ASH CLOUD

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ASH CLOUD

Ash Sweeting

64 episodes

1 month ago

Today we are joined by Jason Rowntree from Michigan State University where he is working on systems increase the resilience and to reduce the environmental harm of our food systems. Finding the driver across rural America that encourage farmers and ranchers to adopt management practices that improve soils, and protect local environments and the climate are a key priority of his work. Jason has built and runs the centre for regenerative agriculture at Michigan State University where he is incr...

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Society & Culture,

Entrepreneurship,

All content for ASH CLOUD is the property of Ash Sweeting and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Today we are joined by Jason Rowntree from Michigan State University where he is working on systems increase the resilience and to reduce the environmental harm of our food systems. Finding the driver across rural America that encourage farmers and ranchers to adopt management practices that improve soils, and protect local environments and the climate are a key priority of his work. Jason has built and runs the centre for regenerative agriculture at Michigan State University where he is incr...

Show more...

Society & Culture,

Entrepreneurship,

Episodes (20/64)

ASH CLOUD

Epigenetics with Travis Bayer, Decibel Bio

The epigenome is essentially the control software for plants and animals that dictates when, where, and to what level different genes in the genome are expressed. Moderating the epigenome has the potential to upgrade crops in real time, during the season, to adjust photosynthesis and warn crops of upcoming droughts, diseases, or other threats. While traditional plant breeding and genetics requires trait selections to be made prior to planting and establishing the crops, epigentics enables the...

2 weeks ago

41 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Is meat a luxury that is becoming increasingly difficult to afford with Paul Behrens, Oxford University

Over human history animal protein has always been a luxury food. Meat is the first thing people generally chose to buy when they rise from lower to middle income. With the current cost of living crises across the world, further food price inflation predicted due to climate change, geopolitical instability, and biodiversity loss, increasing impacts on productivity due to climate change, as well as the growing impact of dietary related disease, the big question is how much longer will we ...

1 month ago

1 hour 5 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Building sustainable supply chains with Lamar Steiger and Neil Mellers, Ranch2Retail

Beef supply chains have been described as the most dysfunctional and least organised supply chains of everything available in the supermarket. Today we are joined by Lamar Steiger and Neil Mellers from Ranch2Retail who are building connected beef supply chains to improve economic performance of the whole chain and environmental outcomes. Data across all participants is a key component of creating and sharing the extra value. It took over 100 conversations before Lamar found a rancher wh...

1 month ago

56 minutes

ASH CLOUD

The link between obesity and poverty, rising obesity, and how GLP-1s are changing the game with Jack Bobo UCLA

In this episode I am exploring the rapidly growing rates of obesity globally, the rapid rise in the use of GLP-1s or obesity drugs, how these are impacting our food systems, and how obesity and poverty seem to be linked. In the US around 10% of all Americans are either using GLP-1s or have tried GLP-1s, with early data showing a 5-10% decrease in food spending and a significant change in the foods people are purchasing. Yet, it's only the wealthiest that can afford these drugs. To...

1 month ago

1 hour 3 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Sustainable Livestock Transformation Initiative with Aimable Uwizeye UNFAO

Today we are joined Aimable Uwizeye, Livestock Policy Officer for the Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations where he leads the Sustainable Livestock Transformation initiative. Increasingly the impartance of animal health is being identified as a key aspect of improving sustainbility and reducing emissions. Aimable's mission is to promote global change towards a sustainable livestock sector by tackling climate change, reducing methane emissions, enhancing biodiversity, and re...

2 months ago

40 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Capitalizing on opportunity with Jason Strong, former Managing Director Meat and Livestock Australia

The Australian livestock industries now produce high quality product, that is full tracebale, quality assured, with real time market information coming from a sophisticate supply chain that sells into high quality markets with preferential access including 16 FTAs. This has transitioned from an absolute commodity industry with only one free trade agreement, no traceability, national ID system, limited market information and a disconnected supply chain just 30 odd years ago. Today we are...

2 months ago

1 hour 8 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Breeding for sustainable livestock, how genetic selection can provide significant and permanent reductions to livestock emissions with Matthew Cleveland

Humans have been selectively breeding animals since before Roman times. Modern technologies and tools including genomics and artifical intelligence has hugely increased the rate of progress. Increasingly, sustainability traits such as the enviromneatl footprint of production are being included in breeding programs in addition to productivity, efficiency, and profitability traits. Today we are joined Matthew Clevlend, a geneticist who leads sustainability at ABS Global across thei...

2 months ago

53 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Challenging meat politics and promoting regenerative agriculture with Sparsha Saha, Harvard University

Political scientist Sparsha Saha from Harvard University joins us to challenge the status quo in meat politics. How can a sector so vital be so overlooked? Sparsha shares groundbreaking insights, exposing the unusual political dynamics surrounding animal welfare and the unexpected urban-rural divide on climate policies related to meat consumption. We grapple with the low prioritization of food and water in political discourse and the urgent need for heightened awareness in tackling ecological...

3 months ago

45 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Incentivizing the least productive farmers to change with Jason Clay, World Wildlife Fund

The least productive 10-20% of producers are causing 60-80% of the environmental impacts but only produce 5% of the food. Incentivizing these farmers and ranchers to change can significantly improve the sustainability of our food systems with minimum impact on global food production. Today I am joined by Jason Clay from WWF who focuses on working with the private sector to improve supply chain management especially addressing habitat, biodiversity, soil health, irrigation, effluent, and...

