plant-based and cultivated meat over the past five to six years are Chinese companies. China is investing strategically in alternative proteins driven by food security concerns and soft power ambitions, capabilities the West cannot afford to cede. This is not merely about climate or sustainability; it's about technological sovereignty and the future of protein production as a strategic asset.

The conversation with Bruce explores how these competing forces, government ambition, farmer/rancher prosperity, technological innovation, and geopolitical competition, can be aligned rather than opposed to accelerate the transition toward sustainable protein production.

Transcript

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Ash Sweeting: Bruce, thank you very much for joining me today.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Thank you so much, Ash. It's my pleasure. I'm delighted to be here.

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Ash Sweeting: You have devoted much of your career and, um, including the founding of the Good Food Institute and the recent book that you wrote called Meat, uh, to alternative proteins, and as a way of, of.

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Ash Sweeting: limiting the damage that our food production, especially agricultural animal production systems, have on the environment and the climate. Do you want to talk us through the journey to get to where you are today?

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: So I'll attempt to do the abbreviated version and just say that.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: In high school and college, I became very concerned.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: about global hunger, um, and basically decided that's what I wanted to focus my life on.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: In college, I read a book called Diet for a Small Planet that I'm sure.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: most of your listeners will be familiar with. Uh, it basically makes the point that in a global agricultural system, um, inefficiency matters a lot.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And that growing crops to feed them to animals so that we can eat animals is inefficient, has a lot of environmental harms, drives up food prices and leads to hunger.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: and malnutrition.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: So, um, I ran a homeless shelter and a soup kitchen for about 6 years in inner-city Washington, D.C. Um, when I was there, I read a book called, uh, Christianity and the Rights of Animals by an Anglican theologian.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and professor of theology at Oxford named Andrew Lindsay.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Uh, that book, um, caused me, uh, to radically transform how I thought about the animal-human relationship.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, I went and worked, uh, at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for quite a while, um, at Farm Sanctuary, um, for a bit, running their policy work. So, mostly working on, um.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: improving animal… farm animal treatment, um, and farm animal slaughter, uh, both those things. Um, and then about 11 years ago.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: I was inspired by Pat Brown. Ethan Brown, who would talk about the idea that alternative proteins could basically serve with regard to meats, external costs.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: the same role that renewable energy serves and electric vehicles serve with regard to the external costs, the climate predominantly impact.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: of fossil fuel production, and I was really inspired by, um, one of the things Ethan says pretty consistently, um, which is that meat is made up of, um, lipids.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: amino acids, minerals, and water, we should be able.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: to use science and engineering to create something that is identical from a sensory standpoint.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and because it's more efficient, it should… we should be able to make it cost less. Um, so that's sort of half of the thing that meat is about.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And that we're focused on. Um, and then the other half is, uh, cultivated meat, so just like you can take a seed or a cutting from a plant and grow a whole plant, you can take a small amount of animal muscle or animal fat.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And grow borderline unlimited additional animal muscle and animal fat.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and both of these processes, because they're so much more efficient, they will, um, have significant benefits from a land use.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: perspective, um, from a climate perspective, um, things like antimicrobial resistance, pandemic risk, um, water use and pollution, and so on. Um…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And it will end up being the product that consumers love, the meat that consumers love, but at a…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: lower price as it scales up, is the hypothesis and the goal. Um, and all of this is based in a recognition that, um, every year that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has been measuring, um.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: farmed animal production has gone up. Um, if you look exclusively at land animal production, there have been, you know, three very small ticks down, uh, one for bovine sponge form encephalopathy for mad cow disease, um, one for.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: African swine fever and COVID, sort of a double downtick in 2019 and 2020. But by the next year, the upward trajectory just kept going. And all analysis that exists indicates that the world is going to eat at least.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: 50% more meat by 2050, um, meat production is just going to keep going up, um, which means the external costs are going to, um.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: keep going up, almost certainly. Um, and so this is a way to give people the meat that they love, uh, but produce in a way that doesn't require so much land, um, and have the other external costs. That as a concept really resonated with me, um, and so I started, uh, GFI, the Good Food Institute.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: About 11 years ago.

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Ash Sweeting: So all the things that you mentioned in terms of the planet, the climate, food production, meat production, you'll know spring chicken, you're probably a similar kind of vintage to myself. You know, humanity, we as humans have known about this for decades.

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Ash Sweeting: Um, and then if we even go back into the climate, it was over 100 years ago that, you know, people first realised that carbon dioxide and methane had… had warming effects and retained heat. So, as… as a species, why… why do you think when there have been so many warnings.

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Ash Sweeting: for a long, long time that, you know, the warming and the events that are happening today, what's been happening in Europe and elsewhere in the world, are likely to occur. Why do you think that, as a species, we haven't been able to actually.

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Ash Sweeting: change our practices or our trajectory to avoid, you know, such a, um, expected risk that we're facing now?

