Gathering around the pubcast to discuss key environmentally sustainable animal agriculture practices are Lara Moody and Dr. Steve Lerner.
Guests: Lara Moody with the Institute for Feed Education and Research and Dr. Steve Lerner with Chr. Hansen
Gathering around the pubcast to discuss key environmentally sustainable animal agriculture practices are Lara Moody and Dr. Steve Lerner.
Visionary leader and executive director for The Institute for Feed Education and Research (IFEEDER), Lara Moody, shared her background in stewardship and sustainability. She then introduced Dr. Lerner with Chr. Hansen. 2:30
Leading the conversation, Moody described the sustainability roadmap project and highlighted the value IFEEDER has found in delivering measurable sustainability metrics. In addition, she touched on the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social and governance.
A roadmap project started 18 months ago and is aimed entirely at gauging a bigger picture of the sustainability landscape. Moody said it involves everything from understanding supply chain needs and how to support the industry. 14:51
Shifting gears to, Dr. Lerner shared that Chr. Hansen was founded by Christian Deli AOR Hansen who was the first to extract rennet from calves and now remains a highly effective research partner. 23:06
After deciding how to best bring sustainability innovation to the table by gathering with all different kinds of people, Moody shared that the Sustainable Agriculture Summit was founded in 2021 with the idea to collaborate about the World Wildlife Fund. Additionally, she said the summit collectively brought together the whole value chain to work on solutions, understanding that feed is 40 to 80 percent of the footprint for livestock and poultry production. 27:50
As dairy farms continue to consolidate, Dr. Lerner stated that he believes operational management has also improved through the addition of inoculants in their seed treatment, ensuring proper fermentation and staying focused on efficiency. 38:21
Not only does improving the overall health of both plants and animals increase nutrient absorption but research shows drastic benefits to gut health as well. So how are you speaking about sustainability?
Wrapping up the conversation, Dr. Moody shared on the importance of shaping your story to highlight individual cost savings, efficiencies and the importance of utilizing the toolkit for the entire value chain. 57:47
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Scott (00:00:09):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal agriculture. Hi, I'm Scott Sorrell, one of your hosts here tonight at The Real Science Exchange, and we're here tonight with three exciting guests, or actually two guests and an exciting co-host to discuss what animal agriculture is doing to be environmentally sustainable and how we can communicate the positive changes the industry is making. I'd like to introduce our first guest tonight. That's Laura Moody from IFEEDER, and that's the Institute for Feed Education and Research. So, welcome Laura. Glad to have you here tonight.
Laura (00:00:50):
Great. Thanks Scott for having me on.
Scott (00:00:52):
Oh, you’re very welcome. And so since this is a virtual pub do you have anything special in your glass tonight?
Laura (00:01:00):
Well, I did take the opportunity to pour myself a peach apple cider.
Scott (00:01:05):
Peach apple cider Wow. Okay. Now our normal co-host is Dr. Clay Zimmerman. He loves cider. He's gonna, he's gonna be sad that he missed this.
Scott (00:01:40):
Laura, can you tell us just a bit about yourself?
Laura (00:01:43):
Sure. I have been with the feed industry for just two years now. So as somebody that works in the feed industry, I'm not an animal nutritionist by training. I'm actually an agricultural and biosystems engineer by training. And I spent time in the university system doing research and extension work on manure management of all things. That's what tied me to animals. And that took me to working for the Fertilizer Institute, which is the trade association for the fertilizer industry and doing stewardship and sustainability practices for them. And then just two years ago, transitioned over to the feed industry. So now leading efforts on sustainability for the feed industry.
Scott (00:02:20):
Super. Now see, you've brought a guest with you here to the pub tonight. Would you mind introducing him and tell us how, how you come about selecting him?
Laura (00:02:29):
Yeah. So Dr. Steve Lerner is with Christian Hansen. Steve serves on my board of trustees for IFEEDER as well as chairs my research committee and has been supporting some of the, his organization has been supporting some of the sustainability efforts we have underway, so that he was the ideal person to be a part of this effort today.
Scott (00:02:51):
Yeah. Excellent. So, Steve, welcome to the Real Science Exchange and what's in your glass tonight.
Steve (00:02:56):
Well, thank you Scott. I'm very happy to be here. I'm actually enjoying a bourbon. Nice. It's a Callum Farm's, 14 year old bourbon, and it's quite smooth and nice and getting cold in the glass.
Scott (00:03:09):
Yeah. So that's a little bit better brand than I'm usually drinking. I tend to pick from the lower shells, but Good for you, man. That's awesome. I'll have to have that sometime. Steve, I was looking at your biography earlier today and quite fascinating biography. Can you kind of give us a background of how you got here?
Steve (00:03:29):
Oh, certainly. So I've been honestly involved in AG for 42 years now. Seems like yesterday, but I'm classically trained as an animal scientist. I've got a undergraduate in zoology. I have a master's embryology, a PhD in reproductive physiology. I was going to do a postdoc in 1985 in California. The postdoc was in molecular genetics. All the world's problems were gonna be solved by a better understanding of molecular genetics in the eighties. That quite hasn't come to fruition, but at least we've made some advances. I left that postdoc and became an assistant professor in animal science in West Virginia University. Loved being a professor, loved doing research in an academic setting. Ah, could tolerate academic politics a little bit. But in the third year of my professorship, I started doing some consulting with a group that was owned by Merck, and Merck at that time had an AG Vet division.
Scott
Got it.
