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.

Send us a text

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:

Send us a text

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.

Send us a text

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.

Send us a text

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.

Send us a text

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 who was interested in rising to the challenge of creating a premium supply chain for Walmart that provided consistent product, reliably at consistent price which give the customer a great beef eating experience across 4600 stores. Prime Pursuits now supplies about 600 Walmart stores across the SE USA.

You can listen to our conversation here.

Send us a text

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.

Today we are joined by Jack Bobo, Director of the Rothman Family institute for food studies at UCLA where he is diving deep into how GLP-1s are reshaping the food system, consumer behavior, and human health.

Obesity rates are skyrocketing globally. In the US 42% of the population is obese and three quarters are overweigh. Australia is hot on the heels of America and much of the world is moving in the same direction. The cost of the is also growing. In the US obesity and metabilic disease are costing about $1 trillion a year and that figure globally it between $10-12 trillion.

Yet it’s complicated, soda consumption and sugar consumption in the US are at 30 year lows, all while obesity is at an all time high. Sugar taxes have let to high income people losing weight and lower income no losing weight. Which follows a general trend that with almost every intervention, healthy people get healthier and unhealthy people don’t.

Jack is also the author of "Why Smart People Make Bad Food Choices"

Send us a text

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 tackling climate change, reducing methane emissions, enhancing biodiversity, and reducing nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Join me in this journey to create a more sustainable and resilient future for our planet.

Send us a text