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, I mean, it's certainly intriguing. I mean, the observation is super clear. So alternative proteins, we often frame it in terms of things like electric vehicles and renewable energy.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, so energy consumption just continues to go up. It's been going up since forever. Um, I think there was a small blip for COVID, but just like meat production, it just picked right back up as though it had never dropped. Um, number of miles driven, number of cars on the road just keep going up.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And I think human beings, just our programming doesn't allow us, like as a species, to do that.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: to consume less. Like, small is beautiful is beautiful. I think it's a powerful concept. But globally, even in developed economies, people continue to consume more.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: More miles, more cars, more energy consumption like that. It has been inexorable.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And it's similarly true for meat, that meat consumption just keeps going up. There are a couple of European countries where that has not been true, um, but those European countries have just been completely swamped.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: by increased meat consumption everywhere else. Um, and of course, this is complex… this is made more complex by equity issues, um, developing economies.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: For, you know, from a like energy consumption perspective, it's not, you know, it's energy consumption is associated with wealth, it's associated with productivity.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, it's associated with, like, better lives. Um, it's really important, um, that developing economies.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: consume more energy for the well-being of the people in those countries. There's a similar argument that can be made about meat. It is incredibly dense nutritional calories, both the macronutrients and the micronutrients, the protein digestibility, etc.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: So people will often, you know, when they're talking about this issue, they will say people in developed economies need to eat less meat, people in developing economies need to eat more meat. And fair enough, except that people in developed economies are not going to eat less meat.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, they're not eating less meat, they're not gonna suddenly eat less meat. Um, you know, you mentioned that we've known about global warming for more than 100 years. Um, I mean, we've really been super focused on it, um, since, uh, you know, people have really, you know, the congressional testimony.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: from James Hansen, um, I think it was, like, 1985 or 86, something like that. Um, so it's really, you know, it's been a real priority for a lot of people for, you know, since then, at least. Uh, Diet for a Small Planet, I think the cover says, the book that revolutionized the way America eats, maybe, something like that.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, that's, I think, 52, 53 years old at this point. Um, and in both cases, energy consumption, fossil fuel consumption, meat consumption, um, has just skyrocketed and continues to skyrocket. Um, so…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: It's extraordinarily complex.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And I think the the like most important question is, what do we do about it? And I think we need an all of the above strategy in both cases. So if you're looking at at climate, we need walkable cities. We need.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: bike-friendly cities, we need great public transit, we need more energy-efficient everything. Um, and I think on the, the meat, um, and animal product production side, um, we need the animal products that we produce, um, we need to figure out how to lower emissions, increase productivity.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: um, basically reduce harm. Um, and then we can also, and we should also, um, figure out how to make meat from plants, cultivate.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: actual animal meat directly.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: in the same way that we need, um, certainly wind and solar, I think also nuclear. Um… I think we need an all-of-the-above strategy to deal with the problem. Um, but, um…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: I don't know.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: precisely why humanity has struggled.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: so much to deal with the problem other than to say that we are still a biological species.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: that.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: really struggles with anything that looks like self-denial. Um, so, consuming more, driving more, um, people feel that their quality of life improves with those things, and, um, certainly in developing economies, that's 100% true. Um, in developed economies, you know, you can argue about it.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: but it's not a particularly useful argument or conversation. You're not going to convince people. Obviously, we've been trying for a really long time, or at least you're not going to convince enough people. Um, you'll convince some people. Um, and I think the same thing is true about meat. I mean, this is the point of Chapter 5 of the book. Well, you know, it might be…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Biological, physiological, it might be emotional, it might be cultural. But people have, since time immemorial, consumed kind of as much meat as they can afford. Not exactly. That's slightly hyperbolic, but not by a lot.

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Ash Sweeting: Okay.

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Ash Sweeting: It's a it's fascinating when you think about all this, because.

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Ash Sweeting: um…

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Ash Sweeting: Firstly, I agree completely, both on the energy and the food side of things, that the yes, all of the above, given expectations or predictions in population rise, and then, you know, it doesn't at all help having conflict thrown into the mix and disrupting.

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Ash Sweeting: you know, fertilizer flows and energy flows and all those sorts of things, and frequently it's the most vulnerable on the planet that are the ones who suffer the most from those kind of events as well.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yep.

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Ash Sweeting: um…

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Ash Sweeting: But…

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Ash Sweeting: I guess on that note, um, there's a lot of…

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Ash Sweeting: I guess tribalism is possibly the way of putting it between whether you're for meat, or whether you're for alternative proteins, or dietary changes, or however you want to put that. And…

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Ash Sweeting: Frequently, the people who…

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Ash Sweeting: where the tribalism exists are people who you may think would be natural allies. You know, there's a lot of things these people, groups of people have in common, but they seem to become very tribal and start taking on each other rather than the bigger problems. How have you experienced that phenomenon? And do you think that's changing?

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Ash Sweeting: In any way, are they getting stronger or dissipating as we go forward?

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, I mean, on this point, I…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: I often think about The Life of Brian. Do you know that movie?