Steve (00:04:34):
And they had poultry genetics in West Virginiand our dean was very eager for us to engage in that. So I started doing some consulting with them. Long story short, they offered me a position. I accepted that position and I stayed with Merck through its transition to Marielle and beyond for 20 years. When Merck was finally then owned totally by Sanofi, a big human French drug company. The writing was kind of on the wall. They were not much interested in animal agriculture. So I joined a very small company selling probiotics, feed additives called Nutrition Physiology Company. That company was acquired by Christian Hansen, but I've been involved in that probiotic space since 2013, coming up on 11 years now. And that is what really has sparked my interest in sustainability and what brought me initially to the AFIA and then to Lara’s group.
Scott (00:05:35):
Oh, excellent. Great background. I'm glad to have you here. And looking forward to the conversation this evening. We have a new co-host tonight, and for the first time it's not a Balchem employee. And so tonight we welcome as our co-host Victoria Broehm. She's the senior director of communications for a FIA. And so Victoria, what's in your glass tonight?
Victoria (00:05:58):
Well, thank you for having me here. I'm actually drinking a nice warm green tea since it's cold and rainy outside today. But I'm very excited to be here and be part of the conversation.
Scott (00:06:11):
Excellent. Thanks for coming. And tonight I'm having a, well, I think most of our loyal listeners know that I've been in a bit of a rut recently, and so I'm getting out of that rut tonight and I'm having a blade and bow bourbon. Hadn't heard of it before, but is at the National Dairy Challenge a couple weeks ago. And they had this at the pub, and I really enjoyed it. They had one bottle in my one of my typical co-hosts Dr. Jeff Elliot. He and I polished that bottle off after a night or two. And so we, we emptied that. So anyway as we begin this discussion on sustainability, let's first raise our glasses to animal agriculture. Cheers, everybody.
Speaker 3 (00:06:34):
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Scott (00:06:59):
So, Laura, I'm gonna get started. Why don't you give us an overview of what IFEEDER is.
Laura (00:07:06):
Yeah, so IFEEDER is the Institute for Feed Education and Research, and it's the Research and Education Foundation that supports the American Feed Industry. And so we work very closely with the American Feed Industry Association. IFEEDER has a mission to advance the understanding and trust in sustainable animal feed and pet food supply chains through research and education. And we pursue that through collaborations with industry members themselves, as well as stakeholders that are tangential to us, such as our, you know animal counterparts in livestock and poultry and pet food. And so in that space, we are undertaking efforts mainly focused on sustainability to support the Animal Food Industry and our downstream customers. But we also take on projects outside of sustainability where it makes sense. And I'll just say, for example, we have a project we're finishing up right now, looking at what it would take to decontaminate a feed mill if we had African swine fever come in. So sometimes there's just projects of importance, not necessarily linked. I mean, they are linked to sustainability, if you think about it from a risk mitigation standpoint. But we take on a variety of projects, but our main focus is sustainability.
Scott (00:08:20):
All right. Very well. Now IFEEDER recently defined sustainability as part of its sustainability roadmap project. Can you kinda explain how it's defined and how you came to that definition?
Laura (00:08:32):
Yeah. There are so many definitions in the sustainability space, but we really wanted, with our definition to encourage each of our industry members to develop what worked for themselves. And so our definition that we use essentially is that sustainability is defined and managed by each individual organization to deliver measurable and continuous improvements on the impacts related to people, planet, and the environment, or people, planet and governance, sorry, that are most important to them and their stakeholders. What that really means when you think about sustainability, we often think of a couple of things. We often think of the terms continuous improvement and metrics. And so we're just pushing within that definition the importance of continuous improvement and delivering on metrics or indicators to measure your progress on those improvements. The other thing people think about often is the three pillars of sustainability.
Laura (00:09:33):
Or sometimes you hear people talk about ESG, environmental, social, and governance. And so the three pillars for us are people, planet, and governance. And so basically those are the two buckets that make up our definition. But I think also really important within that definition is that you're looking for areas that are most important to your organization and your stakeholders. So many times in sustainability, people think, when we say sustainability, it's all greenhouse gas emissions, and it's all about climate. But in fact, when you really think about what's important to a feed organization? Feed, safety's gotta be right up there at the top. So you're not always gonna put, you know, climate and greenhouse gas emissions at the top of the heap in that bucket. And so it's really important to think about sustainability from your organization's standpoint and from your customer standpoint. So, again, the definition, I'll just restate it for folks defined and managed by each individual organization to deliver measurable and continuous improvement on the impacts related to people, planet, and governance that are most important to them and their stakeholders. So that's the definition that we're, we're using and encouraging our members to think about as they create their own definitions.
Scott (00:10:51):
And is there an element of communications associated with this, communicating to stakeholders, consumers
Laura (00:10:59):
For certain, you know, sustainability oftentimes people say is about storytelling. You know, sustainability is taking the goals and targets that you're setting towards continuous improvement for yourself and your organization in those areas that we spoke about. And then communicating where you are in that progress, communicating what you're doing within your organization to pursue those. And so you can't take storytelling away from sustainability. It's a key element. And so that makes communication a key component of it as well.
Scott (00:11:31):
All right. Now, Victoria this is your first time as my co-host, and you're probably learning that I don't relinquish the control of the mic very easily. So you've gotta be able to pull that away from me. So, so I'm gonna yield to you at the moment. Do you have some questions for our guests?
