Dr. Mitloehner recently presented a Real Science Lecture series webinar on September 11, 2024. You can find the link at balchem.com/realscience.
Dr. Mitloehner recently presented a Real Science Lecture series webinar on September 11, 2024. You can find the link at balchem.com/realscience.
Dr. Mitloehner begins by sharing about the Clarity and Leadership for Environmental Awareness and Research (CLEAR) Center at UC Davis. He established this research and communications center to combat misinformation about sustainability in animal agriculture. One unique aspect of the center is a diverse communications department composed of journalists, filmmakers, and social media experts to help scientists communicate with the public. (6:04)
In his webinar, Dr. Mitloehner focused on animal agriculture’s impact on the climate, particularly via methane. Unlike other greenhouse gasses, methane is not only naturally produced, but it is naturally destroyed. It remains in the atmosphere for about a decade before it’s gone. Thus, if mitigation methods are used to reduce methane production, warming will also be reduced. (8:10)
Dr. Mitloehner urges continued research into improving efficiency in food production and encourages animal agriculture to take the public along with them. Stop portraying a romanticized, Old McDonald's version of animal agriculture and show what happens. There is nothing to be ashamed of, and we should be proud of the improved efficiencies and sustainability of livestock production. (13:00)
What methods or strategies exist for reducing methane? Improved ration development and feed additives to reduce enteric methane are two examples. Methane production is a heritable trait, and genomic tests are available to identify low and high methane producers. There are also ways to reduce methane loss from animal manure, including capping lagoons with anaerobic digesters to capture the gas and turn it into fuel. Dr. Mitloeher encourages voluntary, incentive-based adoption policies for these practices. (16:03)
Dr. Nichols describes her work in the Netherlands on reducing nitrogen losses. Improving protein efficiencies in livestock in the Netherlands is motivated first by environmental concerns and then by cost. Dr. Nichols expects increasing pressure in the United States regarding nitrogen load, particularly in intensively farmed portions of the country. At UC Davis, she plans to continue researching protein efficiency in dairy cows with a particular interest in optimal digestible amino acid profiles for efficient milk production. (24:00)
Reducing crude protein in the diet decreases the amount of nitrogen excreted. As protein concentrations become more marginal, that’s when the composition of protein and amino acid in the diet becomes more critical. Dr. Nichols has found in infusion studies that the closer the digestible amino acid profile is to the essential amino acids in casein, the more efficiently dietary protein is incorporated into milk protein. (32:20)
Dr. Mitloehner gives some examples of some of the incentives available to farms in California, as well as what he sees for the future in this regard. Many of the incentives are based on improvement, which discourages early adoption and Dr. Mitloehner feels this is nonsensical. Dr. Nichols chimes in with some of the incentive-type structures in Europe. (36:21)
An additional challenge in the greenhouse gas arena is that there is no standardized protocol or measurement technique to quantify emissions. There is some effort from the United Nations and FAO to standardize some of these measures. Panelists agree that farmers are well served to document what they do and record benchmarks for things where measurements are standardized. (44:49)
Conor’s big takeaway from this discussion is that research is ongoing to create a low emission sustainable future for animal agriculture that will take collaboration between science and policy to implement widely. Dr. Nichols reminds the audience that nitrogen should absolutely be on the minds of farmers and nutritionists, not only from an economic perspective of your ration, but also because of its environmental impact. Nitrogen mitigation is far more complicated than methane mitigation. She encourages listeners to take a look at the composition of the protein in their rations, keep good records, and see what kind of marginal changes you can make. Dr. Mitloehner encourages the audience to remember that environmental issues are intertwined with animal health and the profitability of an operation. We should not ignore emissions, we should become part of a solution. Lastly, we must find ways to effectively communicate about animal agriculture to the public. (55:31)
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Scott Sorrell (00:00:07):
Hello 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 nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Sorrell, gonna be your host here tonight at Real Science Exchange. Tonight we welcome back Dr. Frank Mitloehner. Dr. Mitloehner is a professor at UC Davis and the Director of the CLEAR Center. Dr. Mitloehner joined us for a real science lecture series presentation back on September 11th. The title of his presentation was “Sustainable Livestock Sustainable Future Toolkit to Improve Sustainability”. And so I would invite all of you to go back and listen to that very informative lecture. You can, you can access that at balchem.com/realscience. So, Dr. Mitloehner, looking forward to digging a little bit deeper into this conversation tonight. But first, I understand that you throw a pretty good October Fest party. Tell us what some of your favorite beverages are that you'll be serving at your party this year.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:01:12):
Well, not surprising, beer.
Scott Sorrell (00:01:15):
Of course.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:01:17):
And here all kinds of beer. The traditional High of White, of course, but also Pilsner type and IPAs. I'm not much into IPAs, but many of my students are, so, yeah, no, it's gonna be good.