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Ash Sweeting: Yeah, yeah, I love that movie.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, and it's like, you know, we're the People's Revolutionary Front. We're the Revolutionary Front of Judea. We're the…

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Ash Sweeting: The Popular People's Front and the GD are in the GD, and Popular People's Front, and all those sorts of things.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, and it's, I mean, I think it's very odd the degree to which.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, there's kind of the, uh, the chastising of the heretic. Um, so you end up with the people who are closest to you as the people who you're, like, most…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: offended and upset that they don't see things in precisely the same way that you do. Um, so I think there's some of that going on. It's the precise tribalism that you just described. Um, if somebody's in an entirely other tribe, um, somehow.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: we might have even more, like, compassion, um, or more, um, openness to having, um, conversations and working together, et cetera, than we are, uh, people who are.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: ostensibly in our tribe, uh, but don't see things in quite the same way. And I think that, you know, I mean, I think this is the story of kind of every movement since forever, um, as encapsulated by the life of Brian.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, so I think that's, uh, that's part of it. Um, and then I think there's also a lot of people really see things as zero-sum games. And so, in a world where resources are tight.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: You'll have people working on the same thing. And…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Everybody is, um, you know, labor-constrained, um, talent-constrained, everybody is resource-constrained, um, and so oftentimes people, um.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And I think generally speaking, you know, it ends up being sort of circular firing squad. But I think what drives it is a sense of like incredible passion that people have for the work that they're doing.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And then in the first case, how come you can't see that this is the most important work, which I think is oftentimes motivated reasoning. And then in the second case, a sort of, you know, desperation to do the most good possible in the world, and a sense that with limited resources and limited talent.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, you're kind of against the people, um, who are working on the same thing, um, because they're, you know, people see their, um, their profit as, you know.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: our loss, kind of thing. Um, and I agree that it's, uh, it's extraordinarily unfortunate, um, and that, uh, ideally, we would be, we would all be allies.

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Ash Sweeting: The the alternative protein space. The you know. Go back 5, 4, 5 years from from now, and there was a lot of Vc. Funding the impossible and beyond beef, and and many, many others, and.

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Ash Sweeting: The…

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Ash Sweeting: you know, was introduced to restaurants, is introduced in in grocery stores, you know, a much, a much bigger presence in in the Us. Than than elsewhere in the world, but not exclusively in in the United States.

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Ash Sweeting: And a lot of those companies are really struggling. Many have closed down, closed, they had to shut their doors. Others are not, you know, obviously it's the VC space and you know how many companies actually do achieve the growth that they predict. So let's just park that part of the conversation for the moment. But a lot of them are struggling to create the revenue and the demand and sales that they need. Where do you see that? Is that something that you.

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Ash Sweeting: always thought would happen because the innovation does come in waves? Or what's your, I guess, analysis of that scenario?

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, I mean, I was recently on a podcast that I was last on in 2020, and so I went back and listened to what I was saying in 2020, and then I looked back a little further and listened to some podcasts from 2019 to just see whether I was.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: misremembering what I was saying, and just to sort of check my memory against reality. And indeed, what I was saying in 2019 and 2020, so even just before the sort of massive uptick.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, in VC funding before Beyond meets, um, massive, um, IPO, etc. Um, and what I was saying, um, and I still think it's true, um, is that this is not…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: This is not AI or some tech stock. This is producing stuff. And producing stuff is really, really hard. And agriculture is really, really hard.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Ted talk from, I think, April 2019. And the entire point of the talk is governments need to recognize the value of alternative proteins to things that governments care about. And governments should be incentivizing alternative proteins in the same way that they.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: um, incentivize R&D, uh, manufacturing, scale up, uh, for other, um, technologies that are important. Um, certainly things like electric vehicles and renewable energy, um, also things like biopharma, conventional agriculture, um, technology, etc.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and, like, one of my lines to Ezra Klein was, um, without that, we're gonna have very few products, and it's gonna take an incredibly long time to get to success.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: So, I mean, that's sort of the Uber observation is scale up in particular is hard. The theory of change has always been and still is that the products are going to need to compete on price and taste before they're going to reach any kind of.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: reasonable market adoption and consequently significant mission impact, significant profit.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and that's, you know, that is going to take time, and it's going to take resources. So, um, not surprising that plant-based products that do not yet compete on price and taste, especially, you know, the best products, are nowhere near competing on price.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and then cultivated meat, um, you know, even the price differential is even greater.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And then I think with plant-based meat, and I talk about this in the book, I think the vast majority of the companies that came along to take advantage of the VC enthusiasm were Garden Burger clones or Garden Burger followers.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Impossible and Beyond, uh, followers. So, you know, you look at a company like…

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: impossible, and Pat Brown is, like, one of the most brilliant scientists on the planet, and it still took him at least tens of millions of dollars and five years to get to the Impossible Burger. Beyond Meat, their sort of signature product, the Beyond Burger.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: came, um, I think they even started working on it in 2009, so 7 years after he started working on it. Uh, but even their first product, uh, was the product of significant R&D, um, out of the University of Missouri, and I think took 3 or 4… 3 or 4 years before they launched it.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And he ended up pulling it because it wasn't good enough, the chicken product.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Not surprising, I think, where we are, although obviously would prefer to be in a world where money was continuing to flow in. I will say, I mean, from a convince governments that this is important to things that governments care about.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: The other thing I noticed from the podcast I did in July of 2020 was that I, you know, said to Simon Hill, the podcaster, that GFI's number one, two, and three goal was government support for these technologies. And he asked, well, how's that going?

