Creating a carbon neutral beef operation with Robert Mackenzie, Mackas Australian Black Angus Beef
"Sustainability means leaving the land in a better place, preparing the next generation for a turbulent future in agriculture... and it's probably also a license to produce." Robert MacKenzie and his farms on the mid north coast of NSW was the first Australian beef operation to become net zero through pasture carbon sequestration. Roberts journey began with a dedication to understand the numbers around all metrics on the farm and then adjusting his management to improve these metrics.The initial seed in his journey to sustainability was planted by Meat & Livestock Australia announcing in 2015 that the industry needs to work towards carbon neutrality by 2030. This led to collecting 1400 soil tests each year across 16,000 acres. This led to healthier and more productive pastures, lower and better use of inputs, improved water holding capacity of the soils and improved weaning rates. Other improvements include adding water points so no animal needs to ever walk more than 800m for a drink. Staff and livestock happiness is also a key goal across Robert's farms.Reproductive performance is critical with Mackas having achieve 98% fertility year on year. Cows that are not producing a calf but still producing methane emissions are finished and sold. Robert's female herd is the backbone of his operation. Robert puts his success down to all the 1%ers that make a business successful. For Mackas this includes carbon sequestration, implementation of alternative energy and better diesel use across equipment, investing genetics with a huge focus on feed use efficiency, addition of many water points, improved ground cover, addressing trace element deficiencies and the inclusion of methane mitigating feed additives. You can listen to our conversation here:Send us a text
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Building a profitable animal biotech company with Mike Seely, Native Microbials
AgriFoodTech Venture Capital investment is down by roughly 90% from the high of 2021 with the lack of exits or creation of profitiable agtech companies resulting from the billions invested frequently taking the blame for investors looking for alternative places for put their money. But there are success stories. Today we are joined by Mike Seely, the CEO of Native Microbials. Over the last 10 years Mike and his team has built a profitable animal biotech company. I recently caught up with Mike to hear about this journey and how Native created a product farmers wanted, were willing to pay for, and they built the manufacturing process to cost effectively produce the product at market scale.Send us a text
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Brazil's transition from a net food importer to one of the world's leading exporters over the last 50 years with Bruno Brasil, Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock
There is a huge amount we can learn from Brazil’s transition from being a net food importer to one of the world’s largest food exporters over the last 50 years. Since deforestation across the Amazon peaked in the mid 1990’s Brazil has continued to invest in both driving productivity increases alongside increasing efforts to preserve wilderness areas and restore degraded lands. To help address climate change the government has doubled investment including doubling investment in low carbon agriculture from $1Billion to $2 Billion through their ABC plan. This program includes making low interest credit available for Brazilian farmers to adopt low carbon practices.Over the last 10 years productivity of beef cattle in Brazil increased by 2.5% per year and dairy production by almost 4% per year. At the same time the ABC plus plan for beef cattle aims to reduce methane emissions and methane intensity. A huge component of this recovering 40 million hectares of degraded pasture land.Today, around 80% of the Amazon is protected by law to combat deforestation. The impact of the Brazilian Government’s investment in education through Embrapa’s long running programs of sponsor Brazilian PhD students across world leading universities cannot be understated. Today we are joined by Bruno Brasil, the director of Sustainable Production and Irrigation at the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock where he coordinates the Sectoral Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change and Low Carbon Emissions in Agriculture. Brazilian farming is highly diverse, over 85% are family farmers, with over 80% of these below 50ha. At the other end of the scale, the largest 1% of all properties in Brazil are responsible for 49% of food production in value terms. As Brazil prepares to host world leaders at COP30 later this year I welcome Bruno to discuss the successes and challneges facing Brazilain agriculture. You can listen to our conversation here:Send us a text
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Regenerative agriculture with Jason Rowntree, Michigan State University
Today we are joined by Jason Rowntree from Michigan State University where he is working on systems increase the resilience and to reduce the environmental harm of our food systems. Finding the driver across rural America that encourage farmers and ranchers to adopt management practices that improve soils, and protect local environments and the climate are a key priority of his work. Jason has built and runs the centre for regenerative agriculture at Michigan State University where he is increasingly seeing benefits for farmers that adopt regenerative principles to improve soil health which include:no tillcover cropsimproved biodiversityincorporation of grazing animals in cropping systemsBuilding the resilience to the farms and ranches of Michigan and further across the United State is a key focus of his work. Send us a text
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Epigenetics with Travis Bayer, Decibel Bio
The epigenome is essentially the control software for plants and animals that dictates when, where, and to what level different genes in the genome are expressed. Moderating the epigenome has the potential to upgrade crops in real time, during the season, to adjust photosynthesis and warn crops of upcoming droughts, diseases, or other threats. While traditional plant breeding and genetics requires trait selections to be made prior to planting and establishing the crops, epigentics enables these traits to be managed after the plant is already growing. Today we are joined by Travis Bayer who recently founded Decibel Bio to develop spray on epigenetic instructions that enable a new level of control over crop traits.Travis and Decibel are leading the development of highly targeted epigenetic innovations for crops while other startups are looking at epigenetic reprograming to develop human therapeutics. Send us a text
This is series of conversations discussing global food sustainability with guests who bring a deep understanding of the environmental and cultural challenges facing our society and creative ideas on how to address them.
Brasil