Scott Sorrell (00:01:32):
Yeah. Good deal. Well, I see you brought a guest with you tonight. You brought Kelly along. Can you tell me how you decided to invite Kelly?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:01:40):
Yes. Kelly Nichols is one of my most recently hired colleagues here in the Department of Animal Science. Kelly is a distinct expert in anything nitrogen related. She most recently worked at ING in university in the Netherlands where this whole topic of nitrogen has become a real big topic and it's very likely that it will be a big topic here too. And so she is the person that is the expert on anything, nitrogen, and she's a Ruminal nutritionist and the colleague
Scott Sorrell (00:02:15):
Oh, excellent. Kelly in, in the, the, the theme of the podcast. Do you have anything special in your glass tonight,
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:02:23):
Yeah. So it's only 10: 30 in the morning here in California. And while I'm not opposed to, you know, a breakfast beer, I've certainly tried a lot of, really, unlike Frank, I do love a good IPA and there's a lot of nice ones that I've tried here from the West Coast, being originally from the East Coast. But I opted for some chocolate milk this morning from, of course, a dairy here in the valley down in Modesto that we can get up here just outside of Davis. So I picked some of that up last night for an appropriate beverage for the podcast and the time of day
Scott Sorrell (00:03:01):
Yeah, yeah. No, I get it. But it's like, it is always happy hour at the real science exchanges, always hour. That's like, that's what we like to say, Exactly. and, and I'm really excited to introduce my honorary co-host tonight. Conor McCabe. I, I met Conor probably three years ago. He was the vice President of GSD. And he joined me on the podcast that year to honor the, the winners of the oral presentations and, and the posters. The following year, he joined me again as the president of the GSD. And so again, to honor the, the, the winners. So Conor, welcome. Glad to have you here.
Conor McCabe (00:03:43):
No, looking forward to the discussion tonight, and thanks for having me.
Scott Sorrell (00:03:46):
Oh, you're very welcome. So I understand you, you have a, a festive drink in your glass tonight. You wanna tell us about that?
Conor McCabe (00:03:53):
Yes, that's true. So, while I have the, the, the glass from real science exchange here, I had to be appropriate and use this in fact utter glass here. And it's filled with pumpkin spice eggnog to be festive with this fall season. Of course, it's, it's still almost a hundred here in California, but, but falls right around the corner,
Scott Sorrell (00:04:14):
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Well, Kelly, while you're in California and it's morning, I believe it or not, I'm in Italy just outside of Milan. And so for the occasion I'm having what they call a Prosecco that's an Italian champagne. And so one of my, one of my favorites when I come to Italy. So listen, really looking forward to a great conversation this evening. So cheers, everyone.
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Scott Sorrell (00:05:52):
So, Frank, I wanna jump right in, but first I'd like you to, to tell us a little bit about the CLEAR Center. You are the, the director. I understand. So tell us about the CLEAR Center and, and why is that important to us?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:06:04):
Yeah, so at UC Davis, we are at a research institution of high esteem. You know, we have always done research, published it in the peer literature, oftentimes that inform public policy and so forth. But after a while, I noticed that this is just not enough, that there is so much misinformation in the public in and around animal agriculture, that I got really tired of it and I decided something must be done. And I also decided that I have to take the lead on this. And so I established a center called the CLEAR Center, and it is a research and communication center in and around sustainability and animal agriculture. And it has grown over the last few years. We now have quite a few faculty who are affiliated with us here within the animal science department, also from the outside, as well as a communications corps that rivals that of many colleges. So we we now have journalists, filmmakers, social media experts, and so on as part of the center that help us to communicate the research we do in ways people understand. And that sounds trivial, but it's not because believe it or not, scientists are lousy communicators, not amongst themselves. I mean, we are great talking to each other, but we are not great talking to the public at large. And this is something that the CLEAR Center is helping to stop or improve.
Scott Sorrell (00:07:34):
Yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna imagine, you know, they're, they're, they're not only not good at talking to consumers, that probably the way they talk to 'em is probably not all that clear as well. You gotta learn how to talk to 'em. Would would that be the case?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:07:49):
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is really paramount. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (00:07:55):
So another quick question. The webinar was extremely popular. There were a lot of questions. What I'd like to do is, for those that haven't watched the webinar yet, would you mind just kind of given us a 30,000 foot overview of what you shared at the webinar?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:08:10):
Yeah. There's a lot of discussion around the impact livestock has on climate and here the main gas that really affects the climate from animal agricultural sources is methane. And methane is a concern to many. Okay. Many people think, oh, gosh, yet another environmental issue that we have to deal with. And it's true, methane can be daunting, it can be a problem, okay. Particularly if you ignore it, because losing methane really means you're losing energy. Methane is just that, okay? It is it's the same as natural gas, the stuff that you used to cook at home or, or heat your homes. And if you just lose it, if you just set it off to the environment, then that really means you're losing a lot of energy and it's a potent greenhouse gas causing warming of our planet. The great thing about methane is that it's different from other greenhouse gasses in so far that it's not just naturally produced by cows and rice petties and so on, but it's also naturally destroyed.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:09:17):
It is in the atmosphere for about a decade, and then it's gone. So if you have a constant source of this gas, then roughly the amount of methane that's produced and the amount that's destroyed are in balance. That would mean no additional warming. If you increase methane over time, you increase warming, and you do so by a lot. But, and here comes what's important. If you learn to reduce methane, if you find ways to mitigate that gas through, let's say, anaerobic digesters or feed additives or other means, if you learn to reduce this gas, then you actually reduce warming. And this is where we can drastically change the role agricultural plays in this overall narrative, namely from being a problem to being part of a solution. Reducing methane reduces warming, and we can do it.
Scott Sorrell (00:10:13):
So in relative terms, how, how much does animal agriculture impact greenhouse gas emissions relative to some of the other sources?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:10:22):
So in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency is the one that runs the inventories for all greenhouse gasses. And the EPA says that of all sources of greenhouse gasses in the United States, all of animal agriculture combined contributes about 4%. And so ruminants, especially the large ones, beef and dairy take over the lion's share of that 4%. Pigs produce little poultry, even less. So it's mainly around beef and dairy and the amount of methane that they belch out. That's the main source, what's coming out of the front end of those bovine.