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And I, you know, my response was, we're optimistic. But but there wasn't any yet. You know, Singapore and Israel were doing some incentives for private industry, you know, for for startups. But governments actually what we need is plant based meeting.

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Ash Sweeting: Thanks.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: and cultivated meat that are commodity products, not plant-based and cultivated meat where the IP is owned by one company. And that's going to require that governments fund research into the key challenges in ways that everybody can take advantage.

00:25:46.000 --> 00:26:02.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: um, of, of the findings. Um, and at, uh, you know, even as, as recently as six years ago right now, there was none of that. Um, it started, uh, it started a little bit, you know, just a little bit later. There was the, um, National Science Foundation grant, and then some other companies, other countries.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:15.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: started funding, but six years ago right now, it was zero. And now it's, you know, tens of millions of dollars a year, maybe, you know, maybe north of $100 million a year going into R&D. So we're at least moving in the right direction.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:16.000

Ash Sweeting: Okay.

00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:33.000

Ash Sweeting: I think if you look at the electric vehicle space and China and what they've done in that space, and once again, there's a whole lot of nuance. There's, you know, the accusations of stealing IP. I don't know the space well enough to.

00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:42.000

Ash Sweeting: know what has been created and what has been stolen, um, but I know that, you know, there's… China has a history of doing that, but, uh…

00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:48.000

Ash Sweeting: When they prioritize something like what they prioritized in electric vehicles, um…

00:26:48.000 --> 00:27:13.000

Ash Sweeting: you know, China is an example of how quickly that can move and how much progress can be made, I guess. Firstly, is is China taking on, because obviously they they've got a huge population. They got their swine population was was absolutely decimated by the African swine fever outbreak. What's that? 6 or 7 years ago? And.

00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:25.000

Ash Sweeting: are they… are they throwing resources at this? And if so, is there the risk that, you know, this is another area where the West loses its strategic advantage?

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:41.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, I mean, I'm also not an expert on IP and China, but I will say, I mean, one thing that happened that's true is that Elon Musk had a very sort of open source attitude toward Tesla.

00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:58.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: with a view toward the idea, which I think was right, um, that he wasn't trying to create one car company, um, he was trying to create an industry, and if he had to do it all by himself, that was going to be a lot harder than if he had a bunch of other people who were also enthusiastic about it.

00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:15.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, he rightly saw competition as valuable. Um, and, you know, he is Elon Musk, so he thought he would win in the end. Um, he also obviously took Tesla to China in a really big way. Um, so I think it's entirely possible that Elon's.

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:31.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: open source attitude, um, and understanding of what China can do vis-a-vis production, um, is why BYD is now, I think, bigger than Tesla, it's certainly selling more cars, um, and China is just, like, got such a production sort of hold.

00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:40.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: there. Um, I would really like to see, uh, the plant-based and cultivated meat industries have a similar recognition that.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:56.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: To the degree possible, sharing IP and like open sourcing the IP is going to help to create an industry which will have a lot of allies and that will be good for the entire sector, including the individual companies.

00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:07.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And, and mostly that's happening. I mean, it's really impressive to see, um, people like Mark, Mark Post at MosaMeet, um, and the folk, you know, other people, um, in the sector publishing.

00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:21.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: lots and lots of their results that they could keep, um, much closer to their chest of our foods, um, sharing their breakthrough in terms… in… in terms of production, um, and cultivator design, etc. So that's, I think, really good to see.

00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:38.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: To your specific question, yes, China — you know, China is pretty opaque. It's hard to figure out exactly what's happening. But you can look at patents as one example of the 20 most active patent holders over the last five or six years. Eight of them are in China.

00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:53.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, so it's, you know, it's crushing. Um, South Korea and the U.S. and Israel each have three, uh, have three of the most active patent holders, but China has almost as much as, you know, two, three, and four combined. Um, and the reason for that is straight food.

00:29:53.000 --> 00:30:09.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: security, food self-sufficiency. When China joined the WTO in the early 2000s, they were a net exporter of food, and because China is eating more and more and more meat, they're just importing overwhelming amounts.

00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:26.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, of feed crops, um, and they're also the number one importer of, I think, every species of meat. Um, and that's requiring massive amounts, um, of land, massive amounts of feed crops, etc. Um, and their land productivity, it doesn't seem, you know, at least it's not going up tremendously.

00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:41.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Which means the more meat they consume, other than seafood, the more meat they consume, the more they're gonna have to import feed crops and import the actual meat. So China sees that as a problem, sees food technology.

00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:58.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and including plant-based and cultivated meat as part of the solution. And, uh, and they are, are leaning in. And, and that's one of the things that allows alternative proteins to be bipartisan in the U.S, um, is not wanting, you know, nobody.

00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:13.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: wants, Democrat or Republican, um, nobody wants, um, China to own global food. Um, that's going to be bad for the U.S. in the same way that China owning, um.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:28.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: the… all of the, uh, production infrastructure for solar, EVs, um, and wind energy. Um, and imagine… imagine if, like, so now we have a situation where, as you know, China is… is exporting, um.

00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:44.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: sustainable energy production into developing economies as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Imagine China suddenly, you know, is doing that with protein production, which is at least as important to developing economies as energy infrastructure.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:32:01.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: China's sort of hold on global food, global agriculture could really be something that I think should be and will be concerning about certainly people in the United States across the political spectrum, also, you know, Europe and other developed economies.