Victoria (00:11:49):
Sure. and that sounds good. And I think, you know, being, so I work at the American Feed Industry Association, and we work very closely with IFEEDER on many of these projects. And it's a pleasure to be able to do it and see all the different things that's coming out of the organization. But one thing we never, Laura, talked about the pillars people, planet and governance. I guess maybe if you could expand upon why animals were not part of that, and I think one of the interesting things that you've talked about is who, you know, where does the feed manufacturing facility, like where does it start and end? And so that's kind of one of the interesting things from a value standpoint like throughout the value chain that you've discussed. So maybe if you wanna talk on that a little bit?
Laura (00:12:42):
Yeah. When we think about sustainability, we often talk about upstream and downstream influencers or actors that we're beholden to. And for the feed sector, it's really important for us, especially for IFEEDER, as we create resources to identify who it is we're trying to serve with our resources and support with our efforts, but also who's influencing us. And so for us, within IFEEDER, upstream of us would be crop producers or folks who provide inputs to crop production. Downstream of us would be live animal production. That's the animal component that you were referring to there, as well as processing of those animals or the consumer products good companies that are either, you know, they're using products as a result of that. The feed sector itself, from our perspective, is everybody that is involved in the manufacturing and production of feed or feed elements.
Laura (00:13:42):
And so it could be feed and oil grain processing or feed ingredient or manufacturing folks. It could be animal health products that are integrated into feed co-product and byproduct and rendered product material as well as feed equipment manufacturing, like the people who actually make the equipment that we use in our feed mills. So pet food is also an important element for us. So all of those are the feed sector. When we were looking at the indicators or the goals and target areas, those three pillars, people, planet, and governance. I mean, animals are obviously integral to our business. They are a downstream customer for us. They are the end user of our effort, but ultimately our focus area is on how we can influence those areas. And we do that through our own people planet and governance segments.
Scott (00:14:34):
I think we mentioned before about the sustainability roadmap project, and that's just completed phase one. Can you tell us a little bit about that project?
Laura (00:14:43):
Yeah. So the sustainability roadmap project, IFEEDER initiated just about 18 months ago now. And that was really aimed at us taking a big picture look of what the sustainability landscape looked like for the animal food supply chain. And that meant understanding what people needed from us, i e those influencers we were talking about, and what people needed us to provide them and what we needed to get from them. And so along that pathway that we were taking, what we were really working towards with that roadmap was developing a framework for IFEEDER to work on and sustainability, but also to identify what things we needed to create or do or research to be able to support the industry. As part of that effort, we were surveying industry members and our downstream stakeholders. And something that came away, you know, was a need for resources to support folks.
Laura (00:15:44):
So in the sustainability space we have, and really within, across all industries, all industries I think are somewhat the same in this, we have publicly traded multinational companies. They've been engaged in sustainability for many years now. Their board is driving them to do that. They have financial requirements that are pushing them to do that. They need to be able to complete those sustainability indexes so that they can be traded appropriately on the stock exchange. Like there are folks that are in that space and they have sustainability teams in place. We have a lot of member companies and a lot of folks in the industry that are on the other end of that spectrum. Oftentimes I find that somebody's interested in sustainability because they're the product manager for a particular element within their organization, and they've been asked to create a sustainability plan. And so they don't come with that sustainability background.
Laura (00:16:41):
Maybe they have an interest in it, certainly they're capable of doing it, but they don't necessarily have the resources or the team in place. And so one of the things we heard was this need to create a sustainability toolkit. And so that's in fact one of the elements that we created with this effort. So the sustainability toolkit is meant for animal food industry members. It gives you a guide, a way to step through nine different elements of your sustainability journey. And it has a whole collection of resource materials that are supported within that. And in fact Steve, I know you've cracked, you've, you've broken out the sustainability toolkit within Christian Hansen. You guys are one of those publicly traded multinational companies that has a team in place. But you guys have found value in the toolkit. And so I think that would be great to hear like why it is that you like the toolkit for somebody that already has a sustainability program in place?
Steve (00:17:36):
Well, and in fact, you'll hear, I'm sure at some point in the broadcast that we are the most sustainable bioscience company in the world, six years running. We're along down that path exactly as Laura described. It certainly influences our market assessors on our ESG initiatives. But in truth, being a provider of microbial solutions, we know that many of our customers in the AG space are unprepared to even begin discussing sustainability. They don't know what it is. If they know or they think they know what it is, they liken it too much to the green initiative without really thinking about what it means to them and the efficiencies in AG they can garner. So we took this beautifully prepared toolkit that describes the nine steps from crawling to walking to running, and we have added it to our service offerings so that our technical services team and our key account managers can take this beautiful tool and introduce our customers to this philosophy. And back that philosophy up with a set of introductory exhibits where a set of tools, physical tools, excel, spreadsheets, presentations to let them engage with their upper management to start the ball rolling down this path where we all need to go. I say to everyone who will listen, sustainability is coming like a freight train, and you'll either be on it or under it. Those are the only two options. And this toolkit at least provides a beautiful frame to work towards that objective.
Laura (00:19:28):
It's interesting. I would just add to that we had a, relative to the toolkit, Steve and I just happened to get off of a call that we were on together. And so we actually heard from another member about how they were using the toolkit. And this member had indicated, you know, this is one of those multinational companies with multiple different assets, one aspect of feed, but then also they have, you know human products as well. And so, you know, he said, you know, within that toolkit, we are finding it very useful in our feed sector, but there's actually elements of it that our human side is using as well. And so I think there are pieces in there for everyone wherever you are on the journey, and it's been really great to roll that out and gather feedback for how people are using it and what they find interesting about it. Yeah.