Scott Sorrell (00:11:01):
Yeah. You said 4% that we certainly get more than 4% of the press
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:11:07):
Yeah, we do. Yeah,
Scott Sorrell (00:11:09):
For sure.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:11:10):
Yes, we do, because, because those people who don't like us very much, I call them my special friends being facetious here, they they have identified methane as the Achilles Heel of animal agriculture. And it could be if we ignore it, if we don't do anything about it, but as I said, we could move it from being a problem to being part of a solution.
Scott Sorrell (00:11:34):
Right. Well, and and it could potentially become even more of a problem, as I understand from, from your presentation. Can you talk a little bit about the 2050 challenge?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:11:46):
Yeah. You know, I'm in my fifties and when I was a little boy, we had 3 billion people in the world. Three, today we have 8 billion people in the world, and by the time I'm an old man, we'll have well over 9 billion people in the world. And that means that throughout my lifetime, human population will have tripled three times more people on this planet during our lifetimes. But we don't have three times more natural resources to feed these people three times more arable land, three times more fertilizer, three times more fresh water, and so on. We are lucky we'll have a similar amount by the time we are old compared to when we were young. And that means that we need to make the best use of the natural resources we have to grow food, not be wasteful, and use the best efficiencies that we know of.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:12:35):
And here we are particularly good in the United States, we have grown many things around improving efficiencies. Kelly will talk about some of that, not wasting, let's say protein, not wasting other nutrients going into animals, or minimizing those losses and optimizing the productivity of our animals. It is very important that we continue doing this both research and bringing those research results to our farms, explaining the principles behind them to farmers in way they understand. And let's not forget to take the public along. And maybe we should think about when talking about our farms not to use the red barn with all animals on pasture and the romanticized approach, but use an approach that really depicts on what we actually do today, because that's not something we have to be ashamed of, something we can be proud of. We should depict culture in animal agriculture in particular, in the way that it's done and not in the old McDonald fashion.
Scott Sorrell (00:13:45):
Yeah. So, so instead of trying to make animal agriculture better, more efficient, why not just why shouldn't humans just convert to a, an all plant-based diet? Wouldn't that be better for the planet?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:13:58):
Well, that's what many people, particularly in the media, want the public to believe. That's
Scott Sorrell (00:14:03):
What they called me.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:14:04):
However, it doesn't work. It hasn't worked in the past, and it's not going to work because the vast majority of people enjoys the consumption of animal source foods. Currently, in 98% of all refrigerators in the United States, you find animal source foods, eggs, meat, dairy, 98%. And those people who say, you know what? For whatever reasons, I'm, I'm, I'm quitting and I wanna be a vegan or vegetarian, the vast majority of them do it for at most one year and then revert back to being norm, or on average, 84%, 84, 80 4% of all people who become a vegetarian or vegan stay that way for a year. And then they revert back to being omnivore. And that to me means, first of all, I have no prejudice whatsoever against what people eat. They can, everybody has that right to, to choose whatever. They so wish it's a very personal decision, just like it is to marry who you wanna marry or vote who you wanna vote for and so forth. But but it's important that this whole process of, of talking about food choices and so on, is realistic. That we look at what are the true options for minimizing impacts. And the true options are to work with farmers to produce the goods that people want to eat, want to consume and be, be less, less waste wasteful. Because currently we are incredibly wasteful, not just here, but throughout the world when it comes to food.
Conor McCabe (00:15:43):
We, we kind of set the stage now and talk about where we're going. We're not, we're not going away with beef and dairy. Would you be able to talk Dr. Minlin a little bit about some of the technologies or solutions to lead to a, a low carbon or sustainable future?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:16:03):
Yeah, Conna, there are a whole host of things we can do, particularly on the methane side. As I said, methane is really energy. Okay. So about between two, two and 10% of the energy we feed, let's say, to cattle gets lost is methane. They just bel it out. Some more methane gets lost from animal manure. That's much like having a house and your kids open the windows and doors in the middle of winter, that would cause you to get a heart attack because you obviously don't wanna lose all that. All that heat that you are paying a lot of money for. We are doing that right now in animal agriculture. We are not doing a good enough job preserving the energy that we feed to animals, and we are wasting too much methane. We can do better how through better feeding.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:16:53):
Okay. So we now know what causes methane to develop. We know that there are also certain feed additives that can reduce enteric methane, the methane that peled out. We believe that within the next five or so years, we can reduce enteric methane, again, the methane that's peled out by those animals by around 20-30%. Then we know that methane is a heritable trade. The mama cow passes it on to her offspring, and they are now genomic tests that can help you identify which animal is a low and which animal is a high methane producing cow. And that would mean that you in the future can pick those animals that produce little methane and use those for breeding. The estimates are that that will lead to a 30% reduction of herd wide methane emissions, and that's a permanent reduction. And last, not least, I mean, there are several more, but the interest of time, I'm focusing on a few.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:17:50):
There are ways to reduce methane from animal animal manure. If you have a lagoon, you would normally just off gas all the gasses into the atmosphere. Here in California, we are currently capping many lagoons. It's called a covered lagoon on anaerobic digester. And the gas that's accumulating under the top is cleaned up and converted into a fuel that could be renewable natural gas, which could then become either direct fuel or that can be converted into hydrogen, into ammonia, into other things, to fuel vehicle fleets or other industries. That has had a profound impact in California. It is helping our farmers to achieve the world's most ambitious methane goal, which is a 40% reduction for zero to be reached by the year 2030. So I'm very bullish that the different means of reducing methane are not just ending up in our labs here, but we are getting those approaches onto farms. Farmers are using them particularly under those policy regimens that are voluntary and incentive based, because these things cost money. And the farmers will not be able to carry the costs themselves. They will have to be supported by that. If society says we want that, then they have to support the farming sector to get the job done.