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:03.000

Ash Sweeting: It's, um…

00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:24.000

Ash Sweeting: Once again, back to the, you know, things that we should have seen 20, 30 years ago. Why are we only just when they're right in front of our face? Why are they only just becoming visible now? I think 2009 or 2010, I spent some time in. I was actually in Cameroon.

00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:44.000

Ash Sweeting: I was in a village way up in the northern part of Cameroon. There wasn't quite a famine, but there was a malnutrition crisis there. I was there with UNICEF. And every single town or, you know, reasonable sized town or city, every hospital had this team of Chinese people there.

00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:55.000

Ash Sweeting: 2 doctors, 2 nurses, a driver, and a cook, and they sent these teams, thousands and thousands of them, all across Africa, to help, you know, the local, local, um…

00:32:55.000 --> 00:33:06.000

Ash Sweeting: communities with medical services. So they've been… they've been laying the groundwork for that engagement through a soft power sort of play, um, for… for decades now.

00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:20.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, I mean, and it's hard to begrudge them at that, right? Like, it's sort of like, you know, if you look at, like, it's a good thing to get medical care in developing economies. It's a good thing to have.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:38.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Infrastructure, roads, airports, economic development. Ideally, you would see developed economies recognizing that that is a part of what we should be doing. And, you know, even outside the realm of calling it soft power, although it is.

00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:51.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, it's also just, like, an inherently good thing for people to do if you, uh, have the sort of wealth that developed economies, and in particular the United States have, uh, to…

00:33:51.000 --> 00:34:08.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: create, um, better development everywhere. Um, obviously, it also increases, you know, it has… it has utilitarian positive effects, obviously, um, but it also is just, like, an inherent, you know, a thing that people who, uh, purport to be a Judeo-Christian nation, like, it's just…

00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:12.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: the values of that we should be embracing, I think.

00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:24.000

Ash Sweeting: Oh, completely. And, you know, back to this hospital that I, I spent some time in, um, uh, visiting, that, you know, that they were the, they were the doctors and the medical, um.

00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:39.000

Ash Sweeting: services of choice for the local population, because they… they had better training and qualifications than… and they'd also, you know, they'd also be knowledge transfer and teaching and all that sort of stuff as well with what they did. So they made a real, um…

00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:44.000

Ash Sweeting: had a real positive impact on from the health side of things on those communities.

00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:51.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And it'd be nice, I mean, it'd be nice if like, you know, everybody in the US looked at that and said, oh gosh, we should do that too.

00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:08.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Because it's the right thing to do, really. But, you know, like the Human Genome Project, I have a part in the book where I talk about, you know, I've traditionally, my line has been, we need a Manhattan Project for alternative proteins. But I think we need a Human Genome Project.

00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:25.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: for alternative proteins. And, you know, that included the Human Genome Project, uh, included China. Um, I think the… I think the… the challenges that we're, um, up against are sufficient that, um, ideally, it would be… it would involve, you know, working together to solve those challenges. We'd love to see.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:41.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: the world working together to solve hunger and malnutrition and health scourges. Imagine that village in Cameroon if there were American doctors and Japanese doctors and Chinese doctors.

00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:56.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And imagine that, you know, across Sub-Saharan Africa, across any place where they have significant death losses and other lost productivity due to health scorches that are easily solvable.

00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:12.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, like that would, like, we could afford to do it. Um, we could afford to wipe out hunger and malnutrition. Uh, we should. Um, and I think similarly, you know, we could, we could, you know, we could and should, um, address the range of issues. Um, and I think, uh, something like a human, human genome project.

00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:18.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: focused on plant-based meat and cultivated meat would be really beautiful and make a lot of sense.

00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:40.000

Ash Sweeting: There's one other thing about that village in Northern Cameroon and the doctors there, the medical staff, it was. And this is where the Chinese approach differed a lot to the Western development approaches. The people who went there were there for years. It wasn't someone who just went there for a couple of months or on short rotations and then went back. They actually got to know.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:48.000

Ash Sweeting: the local cultures and the local communities and all that sort of stuff so that they, you know, so that that timeframe makes a difference.

00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:52.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, that's really, yeah, I mean, that's really beautiful, I think.

00:36:51.000 --> 00:37:04.000

Ash Sweeting: Yeah. And there were, there were, there were, there's, there has been literally probably tens of thousands of them across, across Africa, sub-Saharan Africa over the, over recent decades.

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:08.000

Ash Sweeting: Back to…

00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:14.000

Ash Sweeting: The US and a lot of.

00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:30.000

Ash Sweeting: ranchers, meat producers, whether it's poultry or swine or beef, see alternative proteins as the competition. They see them as undermining their markets. And I had a very interesting conversation.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:42.000

Ash Sweeting: with Jack and Bobo from Ucla on the podcast a year or so ago, and he pointed out that when you looked at this from that rancher perspective, if.

00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:58.000

Ash Sweeting: the current situation went on and supply of beef actual, you know, cow grown beef and demand continued on the trajectory prices wouldn't dramatically change, whereas if alternative protein came in and made.