Steve (00:20:12):
Another way to just add to that is that it really is product class or product type or target agnostic. It simply says, this is the system you should think about when you're approaching sustainability, how you quantify it, what you do, and then how you communicate it internally, initially, and then externally. So it really is, again, elegant in its simplicity and broadness of application.
Scott (00:20:41):
Yeah. So you know, I'm kind of curious. I love the idea of using the toolkit with your customers, right? And many of those are our customers as well. Great idea. How far down the chain do you go? Do you go to producers as well with this toolkit?
Steve (00:20:56):
So I, I think, well, of course now we talk about producers, and this is a very interesting class to define. Tyson is a producer, at the end of the day. So of course, you can go to integrated poultry and swine operations- makes absolutely abundant sense. They already have sustainability teams and just getting an introduction to them is a good thing. But there's also some mega dairies, there's some tremendous feedlot operations. And in simple fact, they need to understand how sustainability impacts their operations and their likelihood of success in a future where there will be insets for those who have adopted initiatives that makes doing business with them more beneficial for their downstream consumers. So we do go to individual producers and say, Hey, you need to think about this because it will help you communicate with your customers and with their customers. So there's no holds barred in where you can take this
Scott (00:22:05):
So Lauraside from getting the toolkit from Chris Hansen how can other companies get ahold of the toolkit?
Laura (00:22:12):
Yeah, we created the toolkit so that it is easily downloadable as a set of files. You can go to ifeeder.org to learn more about the toolkit, AFIA members, if you happen to be within the feed industry and you're a member of the American Feed Industry Association, you'll be able to go to a link and download that toolkit for free. If you're not a member of AFIA, we have it available on the publications page for a small fee. And I think it's and I say a small fee, but it's a small fee relative to everything that's in the toolkit. So if folks are interested in that I would encourage them to go and grab that and take a look at it, and they can always reach out to me if they've got questions on how to use it.
Scott (00:22:53):
Very well. Steve, I'm gonna flip back to you. I understand that you guys offered to host the Feed System Sustainability Summit. Can you explain why this is important to your company to be part of this effort?
Steve (00:23:06):
Absolutely, Scott. I have to go back in time just a little bit to fully explain. Christian Hansen was a company that was founded in 1874 by a Danish pharmacist. His name was Christian Ditlev Ammentorp Hansen. He was the first to extract rennet from calf stomachs. And rennet is the material used to coagulate milk into cheese. So when Louis Pasteur was pasteurizing milk to make it germ free, Christian Hansen was purifying rennet to make clean cheese. And if you think about an early philosophy on sustainability, converting a perishable resource like milk into cheese or yogurts or kefirs, is quite a sustainable notion because you preserve those nutrients for a good time, particularly if that milk and cheese is clean. So we say that sustainability is in our DNA. Now, fast forward to 2018, that was the first time that Christian Hansen as an organization, earned more than a billion dollars in revenue.
Steve (00:24:16):
And as a publicly traded company, we then fall into that group that a company out of Canada called Corporate Knights, evaluates for sustainability. And in 2018, we were the most sustainable bioscience company in the world. In 2019, I'm very proud to say we were the most sustainable company of any kind in the world. And being someone responsible for telling our story in public around sustainability, around the value and efficiency garnered from using our microbial solutions on the food cultures and enzyme side of the business. And on the feed additive side, as soon as the opportunity came to host a summit for feed systems to speak about sustainability, I said to Laura and one of our associates, that has to be us. I'm absolutely positive when I speak to the senior leadership team and tell them about this opportunity, they're going to approve this. So please plan on being in Milwaukee for, at our corporate headquarters, because this has to be us. Who better than us to help sell and tell the story of sustainability and feed systems? And that's how it came to be. Yeah. And I don't think I'm exaggerating at all. Am I aware that's exactly,
Laura (00:25:34):
No, that's exactly how it went down
Steve (00:25:39):
And of course, the one of our company values of which we have four, I won't bore you with the, with three of them, but one is we work for a better world and communicating what we have done to adopt science-based targets, to go on our 10 year plan, we've had our carbon footprint quantified. We take daily steps to improve against those targets. And we believe all responsible companies, all of them, should adopt those same practices. If in fact, we're gonna feed the 8 to 9 billion people that are gonna be among us by 2050 and I don't know of a better notion than supporting a better world. And that was part of the rationale.
Victoria (00:26:30):
Laura, why don't you go ahead and tell us a little more about how the summit came to be, and keeping in mind, you know, Steve, earlier you were mentioning bringing together all different people from, you know, up the chain, down the chain. And so this actually provided an opportunity for IFEEDER to partner with World Wildlife Fund to bring the summit about. And just curious how that conversation came about, Laurand then what the summit was intended to do.
Laura (00:27:00):
Yeah, so actually it was in, we held the summit in September of 2022 there in Milwaukee as Steve indicated, but we actually started the conversation in November of 2021. So I was at the Sustainable Agricultural Summit and at that summit came across Courtney Hall, who was with World Wildlife Fund at, actually with World Wildlife Fund at the time. She's actually now doing sustainability for CHS in Minnesota. But at the time when she was with World Wildlife Fund, she listened to me give a presentation on some of the work that IFEEDER was gonna be doing and said, wouldn't it be great if we could find a way to collaborate? World Wildlife Fund, you say, why are they interested in sustainable feed? And it's because they're interested in, you know, land use, they're interested in continuing agriculture in a way that we do conserve the environment and we do conserve what we do in agriculture.