Conor McCabe (00:19:27):
Certainly, certainly agree with that. Our audience here is probably coming in from across the country, across the world. Could you, could you highlight a little bit about this California example and why, why things have been successful here? And you talk about this giant 40% reduction goal. Is that gonna be met with these six years remaining until that goal needs to be achieved?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:19:53):
So, yeah there are different approaches on reducing greenhouse gasses such as methane throughout the world. I call the one type of approach the cane approach, which is using rules and regulations, fines, taxes to force, farmers to reduce emissions. Countries that originally you wanted to go that route were New Zealand, Ireland Germany, the Netherlands, and others. Farmers did not take that with open ops, but they were very, very upset about it. In many, in most places, the cane approach did not work. In California, we have gone and the opposite route, which is the carrot approach where the legislature said, we want our farmers to reduce emissions, but we will work with them and not against them to achieve those reductions. And they used what's called a voluntary incentive-based approach, meaning if you reduce emissions, we will financially incentivize that. At surprise, surprise, that works. It works because it is now an additional income stream to the farmer. It is one that really focuses in on areas that were previously wasteful. And it turns issues that were a liability before into an asset. And that makes logical sense to the farmer. It makes financial sense to the farmer, it makes ecological sense overall it works.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:21:24):
And just really in closing here to the, to, to this question will we achieve the 40% reduction? Two of my colleagues and I wrote a recent report called Meeting the Call. You can Google it and get it for free meeting the call. Just Googled that in my last time you get there. And that report stated that, yes, we will achieve the full 7.2 million metric ton reduction, which is the 40% we'll overachieve it actually. And for those people who doubt my words just three weeks ago, the California Air Resources for talked about their observations with what has been reduced so far and what they think will happen until 2030. And they completely concur with us. The dairy sector in California will achieve the entire 40% reduction.
Scott Sorrell (00:22:17):
Do you see other states adopting the, the same kind of programs
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:22:23):
Program? No, not yet, because our policy framework is different compared to that in other states. But other states are watching what's happening here. And last year I visited 26 countries throughout the world, from New Zealand, Australia, to Uruguay and Paraguay to Finland and Scotland and Singapore, and so on and so on. And the reason why I did was because all these different places, not just industry groups, but also governments and legislative bodies wanted to know, what are you guys doing in California that makes it work? Because we wanna see those reductions here in those respective places throughout the world as well, but we can't get it to work. So what does, why does it work over there? Why not here? And so I shared our story over there, and I have seen very encouraging science that those people who previously went the cane approach are now going the, the carrot approach instead.
Conor McCabe (00:23:19):
That's a big, big challenge in thinking about how do we replicate what's happening here. Of course, environmental policy for the states happens here in California, but I know that usually environmental policy starts, starts over in Europe. And wanna throw it over to, to Dr. Nichols here. We, we are here, we're talking all about methane emissions here from a US perspective. But I know you did previous work and previous research in the Netherlands. Would you be able to highlight kind of what is the state of, of what does nitrogen look like in the Netherlands and, and where is it going here in here in California?
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:23:59):
Yeah, thanks Conor. So I think, and I'm learning a bit as, as I go to how this works from a global scale, going from the, the, the issues that you know, occur first in Northwestern Europe and how then they're getting transferred overseas and how they ultimately land if they're gonna land anywhere in the us it's going to be here in California where the dairy is so intensive. So the Netherlands the most intensively farmed European country, also with a very intensive dense population. And they've struggled with both nitrogen but also phosphorous load on the land for many, many years. I moved there in 2014 to start my PhD, and I always explained it a bit like I started my work with protein, nutrition and an amino acid metabolism and dairy cows when I was at the University of Guelph.
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:24:55):
That's where I did my master's. So I started there, and on those topics, we always framed it around the economic aspect of feeding protein. Usually those protein-rich ingredients are the most expensive portion of a ration. So if we can improve that efficiency, so dietary protein going into milk protein rather than out from under the tail of the cow that's a win for the producer. When I moved to the Netherlands, the discussion switched into that environmental viewpoint, first cost being a, a close, but still second where we really needed. So I started my PhD on a, you know, a nationally funded project that had industry partners involved with the, with the objective to improve protein efficiency in dairy cows. And that was because of this growing intensity and pressure for reducing the nitrogen load of manure because farmers were coming up against regulations around what they could spread on their land.
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:26:03):
And of course, the Netherlands is a very small country with a lot of, relatively, a lot of dairy cows and you can see then where the issue arises. So currently they're still struggling with that. That's still an area where there's a lot of research being done, a lot of the work in binga, the university, but also livestock research. I also worked the last five years in industry, so I worked for trial nutrition in their in their r and d department. And I can say from an industry perspective as well there's a very strong focus on products and services, most especially for how to improve or what we can, what, what, how can we offer solutions to nutritionists, to farmers to try to find some balance between what we're putting in the diet, maintain production, but also reduce what's going out in manure.