00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:15.000

Ash Sweeting: the supply of beef, the supply of beef stayed the same, but the demand would go up. That would turn animal grown beef as or beef as into more and more of a luxury product, and likely drive the price up of of beef, so that ranchers would actually be making more money.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.000

Ash Sweeting: Um, if that supply-demand, um…

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:37.000

Ash Sweeting: equation was, was more in their favor for a luxury product. And that he's the only person I've ever spoken to who's mentioned looking at it through that lens. So I guess, you know, do you think alternative proteins are.

00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:47.000

Ash Sweeting: a threat to beef production, or beef producers and animal and swine producers' livelihoods. And if you do not think there are a…

00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:55.000

Ash Sweeting: a threat, then what can be done to alleviate that sort of fears that their markets are being undermined?

00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:13.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, I mean, those are — I mean, this goes back to your sort of natural allies question, I think. And as you know, in the book, I point out that it's certainly true that ranchers and beef producers, at least to some degree.

00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:20.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: look at alternative proteins as a threat, and I think dairy farmers as well.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:43.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: I'm not sure about poultry and pig producers because those have become so vertically integrated that most of the jobs in those areas, I think, can just transfer into plant-based and cultivated meat. The exception to that would be agroecology or regenerative practices, but that's such a small percentage.

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:58.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: of chicken and pig production. And I think those should also absolutely be our natural allies. But with regard to ranchers, one of the things I point out in the book is that, you know, since Earl Butts was.

00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:08.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Secretary of Agriculture in the early 1970s, there's been this sort of get big or get out ethos across.

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:11.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: across agriculture.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:15.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And because alternative proteins.

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:21.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: free up land and free up resources. This should be something where.

00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:37.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Producers and especially ranchers, not just because it will allow prices to go up and you can make more money from even the exact same production practices.

00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:53.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: But with freeing up land that decreases prices for land, it allows for more regenerative grazing and other regenerative processes that will allow prices to go up.

00:40:53.000 --> 00:41:01.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and then ideally, if we can, if, you know, and this is, this is not self-executing, uh, but if we can complement.

00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:07.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: um, the policies, agricultural policies, with, um…

00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:23.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: restoration, rewilding, and these nature-based sequestrations, biodiversity preservation, et cetera, that becomes easier in a world where less land is required.

00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:39.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: to create the same amount of beef, poultry, pork, etc. So GFI commissioned a report from a sustainability think tank in the UK Green Alliance.

00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:52.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And they modeled alternative protein production. And with the freed up land across 10 European countries, what they found was that eight of those countries could become food self-sufficient.

00:41:52.000 --> 00:42:08.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And the other two countries would be food self-sufficiency as a part of the whole, food self-sufficient as a part of the whole. If a third of the land were dedicated to producing internally, they could become food self-sufficient and agricultural prices would go up.

00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:23.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Because people were shifting to producing for human beings. With a third of the land, they shifted to agroecology regenerative practices, and that could go up by 400%, not up by 400%, but up by 4x.

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:39.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: So up by 300, you know, three, four times as much. And then with a third of the land, if it went to rewilding, they could sequester, this is in the book, I think it was off, I think it was like 260 million metric tons of carbon.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:27.000

Ash Sweeting: Yep.

00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:57.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: uh, move toward meeting biodiversity targets, um, that the European Union had committed toward. I think it gets you, like, 80% of the way there. Um, that last one is not self-executing at all, um, and that's one where I think, um, it could be a supplemental income.

00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:14.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: for ranchers and farmers. But you need policies that center on ranchers and farmers. We don't have the policies now that are prioritizing making farming and ranching something that young people want to do, multi-generational.

00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:30.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And so, farmers and ranchers are leaving the farm, leaving the ranch, even as number of animals and amount of meat produced goes up, and even as profitability goes down. So, I do think alternative protein production could be a big part.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:48.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: of solving a lot of what ails farming and ranching now, and could really open up some opportunities for alliances that might be, you know, might feel a little counterintuitive, but that I think make a ton of sense.

00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:58.000

Ash Sweeting: A lot of what you say there hinges on government policy to drive.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:05.000

Ash Sweeting: whatever necessary changes across the different societies and economies.

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:19.000

Ash Sweeting: Do you think there's a path that this can be moved forward on without the required government policies to drive it in that direction? Or is that a very big uphill battle?

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:31.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Well, I mean, I think, you know, I think what Jack is talking about doesn't require government policy. I think a lot of some of the sort of.

00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:35.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: and just how markets work.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:51.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: if you even just look at, you know, I think Jack, you know, Jack was talking about this. If you even just look at the increase in production that's going to be required and alternative proteins to fill that increase. That part.

00:44:51.000 --> 00:45:04.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: would not require government support. But I think a lot of what I was talking about would either require carbon markets, which I'm not super…

00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:10.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: optimistic about, but a lot of people are. Um, so I think carbon markets could solve it.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:21.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: um, without government policy, um, or, um, it's gonna require government policy. And then we're back to, you know, your, your sort of point from earlier, um, about we watch.

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:38.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: CO2 and methane levels rise and rise and rise, and you could add things like forests being chopped down, biodiversity loss, water drying up, aquifers drying up. Like, there's a lot, you know, on the one hand, I have been hearing.

