E18: Sustainability and the Global Beef System with Justin Sherrard

(upbeat music) Welcome to the Future Beef Show. Produced in partnership with Drowvers and Breeder. This is the number one podcast for progressive ranchers and feeders, looking to run smarter, more profitable next generation operations. I'm your host, Jim Johnson, from the Brands and Barbarale podcast. I'm joined today by Dr. Jessica Spurber, PhD in feeds on nutrition and Ian Wheel, founder of Breeder. Cataltech company, helping producers raise, track, and trade, after forming cattle. As global pressure builds to reduce emissions, protect biodiversity and feed a growing population, the beef industry finds itself at a crossroads. In this episode, we sit down with global strategist and sustainability advisor Justin Sherard. To unpack the facts, the fictions, and the future. We explore what sustainability really means for cattle producers, why it's more than just a buzzword, and how beef can become a credible part of climate and food solutions. Our guest, Justin Sherard, is one of the most trusted voices on this topic, Robewon, a former global strategist for animal protein at Robobank, and now president of the global round table for sustainable beef. Justin advises governments, companies, and producers on the future of protein systems, and deep insight into trade, finance, and environmental strategy. He brings a rare global view to the challenges and opportunities facing the beef industry. And what it must do to stay relevant, resilient, and respected. This episode is sponsored by Corktava Aggressions. When we it's in brushkin' in the way, you'll find the solution at rangeandpasture.com. So Justin, welcome to the future beef show. Thanks Jim. Great to be here. Great to be here with you, Jess and Ian. Thanks for having me. Yeah, great. So you're the first sort of Aussie guest we've ever had and welcome to the US, welcome to the future beef show. And so tell us a little bit about yourself for the viewers and listeners that might not know who you are. Sure, well, I'm always delighted to bring some novelty value to a show like this. Look, I'm maybe different to some of the other guests you have. I've grown up in a city, Sydney and Australia in my case. But I always yearned to get away from it. And after graduating, my first job was working with farmers in a rural part of Australia, which I loved. But I also wanted to see the world and I moved around a little bit. I worked around sustainability as a driver of growth and opportunity for business. I worked across natural resources, forestry, mining, energy as well as ag. And I spent some years doing that and moving around doing that. And maybe it's interesting to sort of touch on a couple of things that I did that together really drove me, I don't know, 20, 30 years ago we're talking now, sort of drove me to focus more on ag. I had an opportunity, I turned up in Bolivia and started working with a development aid agency, which was running some agricultural production and drinking water supply projects in central part of Bolivia. And I saw first hand the need to boost productivity in these small scale operations. Sometime after that, I joined an international task force on climate change, which had been set up by then British Prime Minister Tony Blair. And he was president of the G7 and chair of the European Council at that time. And he was focusing on climate change. And I actually came here to the US and learned a heap about biofuels and the potential of agriculture to really contribute to the solution on climate change. And then after that, I was in Australia for a time and I worked on a project which we called roughly how Australian farmers are doing all the heavy lifting on climate change and not getting rewarded for it. And I think I learned a couple of things out of that as well as drawing me into ag is what I really wanted to focus on. I learned about the huge potential that we have to boost productivity just to copy best practice in one place or even good practice in one place and take it somewhere else. I learned that supply chains in ag kind of work, but gosh, there's scope for some improvement there. And I also learned, and maybe there's some irony being on this show today, I learned that ag is a really poor communicator outside of ag. Inside, that's a different matter. Outside of ag, well, let's just say, I think there's still room for improvement. And I'm talking 20 years ago, I still think there's room for improvement in how we engage with audiences outside of ag. So there's some things that I learned. I decided to focus on ag. Few years after that, I joined Rubbo Bank. It's a global bank focused on food and agri. I took on a part time role in Australia, then a full time role in Australia. I moved over to the Netherlands, which is the bank's head office. And I became the global strategist for animal protein. I spent a decade helping Rubbo Bank clients identify and pursue growth opportunities created by market dynamics. I helped inform Rubbo Bank strategy or in banking terms, it's risk appetite around animal protein. Animal protein, all the species, right beef, pork, poultry, seafood as well. And I also drove a research agenda there with a great team, looking across all of the species, all of the major production regions and trying to pick out areas of particular opportunity for animal protein companies, all along, all along the supply chain. And that was a wonderful time, but it came to an end at the end of last year. I decided it was time for me to move back to Australia. And I moved on from Rubbo Bank in that process. And anyway, a few months later, here I am. I'm happy to spend a little bit of time with you talking about beef today. Yeah, it's fascinating. So you also sit on the global round table for a sustainable beef? I do, I'm the president of the global round table for sustainable beef. I'm a year and a half into that role. And I've been on the executive committee of that group for a couple of years before that since about 2020. And before that, I sat on the board. I think it's a fantastic organization doing important work, not always well understood, but I'm doing important work all the same. Very good. So I think you set a