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:26:57):
So that's still very much the situation in the Netherlands. I see a lot of parallels the more I learn about the situation here in California. So it's a much larger state versus the country of the Netherlands. But if you look at where the dairy production is, it is also a very intense an intensely farmed region given the size of the whole country. So I think there are already discussions around somewhat similar concerns in terms of nitrate levels in groundwater nitrous oxide being a very potent greenhouse gas. And, and those are the types of discussions that we're starting to see here economically, that is still, I would say the main driver. Protein is an expensive part of the ration. And I think across the US that's probably still the main driver, especially depending on the regions where maybe they're not having such a discussion about nitrogen from the environmental standpoint. But I do expect that to grow over time and become, I expect that focus to shift to have, you know, the economics be important, but also maybe increasing pressure from a legislative perspective around nitrogen load on, on land in that, in that way.
Scott Sorrell (00:28:21):
Kelly, I don't know how much you know about chem, but we, we manufacture encapsulated nutrients specifically amino acids, lysine, and methionine. And so I'll ask a self-serving question, did, did you, did you utilize any of those rumen protected amino acids in your research to reduce nitrogen or improve efficiency of the animals?
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:28:44):
Yeah, so most of my research has focused on actually looking at the whole profile of the amino acid profile of digestible protein. So of course, ru protected amino acids play a role there. I've done some, some supplementation studies with lysine, methionine and also histamine, so prototype products. But a lot of my work is focused on using abomasal infusion models to manipulate a bit more of a wide scope of those essential amino amino acids to really play around with, with what, what might be used with a greater efficiency relative to a different profile. It's really a challenge because as you well know there's only two essential amino acids that are commercially available. So the research has been skewed pretty heavily, in my opinion, towards those because they're available, they're easy to feed, they're supported by companies who are looking to see the real benefits that they can have.
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:29:47):
And there certainly are some benefits I would encourage nutritionists and, and, and researchers as well, to think a little bit more broadly about what some of the other amino acids might be that are of interest and what that actual full profile of, of the amino acids that are being absorbed, what that looks like. And getting a little bit away from the idea of, of course, single limiting an amino acid, which has been pretty well shown to be not the case for milk production. But there's a lot of, it's a challenge, but there's a lot of work to be done around manipulating that digestible supply. If there were more rumen protected amino acids available on the market, of course it would be much more simple to feed our ruminants, but that's not the case. But that's an area that there's still a lot of work to be done.
Scott Sorrell (00:30:40):
Yeah. And is that something you're pursuing there at UC Davis?
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:30:44):
Yeah, for sure. So it picks up off of what I was doing during my PhD in bathing and also my last couple of years with trial nutrition, trying to think of ways to really harness that metabolic flexibility that dairy cows have from a lot of perspective, whether that's energy or protein or the combination of the two. But really we're starting to get a better idea of how the mammary gland uses those amino acids. Now we have to kind of backtrack to what can we do from a formulation perspective, looking at the ingredients that we have available, maybe reconsidering some of the byproducts that maybe we've been feeding for many years, but then also taking a second look at some of the ones that are newer as our other industry streams start to shift and see if there's a way or if there's ingredients that provide some of these profiles that I can infuse them into the, into the abomasal and get a really nice response. But is there a way that we can also manipulate that really practically through the diet? And that's a, a big open question.
Scott Sorrell (00:31:55):
Hmm. Very interesting.
Conor McCabe (00:31:57):
And, and thinking of that Dr. Nichols, are there any, what, what opportunities are there and what, what seems most promising and thinking about from an amino acid, from an economic, from an environmental perspective what are a couple of those pieces for anyone listening that could be implementable today and what is, what is down the road?
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:32:19):
Yeah, so I, I would guess most people listening are familiar or, or are well aware that as you start to decrease the total amount of crude protein in your diet, you will reduce the amount of nitrogen that's excreted. So that's very clear. As you start to get more marginal with your protein supply, that's where the actual composition of that crude protein starts to really matter. And that's not news, I think, to anyone who's listening, but that's where it also gets far more challenging to refine what is that ideal composition. So I always look at it, there's some things you can do on the rumen side, so perhaps pulling out a little bit of that degradable protein, which is likely being fed. The recommendations are in some cases, especially on well-managed farms, perhaps higher than they need to be on the metabolizable protein side.
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:33:17):
So that's your rumen degradable protein in particular. Of course we have these rumen protected amino acids, but taking a close look the ingredient protein rich ingredients with a lower room degradability, if we could get to a point where we know what that digestible minor acid profile would be from those ingredients starting to see how you can get that profile as close to Cain as possible. That's what we've shown in these infusion studies, that the marginal response, so the marginal protein efficiency for every extra unit of protein supplement that you put in, how much of that will get translated into milk protein? The closer that that profile is to k casein, in particular, the essential amino acids encasing, the, the more efficient that that will get transferred into milk protein. So that's what we're aiming for. The models that we have now are improving in terms of how to actually look at that practically as a nutritionist.