00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:57.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: um, for 40 years, the idea that we're going to hit an ecological crisis, and governments are going to have to wake up. Um, and so for 40 years, environmentalists have been claiming that, um, as well as, you know, things like population bomb and the erlex, and sort of, there will be a crisis, and it will prompt.

00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:13.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: government policy to help solve the problem, and at least so far hasn't happened. But it does feel I mean, it does feel the last 5 or 10 years different in terms of especially water resources.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:20.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And just crazy weather. So I could imagine, I could imagine.

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:23.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: governments sort of forced.

00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:32.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Uh, to finally recognize that we need to be taking this, um, as seriously as we took something like, you know, acid rain. Um…

00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:37.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: But yeah, if they don't, it's going to be a much steeper climb for sure.

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:56.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And I guess the last thing I'll say is it's going to be a lot harder if we're fighting one another. So having actual figuring out some policy alliances that look a little counterintuitive and using those policy alliances to actually.

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:40.000

Ash Sweeting: I think…

00:46:56.000 --> 00:47:00.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: petition the people who could make these changes happen.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:07.000

Ash Sweeting: Yes, yes. Moving on to the Global South.

00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:23.000

Ash Sweeting: Because that's where, you know, 80% of livestock emissions, methane come from non OECD countries, and that's where the greatest population growth is going on. That's where the greatest increase in.

00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:30.000

Ash Sweeting: meat consumption is happening. And and you know this is meat consumption from, you know.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:45.000

Ash Sweeting: very, very low levels, but also from the health and nutrition and welfare side of those countries, you know, the fact that they're getting better quality, higher quality diets, higher protein diets has a huge, huge positive effect.

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:51.000

Ash Sweeting: How do you see the challenges there and I think especially.

00:47:51.000 --> 00:48:16.000

Ash Sweeting: in line with, you know, the global south has had so much, I guess, colonialism slash neocolonialism from the global north and don't really just want to be told or won't be told that, you know, oh, this is what happens in Europe, in the US, whatever. So, you know, just follow along. How do you see those challenges and where do you see the opportunities to address them?

00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:32.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, I mean, I think, as you know from the book, in chapter one, I talk about my own sort of internal struggle with what I thought was true, and then speaking with people like Grant Gordon from Essential and Sarah LaHaye from GAIN.

00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:44.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and, uh, reading Michael Kremer's report and speaking to some of the people on… some of the people on his commission at the University of Chicago. Um, so what I think is definitely true, um, is that…

00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:52.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Alternative proteins could follow a trajectory similar to electric vehicles, where it's the wealthier countries.

00:48:52.000 --> 00:49:08.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: that are the early adopters because the different, you know, it's easier to develop, you know, in the case of EVs, the charging infrastructure, the cost of conventional cars is higher. And so the cost of EVs, they become competitive.

00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:22.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: um, at a higher cost, et cetera. And then as the cost continues to fall, um, then they start to penetrate, um, in developing economies. And we saw that. I mean, almost, you know, from 2016 to 2025, like.

00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:34.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: 98, 99%, um, of EV penetration, even as EVs went from basically 0 to 24, 25%, uh, globally. Um, it was developing economies plus China.

00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:54.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: uh, I mean, developed economies plus China, uh, for, for EVs, and I think Brazil and India were still, like, less than 1% as of 2025 EV adoption. Um, that is what I have been assuming, um, would be the case for plant-based meat, um, and cultivated meat, and that, that kind of also aligns with the, you know, rich countries need to.

00:49:54.000 --> 00:50:02.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: eat less. Uh, poor countries need to eat more, um, diet change focus, except this is, you know, in the alternative proteins context.

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:13.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, it is also true, though, um, if you look at, you know, India as one example, and there's a little bit of… there's a… there's a Global South, and there's kind of another Global South.

00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:28.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: But I think if you look at India or you look at Brazil, the possibility that India or Brazil could fill the role for alternative proteins that China has filled for electric vehicles and renewable energy.

00:50:29.000 --> 00:50:45.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: I think is extremely appealing, especially in India with the level of malnutrition, which is, you know, largely protein and micronutrient deficiency rather than caloric deficiency. And it would also, you know, Prime Minister Modi's number one goal in life.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:51:01.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: is that India is a developed economy by 2047, trying to attract foreign direct investment. This could be the proverbial multiple really positive outcomes from the country leaning in on the technology.

00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:05.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, high-quality protein helping to solve malnutrition, etc.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:16.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, but you look at, you know, looking at what Grant Gordon is doing, um, at Essential, looking at some of the work, uh, that One Africa Fund, um, has done, um…

00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:33.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: The plant proteins are still less expensive than animal proteins. And the peer review research does indicate that the plant protein outcomes, A, are oftentimes from a alleviating malnutrition standpoint.

00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:50.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: um, equal to the animal protein outcomes, but you can get a lot more, you can produce a lot more plant protein with the same amount of money relative to animal protein. So, um, I do think, uh, I do think, um, alternative proteins can be a significant.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:05.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: uh, part of the sort of direct intervention solution, um, in addition to, uh, a more long-term solution as prices come down sufficiently. Um, and then the last thing to say is, especially in India, which produces, um.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:22.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: 60, 65%, I think, of generic vaccines. They have an incredibly advanced technical capacity, scientific and engineering ecosystem, et cetera. I do think India could also be a significant.