4 months ago

1 hour 2 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Irrigation is colonising fresh water with Bruce Lankford, University of East Anglia

The 350 million hectares of global irrigation consume 3-4 Mississippi’s worth of fresh water every day. This volume of fresh water used for Irrigation is continuing to increase, especially across the global south, exacerbating the challenge of how we produce more food with less water. Today we are joined by Bruce Lankford, who has been working on Water and Irrigation Policy across the developed and developing worlds for over 30 years. In a recent blog post Bruce wrote about how Irrigation is ...

4 months ago

55 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Wolves reduce vehicle deer collisions with Nick Parker Hoover Institution

Economics, markets, and policy all have significant impacts on human behavior and decision making. Nick Parker is an environmental economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Hoover Institution who has been studying the human interaction with wolves, and especially the indirect effects wolves have on environments they live, to examine if it was possible for wolves to actually benefit humans and reduce threats to human lives and property. He found that the reintroduction...

5 months ago

1 hour 2 minutes

ASH CLOUD

The politics and science of addressing the 2050 global demand for protein with Alison Van Eenennaam UC Davis

Low- and middle-income countries house 76% of the global cattle herd, and by 2050 will be home to 8 billion people. They are the projected epicenter of both increased animal source food demand, and livestock-related emissions. The most promising approach to address this demand while limiting greenhouse gas emissions is to improve the efficiency of livestock production systems in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia through interventions in genetics, feeding and health. Boosting livestock product...

5 months ago

1 hour 5 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Artificial intelligence is neither artificial nor intelligent? with Aidan Connolly

Our food systems are orders of magnitude more complex than other sectors of our economy so how can tools such as Artificial intelligence help farmers across the world make better decisions to improve the sustainability and productivity of our food systems.Today we are joined by Aidan Connolly a animal agtech entrepreneur, investor, and author of The Future of Agriculture who has spend his career working on agricultural innovation. Send us a text

6 months ago

58 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Biosecurity with Andy Sheppard CSIRO

Today Ash Cloud is partnering with CSIRO to bring you Andy Sheppard, the Chief Research Scientist Biosecurity at CSIRO where he leads efforts to protect Australia, it’s neighbours, and trading partners from plant, animal and human pests and disease threats. Building local and global partnerships to understand the biology of the threats across their native and invaded range so intervention opportnities can be implemented is a key part of his work. Andy is also the Co-Executive Director o...

6 months ago

1 hour 1 minute

ASH CLOUD

Climate change and national security with Sherri Goodman - International Military Council on Climate & Security

The US military has recognized climate change as a national security threat for decades our guest today, Sherri Goodman, has been credited with educating a generation of US military officers and government officials about the complex interactions between climate change and national security. She is Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate & Security and the author of Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security. I...

7 months ago

49 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Climate related violence, a messy marriage of climate stress and poor governance with Peter Schwartzstein Environmental Journalist

The intersection between climate change and armed conflict is complex. For those who have not witnessed the difference between the devastation and social upheaval that results from war compared with any other form of social upheaval it is almost impossible to explain. This is why I see great importance in further understanding these intersections. Climate related violence is a messy marriage of climate stress and poor governance.ISIS profited from collapsing agricultural positions to bolster ...

8 months ago

48 minutes

ASH CLOUD

How the livestock methane conversation has evolved with Frank Mitloehner UC Davis

Depending on who you speak with cattle can be vital to the sustainability of our food systems and our ability to provide health nutrition to humanity or they can be one of the largest sources of climate pollution. The culprit in this debate is methane, especially enteric methane emissions that is derived from the foregut of all ruminants including cattle. Frank Mitloehner is the Director of the UC Davis Clear Center that researches the intersection of animal agriculture and the environment an...

8 months ago

42 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Regenerative ranching with Rich Bradbury

Regenerative ranching has recently gained traction across the main stream media but the idea of using livestock to mimic nature and managing a landscape holistically was largely led by Allan Savory from the 1980s. Rich Bradbury' parents attended the Savory Institute in the 1980's which was when he was first exposed to the holistic approach that Allan Savory brings to ranching. I recently caught up with Rich to hear how this has impacted his thinking and the way he manages his...

8 months ago

54 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Nitrogen 2.0 with Eric Davidson University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Spark Climate Solutions, and Charles Brooke from Spark Climate Solutions

Nitrogen is absolutely essential for all forms of life, plants, animals and microbes. Nitrogen is the basis for making amino acids, and amino acids are the basis for making proteins, enzymes. The historic nitrogen system was balanced and based on microbial activity transforming atmospheric nitrogen into soluble forms usable by plants and microbes. Eric Davidson's has been working to transform our food systems through better understanding terrestrial nutrient cycling, cycling, greenhouse gas e...

8 months ago

1 hour 5 minutes

ASH CLOUD

Tripling the impact of methane reducing feed additives with decentralized AI with Yaniv Altshuler MIT and Metha AI

The efficacy of methane reducing feed additives constantly varies between cows and herds because the rumen microbiome is constantly changing. Certain feed additives that worked really well at that one given her may stop working, or the other way around. Feed additives that were not working can become effective. Using AI based on the genome sequences within the microbiome so that the right additive is used at the right time can triple the impact of feed additives. Yaniv Altshuler has been work...

9 months ago

42 minutes