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:34:29):
But that's an area that we're still working towards. I know in terms of industry, for example, at trial nutrition, they're starting to work towards that and starting to put in some parameters that match the biology a little bit better. So some of these groups of amino acids that kind of work in complement with each other. Can we give a nutritionist that number in grams per day rather than trying to hit every single essential amino acid target? Is there a target for a group of them that might be actually more practically useful versus individual ones? With the new NASEM, there's been changes there too that encourage more towards this variable efficiency of essential amino acid use. It's not perfect, but again, that's based on the research that's been done. So I can imagine in the coming 10, 20 years as we develop that further those next iterations would be more useful. But a lot of it comes down to those who are feeding cows also understanding this and starting to evolve their thinking in that way. They're the, they're the boots on the ground who are really making those changes and then seeing that response in the herd. So keeping that in mind for the nutritionists who are listening maybe starting to shift your thinking that way in terms of what does that amino acid profile of metabolize protein really look like?
Scott Sorrell (00:35:54):
Good stuff. One of the questions I get I'll just ask us the, of the panel, and it sounds like you guys have got this one figured out in, in California, but they're asking, how do I get paid for this? It, it all makes sense. I understand why I need to do it, but how do I get paid for it? How do you answer that question? May is that one you get Dr. Lerner?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:36:21):
Yeah. it's not true that we have figured this out in California. We are in the process, I would say, I, I would say we in the process. Okay. There, there are venues for people who cover their legumes and therefore have a digester to get paid for the biogas that they produce and the fuels that result. And that scheme is called low carbon fuel standard credits and federal rim credits. These credits in the past were very high, I would say three, four years ago, if you assume that a cow produced about $4,000 worth of milk per year. The credits, the carbon credits amounted to about $2,000 per cow per year, 4,000 for the milk, 2000 for the biogas that the cow produced via that manure that she, she put out. So at that time, that was very, very sizable and many people jumped onto the bandwagon of covering their lagoon and utilizing this approach, the market has gone down since, okay, we are no longer getting the same carbon credits as a few years ago.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:37:42):
That's one caveat. Okay? But it's still a this, this, this waste approach, this manure approach is still a economic approach that many people invest into. But the question now that I get much more often is, what happens to feed additives and to other approaches that reduce enteric methane? And here the answer is, there is no government scheme on this yet at all. There are now some large players like the Nestles in the world and the Starbucks in the world, and maybe the Denis in the world who say that they need to reduce what's called scope three emissions. Scope three emissions means these are not the emissions from their processing plants or their whatever food temples, but their main emissions are from the farms that produce the dairy products. And so now the Starbucks, for example, Nestles, they want the farms that supply them with milk to reduce their methane. And one way of getting there is to, to buy feed additives for those farms that supply them with milk or to start with with private carbon schemes. So this is already happening. Okay. It is happening. It will continue to happen. It will intensify. They're not waiting for some government, but they are already working on that.
Scott Sorrell (00:39:16):
So, a, another, I guess, objection I've heard I don't know if it's real or not, but from what I've heard is that the, the incentives are for improvement. And so if I'm a dairy farmer and I've been doing a, a very good job of, you know, being very efficient, so my opportunity to get better is, is limited. And yet for those that might have been dragging their feet, and they're, they're, they're not all that efficient and, and, and very poor at you know, reducing their greenhouse emissions, they're the ones that are gonna be able to benefit from this the most. One is that, is that true? And then if so, how do we overcome that?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:39:56):
It is true, and it's very unfortunate. So let's say somebody has done a bank job over the last 20 years of running their farm, minimizing emissions. And then so they've done it for 20 years, and now next year it becomes mandatory, okay, now everybody has to do something. Then the person who has done it for the last 20 years will not get credit for it, because what they have done for the last 20 years is their standard. Okay? It's nothing new and additional the farm, the neighboring farm that didn't do anything special for the last 20 years, that starts doing the same technology as the other one has been for the last 20 years. It starts at next year. They will get for full credit for that. This principle is called additionality, and it's driving me crazy. I cannot believe that something so irrational that can really still be driving the carbon markets.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:40:55):
It's it's nonsensical and it prevents people from being early adopters. Okay? That's, that's wrong. That's just wrong. And I talk to the legislature about it. I talked to agencies about it, like the California Air Resources Board, the Environmental Protection Agency. I'm telling them, stop it. This is insanity. You want to have early adopters who show the rest of the sector that emission reductions are possible and and feasible. And what you're doing there is you are blocking that by having this additionality of principle in there. It makes no sense, in my opinion, it has to stop. 'cause otherwise you will not get reductions.
Scott Sorrell (00:41:44):
Is this taking place everywhere Kelly, is that something you saw in Europe as well?
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:41:50):
I, I think it's for sure more fully developed here in California. I would say globally, California leads the way in terms of how all of this is being structured. A lot of those same large companies that are active here are, are starting to be just as active on their Europe on the European side. So the Nestle, we have Arla, Rizza, Campina in the Netherlands. There's a lot of incentive programs there, and they've had to adjust to be more appropriate for what the, what the situation really is. On the, on the flip side too, they've had different, different challenges. So for a long time, there's been incentives for farmers and co-ops to have their cows on pasture, for example, for a portion of the year. As we learn more about the impact of grazing cattle on nitrogen load on the land, carbon emissions, the ability to capture any of that and turn it into carbon credits or reduce your nitrogen load, all of those sinks, how does that fit in with sort of those standards of co-ops who've had that traditionally as one of, you know, their hallmarks?
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:43:01):
That's, that's one way to look at it. You also see particularly in the UK and other parts of Ireland incentives for soy free diets where the social discussions around soybean meal in, in, in animal diets has really taken center stage. So in those cases, I've heard of farms getting incentivized to take soybean meal out of their diet. So some of, and you know, that that helps in a sense on the nitrogen side. But that brings with it some of its own challenges. So there's a lot of different discussions going on over there to try to, you know, fix or help with one problem, but it's always multifactorial. And how do we, how do we achieve all of these targets based on these different incentives and what, what you can get out of them.