00:52:22.000 --> 00:52:29.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: producer, innovator, and supplier on the cultivated meat side, and not just the plant-based protein side.

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Ash Sweeting: It's very interesting what you say about India. I did interview Modi back when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, and it was on a climate change related story. And he did specifically say that, you know, India was not going to put the brakes on its development. The West has had centuries of.

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:37.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Wow.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:52.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Of course.

00:52:52.000 --> 00:53:05.000

Ash Sweeting: of developing, um, without having to worry about, you know, um, you know, pollution-related breaks, or, um, you know, environmentally-related breaks, and that there was no way that India was going to put the brakes on. Um…

00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:08.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: And you can't really begrudge him that, I don't think.

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Ash Sweeting: Oh, no, I don't. I think it's, it's, it's, it goes back to what I said before about the, in some ways it can be, you know, the arrogant, the arrogant western colonial attitude that still, that still does, still does persist.

00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:09.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah. Okay.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:16.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yep.

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:31.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that's right on the alternative protein side as well. It absolutely can't be, you need to do this, you need to sacrifice for the good of the world.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:44.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, like, it can't be that. Um, but I do think there are… I do think there are strong, um, self-interested reasons, um, that, uh, that the Global South might… might find, uh, these technologies appealing as well.

00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:59.000

Ash Sweeting: And then some of those, obviously each, you know, there's many, many different cultures and societies and religions, et cetera. So just because it's coming from India doesn't mean it's going to be seen as awesome if it's rather than coming from, you know.

00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:51.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yep.

00:53:59.000 --> 00:54:15.000

Ash Sweeting: the US or Europe or elsewhere. So there's those that doesn't alleviate, it just changes the lenses. One quick thing that is not actually food related, but it relates to land use and that's the ethanol production.

00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:02.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah, of course.

00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:25.000

Ash Sweeting: vehicles. Um, and I know it's getting… I remember this was, um, probably 10, 15 years ago now, I remember speaking to a, um.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:45.000

Ash Sweeting: person who looked at that, and the the actual energy increase or the carbon. You know the the climate footprint benefit of that. By the time you took into account the growing of the crops, the inefficiencies of fermentation, the fertilizer, and all those things and the climate footprints. You were only getting a less than 10% energy increase.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:55.000

Ash Sweeting: So, and it takes up huge amounts of land. So, whilst it's not food, where do you see that in the big picture?

00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:11.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Well, I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm an expert on ethanol at all, but I do have a tremendous amount of respect for Tim Searchinger from the World Resources Institute. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mike Grunwald.

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:25.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: um, who wrote We Are Eating the Earth, um, and I think he did a really, really nice job with that book. Um, and both of them, you know, their heads come very close to exploding, um, when they're talking about ethanol, uh, production.

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:37.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: I think they both argue, and again, with the caveat that I haven't examined what the other side is, but it sure seems like ethanol is a huge net negative for climate.

00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:53.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, not just a net negative, but a huge net negative for climate. Um, and I still remember, um, you know, Jean Ziegler saying that biofuels are a crime against humanity, um, all the way back in, I think, 2006, 2007. He was a global envoy on food to the United Nations at the time.

00:55:53.000 --> 00:56:07.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um, and he pointed out that 100 million metric tons of cereals are, you know, diverted to… diverted to fuel, um, and as a result, prices are going up and… and people are starving. Um, so they… yeah, I mean, I… that…

00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:24.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Seems to me to be almost certainly true. And the more we're diverting crops to fuel, the worse that problem is getting, complete with the observation, I think, from people like Searchinger and Grunwald and WRI and others.

00:56:24.000 --> 00:56:31.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Uh, that it's not even… it doesn't even have climate benefits, especially because of the land use needs. It's sort of negative for climate.

00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:46.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Um So that's what I, what I believe to be true. It's not an official GF I uh position. It's not, it's not something we work on. Um But it uh it does, it does feel to me like something that, that warrants um more work um and more concern than it seems to be getting.

00:56:47.000 --> 00:57:05.000

Ash Sweeting: I think it comes back to the all of the above space where you can, you know, what we need is change and progress on all of the above. We're almost at time. So before we go, Bruce, is there anything you'd like to add that we haven't already discussed?

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Yeah.

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:21.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: I mean, a self-interested plug for the book. So if people want to learn more about the book, meetbook.org is where you can find it, M-E-A-T, obviously, book.org.

00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:38.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: If you want to see some of the reviews and endorsements, meetbook.org up slash praise. But yeah, really, really nice support from people like Kim Stanley Robinson and Christiana Figueres and Jane Goodall and others who I think your listeners.

00:57:38.000 --> 00:57:40.000

Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Probably think a lot of.

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Ash Sweeting: Bruce, thank you very much for joining me today.

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Bruce Friedrich, GFI.org: Really my pleasure, Ash. I'm grateful to you for the labor of love that is your podcast. It's really a beautiful thing to be doing and a gift to the world. So thank you.

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Ash Sweeting: Thank you.