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PODCAST

ASH CLOUD

This is series of conversations discussing global food sustainability with guests who bring a deep understanding of the environmental and cultural challenges facing our society and creative ideas on how to address them.

science earth sciences

All Episodes

55:30

Creating a carbon neutral beef operation with Robert...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/10/22

"Sustainability means leaving the land in a better place, preparing the next generation for a turbulent future in agriculture... and it's probably also a license to produce." Robert MacKenzie and his farms on the mid north coast of NSW was the first Australian beef operation to become net zero through pasture carbon sequestration. Roberts journey began with a dedication to understand the numbers around all metrics on the farm and then adjusting his management to improve these metrics. The ini...

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50:49

Building a profitable animal biotech company with...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/08/29

AgriFoodTech Venture Capital investment is down by roughly 90% from the high of 2021 with the lack of exits or creation of profitiable agtech companies resulting from the billions invested frequently taking the blame for investors looking for alternative places for put their money. But there are success stories. Today we are joined by Mike Seely, the CEO of Native Microbials. Over the last 10 years Mike and his team has built a profitable animal biotech company. I recently caught up wit...

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58:53

Brazil's transition from a net food importer to one...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/08/23

There is a huge amount we can learn from Brazil’s transition from being a net food importer to one of the world’s largest food exporters over the last 50 years. Since deforestation across the Amazon peaked in the mid 1990’s Brazil has continued to invest in both driving productivity increases alongside increasing efforts to preserve wilderness areas and restore degraded lands. To help address climate change the government has doubled investment including doubling investment in low carbon agri...

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53:09

Regenerative agriculture with Jason Rowntree,...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/07/12

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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41:43

Epigenetics with Travis Bayer, Decibel Bio

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/05/08

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...

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65:08

Is meat a luxury that is becoming increasingly...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/04/11

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 ...

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56:37

Building sustainable supply chains with Lamar Steiger...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/04/08

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...

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63:06

The link between obesity and poverty, rising obesity,...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/03/26

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...

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40:46

Sustainable Livestock Transformation Initiative with...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/03/17

Today we are joined Aimable Uwizeye, Livestock Policy Officer for the Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations where he is part of the team that implements the Sustainable Livestock Transformation initiative within the Animal Production and Health Division. 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 tack...

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68:42

Capitalizing on opportunity with Jason Strong, former...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/03/07

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...

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53:37

Breeding for sustainable livestock, how genetic...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/02/25

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...

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45:55

Challenging meat politics and promoting regenerative...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/01/28

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...

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62:30

Incentivizing the least productive farmers to change...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/01/24

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...

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55:38

Irrigation is colonising fresh water with Bruce...

ASH CLOUD ·

2025/01/13

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 ...

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62:02

Wolves reduce vehicle deer collisions with Nick...

ASH CLOUD ·

2024/12/17

The reintroduction of wolves into Wisconsin and other US Staes has led to a 25% decrease in deer vehicle collisions. The majority of this is due to how wolves change deer behaviour so there are fewer in the vicinity of roads. Environmental and agricultural policies have both intended and unintended consequences with the impacts of the secondary or tertiary effects frequently being greater than the primary. Markets, incentives, and governments policy all moderate these impacts. ...

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65:53

The politics and science of addressing the 2050...

ASH CLOUD ·

2024/12/16

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...

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58:07

Artificial intelligence is neither artificial nor...

ASH CLOUD ·

2024/11/05

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

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61:57

Biosecurity with Andy Sheppard CSIRO

ASH CLOUD ·

2024/10/28

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...

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49:52

Climate change and national security with Sherri...

ASH CLOUD ·

2024/10/17

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...

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48:56

Climate related violence, a messy marriage of climate...

ASH CLOUD ·

2024/09/24

The intersection between climate change and armed conflict is complex. For those who have not witnessed the difference between the devestation 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 ...

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67 results

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