Conor McCabe (00:44:01):
And, and one thing I know we're, we're working on here at UC Davis, you know, dairy and beef are, are kind of in a sense, bad words in, in climate discussions. But we, we look at the opportunities to reduce, reduce methane emissions. Dr. Minter, I know you, you talked about pathways that we're reducing here, reducing methane, reduces warming. What is the, the conversation kind of at the global level in terms of how do we look at accounting for, for warming and what does that mean and, and where is that going? As we look at beef and dairy in these, in these global discussions?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:44:49):
Yeah. not just in the United States, but also globally. There is a huge spread, a huge variability in how people account for emissions as to how many, what kind of emissions come from a farm and how much and what kind and so on. Throughout the world and even throughout regions in the country, like the United States, very different approaches are used to measure the same thing. It's the wild west right now that I'm observing. And that's very much concerning to me because if you have something like carbon emissions or nitrogen emissions or other emissions that are measured in 10-20 different ways, and then all these different companies report their emissions, you're not comparing apples to apples. You're comparing apples to oranges to kiwis, okay? And that's what's happening all throughout the world right now. That is very, very disconcerting. I have progressed this discussion here in California by telling the agency that's in charge, and that's the California Air Resources Board to please consider developing a protocol that applies to anybody who wants to quantify methane and to have an official quantification method that's approved that everybody who wants to quantify their emission profile has to use.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:46:18):
Because imagine this, imagine you, we were not an animal agriculture, but we were in the automobile industry. Let's just imagine that for a second. And let's just imagine the four of us were representatives of four different car companies, Ford, Chevy, Mercedes, and Volkswagen, let's say. Mm-Hmm,
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:47:21):
So there are efforts by the United Nations, FAO, the food and agricultural organization, for example, to harmonize ways, to measure impacts of animal agriculture, on water quality, on air quality, on climate impacts. And that is essential because if we don't get that, if you don't measure things, you can't manage them, right? We have to know where the problems sit, we have to know what reduces the problems in order to do a good job. And so this is something that we owe our farmers, and we as scientists can't do that alone. We have to have policy makers and agencies work with us, and we are trying to do that. I am trying to do that with the FAO in Rome. I'm trying to do it with the EPA in Washington. I'm trying to do it without agencies in California.
Scott Sorrell (00:48:12):
Yeah. You know, kind of to build on that, not only do you need to standardize, but you need to make sure they're accurate, right? If, if they are inaccurate, they're gonna give you wrong answers. It's like using the wrong map, right? You know, trying to navigate Cleveland with a, a map of Columbus, it's gonna give you wrong answers. So, yeah, definitely. Good comments. Conor. Have we missed anything big during our discussions today?
Conor McCabe (00:48:41):
I would just think to, and think about for for members in the audience imagine that a dairy farmer came to you and asked them for like one, one thing they could do on their operation today to lead them down the road to, to success. Kind of what advice would you give to them? Is now the right time to do it, or should you hold off and weight with that on the methane nitrogen side, all encompassing sustainability?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:49:09):
So I would have to say something that I really don't like to say at all. I would have to say on the methane side, I would have to say, hang tight. And the reason for this is the impossible issue of additionality. Okay? That's what I talked about earlier, that if you're an early adopter, you get penalized. Now, that really hurts me because it is so against my belief. I think that we should incentivize farmers and we should incentivize early adopters and not hold them back. But when I ask agencies like the California Air Resources Board, shall I encourage farmers to use feed additives or other approaches to reduce emissions right now, then they tell me no. And I find that just unbelievable. But they did tell me no. And so I'm going back to them saying, well, you can't have it both ways. You want our farmers to reduce 40% emissions, then don't tie behind their back because that's what you effectively do If you penalize early adopters, we need all hands on deck if we want to achieve very aggressive reduction goals. And if you don't mean it, then don't put these kind of regulations out there.
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:50:27):
I can maybe speak from the nitrogen side. I think the number one thing I would tell farmers, nutritionists start to measure if you wanna get ahead in it, and I would say in the US it is a bit ahead of, of any nitrogen discussions because they're, they're not coming on with such intensity here as they are in, in northwestern Europe. But start to find some things that you can benchmark in your herd if, if you're not already that link to nitrogen efficiency. So milky and nitrogen is a, is probably the best, the most accessible, I'll say
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:51:23):
So that's your starting point. And then depending on your production targets, how you're being paid, other goals of your farm, the ingredients you have, work to maybe think about ways you can refine that protein composition of the diet. So make small changes, maybe reducing a little bit of the crude protein, shifting some ingredients based on looking at maybe the amino acid profile. And then watch what that does with that measurement target that you have, whether that's milky or nitrogen or another, you know, if you're, if you, do you happen to be measuring your nitrogen in your manure over time how is that changing? And start to have a handle on how you are doing, what is that load that you're putting out onto the farm? Not just from a nutrient management perspective, from the crop operation side, but from a, we may start to need to pay attention to this from an operational side in terms of the dairy operation, not just the crops on the other end. So that pressure might not be coming at you right now from a legislative perspective, but depending on the region, that that may be a reality in the coming years. Nitrogen might be more on your radar more than you expect it to be now in, in the coming years.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:52:44):
Now, I wanna add one point that I think is also very relevant in this discussion. So first of all, carbon and nitrogen are somewhat different, okay? They're both very important, but the pressures right now toward our farmers are different with respect to carbon emissions versus nitrogen emissions. But in both areas, I would urge farmers to document the things they do. Yeah, if you quantify something, if you make any changes, if you don't document them, then these changes have never been done in the eyes of those agencies that deal with you. Okay? If you really wanna get credit for something you do, you must document it. There's just no way around that. So these topics will not go away. Nitrogen and carbon will be receiving a lot more attention than it has been in the past. Don't stick your head in the sand, it's not going away.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:53:40):
Get trained as to what we are talking about here. But when you hear nitrogen, people think of ammonia nitrogen is much more complex than carbon because the same nitrogen that's in the urea of the cow can become a multitude of potential pollutants from the air pollutant pneumonia to the water pollutant, nitrate nitride to the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, and it can also become a very benign nitrogen gas. The same nitrogen is creed by the cow, can become any of these different kinds of environmental outcomes. And and we have some control over which direction that goes. So it's much more complicated than the methane side of things. But we have some control over which direction things go. So educate yourself, document things, be on the lookout as to at what point you should make changes and get credit for it.
