Animal Health as a Climate and Food Security Solution

In this episode of the Ash Cloud podcast, we explore an often-overlooked opportunity in the fight against climate change with Dr. Nick Wheelhouse, Professor of Comparative Infectious Disease at Edinburgh Napier University and co-lead of the Global Research Alliance Animal Health and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intensity Network.

Dr. Wheelhouse brings unique expertise spanning both veterinary research and animal science. After completing his BSc in Agricultural Biochemistry and Nutrition at Newcastle University and PhD in Animal Science at the University of Aberdeen, he worked as a Senior Postdoctoral Scientist at the Moredun Research Institute before joining Edinburgh Napier University. His research focuses on bacterial pathogens affecting reproduction—particularly Chlamydia, Brucella, Coxiella burnetii, and Listeria—in both humans and livestock, with extensive work on disease surveillance across Africa.

The central thesis challenges conventional thinking: while sick animals are universally recognized as unproductive, the climate implications remain surprisingly underexplored. Wheelhouse reveals that approximately 20% of global animal production is lost due to health issues, with higher burdens in the Global South. This represents not just wasted resources and food insecurity, but significant greenhouse gas emissions as animals continue producing emissions while failing to produce food.

The conversation explores specific case studies, including ongoing work with Kenyan dairy farmers where 53% of animals show subclinical mastitis. For farmers earning approximately $70 per cow per year, the $10 treatment cost represents a substantial investment. Yet through basic hygiene and management interventions rather than expensive pharmaceutical solutions, the project aims to demonstrate tangible productivity improvements that make economic sense while delivering environmental co-benefits.

Throughout the discussion, Wheelhouse unpacks the complexity of animal health as a climate solution. The counterintuitive reality is that healthier, more productive animals do produce more emissions, but they generate far more food per unit of emission. The goal is to close the productivity gap caused by disease, thereby reducing the emissions intensity of animal-source foods rather than absolute emissions. In Tanzania, research on abortion in livestock suggested potential emissions reductions of 8% in cattle and 16% in small ruminants, while hundreds of thousands could benefit from the additional food that would otherwise be lost.

Wheelhouse is candid about the challenges: the complexity of measuring disease impacts, lack of robust data collection systems in many regions, and difficulty quantifying climate benefits from health interventions. These have kept animal health as a "slow burner" in climate discussions. However, he notes an encouraging shift following FAO reports that elevated the topic among international partners and potential investors.

The discussion touches on broader implications, including research from Tanzania showing that increased livestock disease correlated with decreased school attendance for girls—demonstrating how animal health impacts cascade through communities beyond immediate productivity losses.

Looking forward, Wheelhouse emphasizes disease prioritization must account for local contexts, since farming systems and solutions vary dramatically across regions. He advocates for starting with achievable interventions that farmers can see working among their peers, rather than waiting for perfect technological solutions. The key is empowering farmers with tools delivering tangible results worthy of their effort and investment.

Ultimately, this conversation makes a compelling case for why animal health

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The cost living is an increasing global challenge. Food inflation in 2023 was 13.6%, however food prices increased by up to 30% in many low income countries. Currently 60-80% of voters consider food price as a decisive factor in their choice of candidate and across 60% of countries food costs represent more than 25% of the CPI basket.

Right now, 670 million people—8.2% of our global population—are going hungry. By 2030, projections show that 300 million people in Africa alone could face food insecurity. But here's the paradox: we have the technology, the knowledge, and the resources to address this crisis. So what's holding us back?

Food insecurity is never just about hunger. Throughout history, the impacts of food crises have freuquently included geopolitical instability, increased migration and conflcit.

Today we are joined by Maximo Torero, Chief Economist at FAO, where he is working to build resilient, inclusive, and sustainable agrifood systems. Previously Maximo served as served as Executive Director at the World Bank Group.

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

The initial seed in his journey to sustainability was planted by Meat & Livestock Australia announcing in 2015 that the industry needs to work towards carbon neutrality by 2030. This led to collecting 1400 soil tests each year across 16,000 acres. This led to healthier and more productive pastures, lower and better use of inputs, improved water holding capacity of the soils and improved weaning rates. Other improvements include adding water points so no animal needs to ever walk more than 800m for a drink. Staff and livestock happiness is also a key goal across Robert's farms.

Reproductive performance is critical with Mackas having achieve 98% fertility year on year. Cows that are not producing a calf but still producing methane emissions are finished and sold. Robert's female herd is the backbone of his operation.

Robert puts his success down to all the 1%ers that make a business successful. For Mackas this includes carbon sequestration, implementation of alternative energy and better diesel use across equipment, investing genetics with a huge focus on feed use efficiency, addition of many water points, improved ground cover, addressing trace element deficiencies and the inclusion of methane mitigating feed additives.

You can listen to our conversation here:

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AgriFoodTech Venture Capital investment is down by roughly 90% from the high of 2021 with the lack of exits or creation of profitiable agtech companies resulting from the billions invested frequently taking the blame for investors looking for alternative places for put their money. But there are success stories.

Today we are joined by Mike Seely, the CEO of Native Microbials. Over the last 10 years Mike and his team has built a profitable animal biotech company. I recently caught up with Mike to hear about this journey and how Native created a product farmers wanted, were willing to pay for, and they built the manufacturing process to cost effectively produce the product at market scale.

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There is a huge amount we can learn from Brazil’s transition from being a net food importer to one of the world’s largest food exporters over the last 50 years. Since deforestation across the Amazon peaked in the mid 1990’s Brazil has continued to invest in both driving productivity increases alongside increasing efforts to preserve wilderness areas and restore degraded lands. To help address climate change the government has doubled investment including doubling investment in low carbon agriculture from $1Billion to $2 Billion through their ABC plan. This program includes making low interest credit available for Brazilian farmers to adopt low carbon practices.

Over the last 10 years productivity of beef cattle in Brazil increased by 2.5% per year and dairy production by almost 4% per year. At the same time the ABC plus plan for beef cattle aims to reduce methane emissions and methane intensity. A huge component of this recovering 40 million hectares of degraded pasture land.

Today, around 80% of the Amazon is protected by law to combat deforestation.

The impact of the Brazilian Government’s investment in education through Embrapa’s long running programs of sponsor Brazilian PhD students across world leading universities cannot be understated.

Today we are joined by Bruno Brasil, the director of Sustainable Production and Irrigation at the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock where he coordinates the Sectoral Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change and Low Carbon Emissions in Agriculture.

Brazilian farming is highly diverse, over 85% are family farmers, with over 80% of these below 50ha. At the other end of the scale, the largest 1% of all properties in Brazil are responsible for 49% of food production in value terms.

As Brazil prepares to host world leaders at COP30 later this year I welcome Bruno to discuss the successes and challneges facing Brazilain agriculture.

You can listen to our conversation here:

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

• no till
• cover crops
• improved biodiversity
• incorporation of grazing animals in cropping systems

Building the resilience to the farms and ranches of Michigan and further across the United State is a key focus of his work.

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

Today we are joined by Travis Bayer who recently founded Decibel Bio to develop spray on epigenetic instructions that enable a new level of control over crop traits.

Travis and Decibel are leading the development of highly targeted epigenetic innovations for crops while other startups are looking at epigenetic reprograming to develop human therapeutics.

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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 be able to afford this luxury.

The answer is it’s complex.

Today we are joined by Paul Behrens from Oxford University where he is working on systems to reduce the environmental harm and increase the resilience of our food systems. The three things we can change are what we eat, the amount of food wasted, and how we produce our food. Paul sees all three as being necessary for the future health of ourselves and the environment.

You can listen to our conversation here.

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