Laura (00:28:02):
and they foresee the value of the efficient production systems that we have here in the US because of what they do to support conservation. So Courtney said, let's see if we can do something together. And we came up with the idea to do this Feed System Sustainability Summit, to bring together the whole value chain to work on solutions, because we know that feed is 40 to 80% of the footprint for livestock and poultry production. And so in that space, there are some real opportunities there. We have opportunities to not only impact the feedstuff production on the farm, but also what we can do with a ration. And so we came to the IFEEDER board of directors, Courtney came and presented, and we said, Hey, let's do this. And I was telling Steve earlier today, it was one of the most content I would say contentious discussions.
Laura (00:29:02):
We've had within the IFEEDER board because, you know, WWF isn't like an immediate go-to on who you think, you know, an agricultural feed industry might partner with. And it turned out to be a great collaboration. We organized that together in collaboration with the Context Network. They helped us bring it together. We ended up inviting about 30 participants into Milwaukee from all segments of the animal food supply chain, because like we said earlier, we needed to know what our upstream and downstream influencers needed from us. And so it was really important to establish that conversation with them. We actually continue to benefit from it today. So, World Wildlife Fund recently published a report on solutions in the feed space, and then IFEEDER used many of the findings that came out of the summit to advance our next phase of sustainability work, actually, which we're rolling out right now.
Steve (00:30:04):
Well, I want to add that I have, as you can probably well imagine, been involved in many summits, and my expectations for success started out fairly low. But as it began to materialize, and I applaud the absolute professionalism of the Context Group and the individuals we worked with, I applaud the professionalism of Laura and the team at IFEEDERs and AFIA. But this summit was an open forum for discussion. There was nothing but candid conversation about what we were trying to achieve, what our ultimate goal was, what our current constraints and impediment was. And at the end, we came out with an absolute plan that was actionable and relatable and is in fact driving the next phase of the sustainability toolkit. So it was a perfect example of a successful endeavor across a broad array. And in that first meeting in March, when it was initially discussed, I would tell you there was some puckering in the room. I won't tell you which organ was puckered and people stood up, their chairs rose with them, that's all I'll say, and it turned out to be quite a match made in heaven, as they say. And the output is absolutely laudable and very worthwhile having put forward the effort. I look forward to the next one.
Scott (00:31:42):
So Steve, you talked a little bit about the next phase, and so that kind of is a nice segway to phase two. Laura, what can you tell us about phase two of the project?
Laura (00:31:52):
Yeah, so IFEEDER recognizes that we have gaps to fill, we have opportunities to pursue. The toolkit is just a piece of the work that we're doing. And we'll continue to add, you know, I view that toolkit as version 1.0. We'll have additional documents and resources we add and release an updated version in the coming year, but we are going to gather some folks together and we have a few work plans that we’re in the process of rolling out. So our next areas of work are really collectively about advancing the role and recognition of what the animal food supply can do to bring solutions that benefit the environmental footprint of animals. When I mentioned a few minutes ago that the footprint of animal production is 40 to 80% of that is tied to feed. Sometimes what happens in that is the downstream customers, the CPG Consumer Product Good Companies, they say, oh, okay, it's tied to feed.
Laura (00:32:59):
We need to go work on feedstuff production on the farm because everybody's heard about the opportunity we have for carbon sequestration. And that is where people wanna put their focus. That's really very important. I don't I don't disagree with that as a place to put a focus. A lot of the footprint is tied to feed production on the farm. I, however, have been working in this space for over 25 years now. And early in my career we were working on cover crop adoption and no-till and minimum, till all those are the practices they are thinking about relative to regenerative agriculture or climate smart agriculture. We're making progress, but it's slow progress. It's gonna take a long time. I was just driving, you know, this is nothing, I'm not saying anything negative about this area of the country.
Laura (00:33:58):
I was driving from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls, South Dakota a couple of weeks ago to speak, and I drove past a lot of farmland and there were no cover crops out there, and there was no minimum till out there. That has a lot to do with the climate and the geography and the soil type and the systems that they have. And so I would just say that that's not the only place we should look for solutions. And so the work that IFEEDER is getting ready to take on is really about raising the recognition and awareness of what the feed industry can bring with feed rations, with feed innovations, with feed strategies themselves, right, to be able to reduce that footprint. So one of our efforts is just about understanding exactly what it is we need to be supporting our customers with. So what information do they need from us so that they can achieve their goals and targets that they've set?
Laura (00:34:53):
So the first project is really about hearing from our animal peers about what it is they need from feed so that we can identify where those gaps are and then have a plan to start filling them. The second project very much aimed at understanding the environmental benefits that are tied to many of the innovations that the industry's bringing. So just for example, when you think of some of the performance indicators that our feed companies do in all of their research, right? We can't sell a product to a producer if we can't tell them how it can benefit or reduce their cost, right? And we look at feed conversion efficiency, we look at production efficiency. Those are indirect measures of environmental benefit. We're just not using them for that. So if you think about it, if we can improve the feed conversion efficiency, we can potentially reduce the amount of feed we provide.