Scott Sorrell (00:54:38):
It, it's been a fascinating discussion, but unfortunately it's well past happy hour here in Italy, and I'm working into my dinner time. So I ought to call this to a close. This has been fascinating so much that we, we know, but yet so much we yet need to know. In closing, guys, what would be one or two key takeaways that you'd leave with our audience? Conor, I'm gonna start with you.
Commercial (00:55:08):
Tonight's last call question is brought to you by NitroShure Precision Release Nitrogen. NitroShure delivers a complete TMR for the rumen and microbiome helping you feed the microbes that feed your cows. To learn more about maximizing microbial protein output while reducing your carbon footprint, visit balchem.com/nitro.shure.
Conor McCabe (00:55:31):
Yeah, I think one big takeaway for me from the discussion going back and forth and talking about sustainability bigger of beef and dairy is that it's, it's not going anywhere in terms of people are gonna continue to consume desire and want the products that we produce as an industry. The research is, is, is following right along with it. And I think there are opportunities out there for work that we heard from happening here at UC Davis, to work happening overseas to work happening at many other centers across the country to lead to these low, low emission sustainable futures. It's gonna take time, of course, through policy and science and collaboration to make that happen. But that pathway is set and of course is gonna take time until we get there, but beef and dairy are not going anywhere.
Scott Sorrell (00:56:27):
Yeah, well said. Conor. Kelly, what words of advice do you have for us?
Dr. Kelly Nichols (00:56:32):
Yeah, so I would say, although perhaps it's taking a bit second share to the carbon discussion nitrogen should absolutely be on people's radar not just from the perspective of the economics of your ration, but from the environmental impact that it's having when it ends up in manure. There's different ways to manage that, but I would say get ahead of it as much as you can by really looking at the composition of the protein that you're putting into that diet. It's a bigger challenge, in my opinion, to manage nitrogen than it ever will be to manage methane. There won't be a silver bullet, there won't be a feed additive. That's just not the reality. Like Frank said, it's actually far more complicated to manage the nitrogen that's coming out in manure. But there are ways to simply reduce what even ends up in that manure. So I would encourage the listeners to think about that and look at the composition of that protein, keeping good records and seeing what kind of marginal changes you can make. That could also benefit you, of course, then on the economic side, and also from an animal production and health side, which is something we didn't get into, but is also very much a part of the protein discussion.
Scott Sorrell (00:57:52):
Hmm. Thank you. Dr. Mitloehner, Final words?
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:57:58):
Yeah, I think that first of all, it's really important that producers understand that these topics are not just, you know, secondary to them. I mean, obviously they, they think about their finances and they think about animal health and so forth. But these environmental issues are intertwined with animal health. They're inter intertwined with with the profitability of the operation. Because as, as Kelly said, you know, protein is obviously the most expensive ingredient in your ration. And not to over feed it makes a lot of sense, not just financially, but also of course ecologically. I think it's very important to understand that these issues can be problems if we neglect them, if we neglect them, if we manage them, then we can turn something that was a problem into an asset. We can become part of a solution in and around climate, but also in and around nitrogen losses and so forth.
Dr. Frank Mitloehner (00:59:06):
And not just can we become part of a solution, we have to find better ways of communicating that because we are great in agriculture communicating internally, you and I and the li most of the listeners of, of this show here. But we are not good at communicating with the rest of the world. And that's where we have to change. And that's not just Frank Midland and Migrated Student Con and others, but it is also our colleagues, professors. It is also all these people on this podcast. You are all experts in a given field. You are a nutritionist, you are veterinarians, you are farmers, you are viewed as experts, and you are. And when people ask you questions around dairying, around beef and other things, then don't shy away answering them. You might not be the world's best expert on it, but you are much more of an expert than most people who will ever ask you questions. Do not ever say no comment, but, you know, try your best the be out there and answer questions because if you don't answer them, mark my words, somebody else will. And whether these other people have the best of this industry in mind has yet to be seen.
Scott Sorrell (01:00:24):
Yeah, very well said. Very well said. This is an important discussion and important topic. Wanna thank you guys for your time, your dedication, your expertise for the love of this industry. Really appreciate you guys joining us tonight. And to our loyal listeners, thank you for joining us as well. I hope you learned something. I hope you had some fun, and I hope to see you next time here at the Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
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