Laura (00:35:54):
That's a number that we can turn into an environmental benefit. If we improve the production efficiency of an animal, we can get it to market a few days faster, perhaps. So if we know that we're in a high-rise layer system and we know that on average a layer system consumes X amount of energy or water, or amidst a certain amount of emissions, or has a certain amount of manure tied to it per day, and we can reduce the number of days to market, there again is another way we can calculate an environmental reduction in the footprint. We're not doing that, so great right now. We have opportunities to do more in that space. We need to be able to give our downstream folks who are very interested in reducing their footprints, their scope three emissions, their supply chain footprint. We need to give them the picture or the image of what that could look like relative to the feed supply.
Laura (00:36:50):
So that's second area, if you can tell. I'm pretty passionate about that one. The third area is something called life cycle assessments. So life cycle assessments are basically a way that we look at the footprint of any type of product or production system. And we have some a great organization within the feed industry. It's the Global Feed Lifecycle Assessment Institute, GFLI. They are compiling data about feed ingredients so that we can calculate or quantify LCA life cycle assessment information. And LCA is more than just carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. It's things like water quality, water quantity, nitrogen and phosphorus biodiversity toxicity. So there's more in that space than just greenhouse gas emissions. But the LCA data it's a very complex system. And when you do LCAs, even if you're following the is ISO standard, it's a choose your own adventure kind of scenario.
Laura (00:37:51):
Within the ISO standard, you get to choose which methodology you're using, which dataset you're using, which how you're gonna allocate your footprint, what boundary you're gonna set. And as you can imagine, that can be really challenging then to compare across products because everybody's using a slightly different method. So IFEEDER’s third project is really about harmonizing for the industry, providing some guidance on how we can provide more consistent data that we can actually get into GFLI. And so those are the three areas of work that we're pursuing. I will say, because I haven't said this yet IFEEDER is a 501. We are a nonprofit. we do not just automatically get a kickoff, a kickback, a checkoff, whatever. We don't have that for the feed industry. So anything that we take on is from a contribution or from a grant, a grant or award that we receive. So if the work that we're, that I'm talking about speaks to you please follow up. you can catch me on IFEEDER.org. I'd love to be able to talk to you. But we require funds and so we're actually in the fundraising phase right now to get those projects underway.
Scott (00:39:07):
Yeah. So Steven, Laura, both of you guys travel for a living and you know, across the country, across the globe. What are different farms doing to support healthier animals and a healthier planet? What differences do you see?
Steve (00:39:22):
I'll be happy to take that one, Laura. Good. It really does vary tremendously, but I think it's fair to say today's world consolidation of operations remains the rule. There used to be a time when I first came into AG when there were 72,000 dairy farms, and now through consolidation we’re down to under 40,000. As this consolidation has continued, the professionalism of the management of these operations has improved. And you see some operators that are investing in biological inoculants for their seed. They're investing in new class generation fertilizers so that when they produce crops, they're doing it as efficiently as practically possible in the land they possess. When they harvest those crops, they're using silage inoculants to ensure proper fermentation and the preservation of the nutrients that's in the material that they spent money to grow. If you preserve that material well and you feed it to animals and into those animals, you provide effective additives like prebiotics or probiotics or essential oils.
Steve (00:40:43):
There are many that have a benefit in getting the animal to digest nutrients better, to absorb those nutrients into their body and the other beneficial impacts of their gut. And these producers are assessing efficiency, whether it is pound of egg per pound of feed, whether it is pounds of milk per pound of input. And this becomes a set of metrics that they analyze, they routinely evaluate, and they look for those quality inputs that improve efficiency. And I would argue to anyone, when you look at the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen that's in the feedstuffs, the more of that you keep in the body of the animals or in the products they put out for us in milk or eggs, for example, then the less of that carbon and hydrogen goes back out in the air as nitrogen, the less of it goes out as carbon and oxygen is CO2 and the less nitrogen waste you have. And then you convert those nutrients into food for a growing populace. And that efficiency garnered in operations across the country is really a tremendous driver of sustainability. We just need to build a frame for standardizing those practices so that everybody uses the same metrics for making those assessments so that we can all go positively in the future together. And you see adoption of that among big, professionally managed operations, and you still see some operations that are living paycheck to paycheck as you, as you will. And you know, there's opportunity for improvement.
Scott (00:42:39):
Yeah. So you talked about scale and efficiencies, and I would have to say, you know, producers here in North America are probably at the top of the list in terms of both of those, not necessarily true for all countries around the world, right? And perhaps there's maybe bigger opportunities elsewhere. And what, what kind of thoughts and opinions do they have related to that and how it
Steve (00:43:04):
We, we have operations
Scott (00:43:05):
Go ahead.
Steve (00:43:06):
We have operations around the world, and of course, I'm constantly speaking with my colleagues, and you are correct, the biggest percentile gains are when you have adoption of best practices by those who are now newly aware. And as you improve the efficiency of agriculture globally, that's absolutely required because we're not getting any more land, we're not getting any more additional resources. It's gonna be better management of that land and resources that are going to enable the feeding of the planet. You see your biggest gains when people are new to technology and adopt that technology. Now, luckily, they can leapfrog right to the best technology. There's really no impediment as long as it's available to them. And by available, I mean they can afford to to use it. Yeah. and that's the rule.
Scott (00:44:03):
Laura, is IFEEDER collaborating with other entities around the world.
Laura (00:44:08):
Yeah. Within the US we are collaborating with a variety of the livestock and poultry organizations, right? So for example, I sit on the feed task force for the US Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and co-chair that task force. So we have partners within our livestock and poultry affiliated organizations. We also partner with entities like North America Meat Institute and the Protein Pact. The effort that they pursue to advance sustainability, not just on environmental indicators, but around animal welfare, animal health and other aspects of sustainability. We partner with the Clear Center. So the Clear Center is based at UC Davis led by Dr. Frank Mitloehner. So their team is doing great work to support the animal feed and animal industry itself relative to reducing emissions both from greenhouse gasses and nitrogen gasses as well as helping to ensure that policies are supported and grounded in science.
Laura (00:45:21):
That's a big piece of what the Clear Center does relative to communicating policy. We partner with folks not only the World Wildlife Fund, but also the Nature Conservancy. So we have a project actually underway with the Nature Conservancy right now looking at products and strategies to reduce enteric emissions. On a global basis, I have the opportunity to work through AFIA as well. And so I serve on the Global Feed Lifecycle Institute's technical committee, so have the ability to support and advance that effort around LCA as well as working with the international feed ingredient federation on their sustainability committee. And really important, another area we haven't really touched on today, but on their circularity task force. So we have a real opportunity for animal agriculture and animal feed when we want to start, when we can begin better telling the story around circularity, which really means designing out waste.
Laura (00:46:21):
And, you know, the animal in particular, the ruminant animal, but all animals in general are so good at the use of co-products and byproducts, right? These feedstuffs that we as humans cannot consume. IFEEDER has a report from a few years ago that would indicate that about 40% of feedstuffs that are consumed by animals and livestock and poultry today are co-products and byproducts. And, you know, that really leads itself to the sustainability story because, you know, we're consuming food waste, human food waste, and we're consuming byproducts and co-products from food production that otherwise couldn't be consumed by humans. And so if it has this great circularity task force that we're working to understand and think about how we can ensure the continued use of those products but also valuing those products from a measurement or indicator standpoint as to what they contribute to sustainability.
Scott (00:47:21):
So I don't know who this question's for, but can you talk a little bit about what role carbon credits plays in your discussions in planning?
Laura (00:47:31):
Go for it, Steve. Why don't you talk about it from your perspective?
Steve (00:47:34):
Oh, sure. So, what I absolutely believe will become evident in the, it's, it's now and in the near future, is that consumer product companies are going to adopt philosophies that they'll share with their customers that indicate just how much they've embraced this sustainable green philosophy. And they will be absolutely willing to pay, called insets, down the chain for their suppliers. If their suppliers can reliably, demonstrably, quantifiably indicate just how much carbon or resources they're saving and therefore impact the story that their upstream is telling. And that will go from the supplier of finished meats back to the producer of those meats, back to their grain suppliers, back to the seed companies. And I believe there will be enough revenue generated from this philosophy to share downstream. However, if a producer is going to adopt a change that, let's say adds a feed additive that demonstrably reduces methane production, for example, it must also improve the efficiency of their operation such that they get a return on the investment simply from using it. And if in fact, an extra revenue stream materializes because that philosophy they've embraced is now valuable to their customer, then so be it. And I think that's how I envision most carbon credit scenarios becoming commonplace in the market.
Laura (00:49:29):
Yeah. And just along those lines, you know, the projects we were just speaking about this, the one that I'm so passionate about, which is advancing the kind of recognition and role of these feed ration based innovations to be able to create that carbon credit. One thing that's really important to that carbon credit system and quantification system is traceability. And it's, relatively speaking, harder to trace a practice change from the feedstuff production on the farm all the way through the grain elevator to the feed mill, to the animal production facility, to the processor, to the end of where that product is being used. That's relatively harder than using blockchain where you could know exactly what you fed as specifically tagged or numbered or animal out of the specific barn and tracking that innovation or that carbon reduction from what that animal ate through to the system. And so traceability I think is gonna be really important as we think about how and what we count. And so I think that just puts an opportunity, again, on the feed industry itself for being able to better quantify those environmental benefits, especially linked to carbon, because we have an easier traceability opportunity than trying to trace through from feedstuff production on the farm.
Victoria (00:51:06):
Well, I was just gonna ask, you know, what do you think, and this can be for both of you, just from working on the sustainability roadmap project and then the summit, you know, what do you think is the biggest impediment to companies getting started in this space and what kind of gets 'em over the hump? I mean, you talked about cover crops still aren't getting the adoption that they needed. We have technologies that are out there that still need to either be brought to the table, to the marketplace and then those will have to be adopted ultimately. But right now, you know, I think we still hear that there are people that are more concerned about potential regulations that could be coming out, and this is really their opportunity to get out there and get ahead of the game a little bit. So what do you see as an impediment and what would you tell someone trying to look to get started on their sustainability journey?
Steve (00:52:04):
Well, Laura described perfectly why large global publicly traded companies have ESG initiatives, because it is going to be market analysts that will evaluate those companies exactly on those initiatives, and it's in their best interest to maintain stock price. And what gets measured gets done. Let's be, make no bones about that. So what I love most about the sustainable sustainability roadmap toolkit is it answers the question for a simpler company, one that is not publicly traded or globally bound, what's in it for me? If I adopt this, what do I gain? And my answer invariably is a differential place in the market, you can now compete differently than you've done because you've adopted something that your downstream customers want. That's what's in it for you. Well, how do I do that? Well, let me share with you a resource that tells you exactly how you start. And the first thing you need to do is get buy-in from your senior management, because if they're not bought in, you don't go off of top dead zero. But once they buy in and they understand the immense value, not only for your company, but for agricultural in general. So there is some altruism in this, it is an advantage and early adopters will win. It's as simple as that. So as to what's in it for me is the answer.
Laura (00:53:52):
I also think that when we talk about sustainability profit is part of that. And if you aren't doing something that is making money, if you can't make money within it, if it is not economically viable or feasible to pursue, it's not sustainable. It's not a part of a sustainability program or a sustainability journey. So as Steve indicated, you know getting buy-in from leadership is a good place to start, but understanding your business scenario, understanding your return on investment in the sustainability space is equally important. Luckily we have a toolkit that has some questions to guide you through thinking about that. I present, as you can imagine, quite frequently on this topic. And you know what I say to folks that are a little hesitant on sustainability, you know, we are a rather conservative industry and everybody comes with their own opinions and policies and politics in that space.
Laura (00:54:55):
And sometimes when I'm standing up there in front of a room, I see eyes starting to glaze over when you talk about sustainability. Oftentimes it's because they just think you're only gonna talk about climate and you're only gonna talk about greenhouse gas emissions. What I generally say to folks is, look, I don't care what your politics are. I don't care if you believe in climate change. You're either going to flip the switch in your head and decide that you can make something in the sustainability space. There is an opportunity for you. Flip the switch and say, there is a value add that I can create linked to sustainability or you're not. And if your choose your, if your answer is not, well, you're gonna be the one under Steve's train or you're gonna be the one that's getting drugged, kicking and screaming into the space. And so it's a lot easier to flip the switch and start thinking about business opportunities than not, and that the business opportunities exist in the space. We just have to listen to what it is that our downstream customers and our suppliers are telling us they want and need.
Scott (00:55:57):
Laura, it's interesting that you bring up pop profit and you talked previously about the three pillars people, planet and governance at Balchem, our three pillars, people, planet, and profit. And so that reminded me of that when you said that. And by the way, we just released earlier this week, our 2022 sustainability report. And so you can find that@balchem.com. Just a little commercial Yeah. Very well, Victoria, have we missed any big topics that we need to cover?
Victoria (00:56:38):
I don't think so. I mean, I think you know, talking with our members, they've really been appreciative of a lot of this work. And so seeing phase two going along, I don't know, Laura, if you wanna talk about timing or what some of the next steps are for that project.
Laura (00:56:56):
Yeah, so we're getting that project underway. We will, we expect the initial work on those three areas of work that I identified to take place in the next six months. But that's just the first step. Like some of those projects are multi, multi-steps within themselves. And so we'll spend the next six months working on those three, and then we'll evolve and go from what we've learned and then, you know, move those on because, you know, the big picture is two, three years down the road, but if we don't start now, we aren't gonna get there. So IFEEDER's gonna be getting those projects initiated. Again, we're in the process of fundraising, you know, that's not an easy lift, you know, those are, it's about $300,000 worth of effort underway. We're about two thirds of the way there.
Laura (00:57:45):
And if you'd like to be a part of those conversations or have input into that place, we'd love to talk to you and love to have you be a part of this. Really important for us, when we developed the sustainability toolkit, that phase of the work that we undertook, we had contributions coming in from 23 different industry members. And so one, we loved the support from the industry, but more importantly, it meant that we had the perspective of everybody in the industry from feed mills that only had one facility to publicly traded multinational companies that are global in nature. You know, it was really important to hear from all of those, and I think that's why people are finding the toolkit so valuable is that it really was created with input from all of those different perspectives. And you can find that toolkit at ifeeder.org.
Scott (00:58:36):
Victoria, earlier today you asked me so how long do these podcasts last and how do you know when they're, they're done? And I just realized it's when Scott's out of Bourbon. So with that, we're gonna, we're gonna call it last call, if that's all right. You know, what I'd like to do is you know, have each of you to tell the audience one key thing that you'd like them to take away from the conversation today. And Steve, I'd like to start with you.
Speaker 3 (00:01:16):
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Steve (00:59:27):
Well, thank you Scott. The one key message is that sustainability absolutely is pertinent to you in your operation. If you're producing crops, if you are feeding animals of any kind, a herd lot slower flock, then you must consider sustainability as part of your frame of working. That's the key message.
Scott (00:59:53):
Very good. And Victoria, how about you?
Victoria (00:59:58):
I would just add, you know, from a communications perspective, now's the time that you can be shaping your story. So, you know, I think we talked a lot about measuring and being able to quantify what it is that you're doing, and you want to be able to get credit for that. So being able to be out there and communicate it, and I think things like this toolkit are equipping members with the ability to be out there more proactive with stakeholders all up and down the value chain and tell their stories more effectively.
Scott (01:00:30):
Yeah. Thank you, Victoria. Laura, thank you for joining us tonight. This has been a great conversation. What kind of final thoughts do you have for us?
Laura (01:00:38):
Yeah, I think you know, it's really important to keep it simple. So start with where you can get efficiencies start with where you can get cost savings. And it's not only climate, right? There's so many other things in there. So it's understanding your issues and what are important to your customers, but I think at the basis it's keep it simple to get started.
Scott (01:00:59):
Yeah, great message. So thank you Laura, Steve, Victoria, for sharing your knowledge, your time, and your conversation tonight. And to our loyal listeners, as always, we want to thank you for coming along for another episode and spending some time with us here at the Real Science Exchange. We hope you learned something, we hope you had some fun, and we hope to see you next time here at the Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.