few words just in sustainability. And that can be a buzz word has been for the last 10 years. I think it's critical before the podcast, we were chatting a little bit to go into the importance of why we need cows on this planet, right? And the reason why we have beef production, starting from cattle as an upcycler, obviously, of grasslands. Well, I mean, you start off by saying, it can be a buzz word. I actually don't feel it's a buzz word at the moment. And it worries me a little bit, because I think we're kind of at risk of stepping back into a defensive area here on this topic, which isn't going to help us. My view is that we are not going to create a sustainable food system. We are not going to sustainably feed the world's population without cattle. Cattle are part of the solution to what we need to do in the food system on this planet. And too often, we're positioned as the problem. I think that's really the starting point for any conversation about sustainability. And we're talking here about beef in particular, but cattle also have a role in the dairy industry as well. So I take them together. Cattle essential to our ability to sustainably feed ourselves on this planet. From a GRSB perspective, how does that link in with what you're doing? And then when we think about the beef industry moving forward, what are some of those opportunities? I mean, you talk about how it's been negatively connotated. And there's no doubt in the industry. And look at every idea with usually you're trying to defend one of the arguments, but we're not even telling the positives it goes with it. What do you see as those opportunities for the beef industry to really show what we can do and be part of the solution, as you say, when it comes to sustainable food systems? Well, I always start with the central pillar, which is human nutrition. I mean, that's why we're here. We're here to provide nutrition for the world's population. So let me throw a few numbers at you in to frame where we are with nutrition in the world today. We still have somewhere around 700, 750 million people in the world who don't get enough to eat at the moment. We have another 2 billion people who don't get enough of the right things to eat, don't get enough of the micronutrients that they need to live a healthy life and to fulfill their potential as human beings. So in somewhat technical terms, we talk about micronutrient deficiencies. But my starting point would be that nutritional piece. And from a GRSB point of view, we're just putting the finishing touches to a piece on beef and nutrition and what role it actually plays. We want to be out there advocating around that, a field now, a particularly important time to be doing that. But we've always got to start with our central role is to feed people. And we're providing high bioavailability of beef is providing high bioavailability of nutrients, critical nutrients that are needed to sustain human health and allow people to live their full potential. Let's back up for just a second. Sure. Some of our listeners might not know what the global round table for sustainable beef is. So once you tell us a little bit about it and there's also a US round table I'm assuming and and various ones throughout throughout the world. So tell us maybe back up a little bit and just tell what that that that organization is and does. Okay, sure. So the global round table for sustainable beef has the has the role to drive, to lead and to enable and to advocate for sustainable beef. That is really about the role of beef in sustaining the world's population and producing beef within planetary boundaries. It is a multi-stakeholder group. Now what I mean is that we have we have representation, structured representation from all along the chain here. We have producers so let's start there. That's a familiar space for us. We have the companies that are providing services, that are providing goods, that are providing inputs to producers. We have the beef packers, the beef processes and the further processing industry as well. We have the retailers, we have NGOs and we have all of those interests all along the supply chain coming together to define what is sustainable beef, which we've done through a set of six principles in criteria and to set the direction and to set the pace of change in terms of meeting that. So that's a starting point. That's what GRSB is. I mean, I can there's plenty of detail of course behind that but that's kind of the simplest version of what GRSB is. And their focus is beef. It's not an organization that is against beef in any way. I think that's what we want to make sure that our listeners understand that it is a it is a proponent of beef cattle and beef cattle production. Everyone involved in the global round table is involved because they believe that beef has an important role in the future feeding the planet and sustaining the planet itself. Everyone sees that potential as air. That's why people join. Are we critical of beef? Yes, I'm not wanting to back away that but not in general. You know, just we're critical because we're ambitious that we want beef to be better. We believe it can be better. It should be better. And so it's being self-critical because we're only people involved in beef who are a part of the global round table. Are we advocating for sustainable beef? Yes. Absolutely. Are we outwardly critical of the beef industry? No. No. Are we inwardly? You know, a little bit. But the world is a beautiful place and it's a varied place. And some of the criticism that we have internally needs to be about, okay, you take the US. I mean, this is probably the world's most efficient beef production system right here in this country. But this is not and you could call that a standard, but this is not the way that beef is produced everywhere. The US is actually quite, in my opinion, a lot of potential to sort of help others in other countries to learn about, you know, really boosting efficiency here, really boosting productivity of beef production. And I think that's the sort of thing where I say, where I'm happy to say yes, we can be critical sometimes. We're being critical of each other all within the confines of a group that's committed to securing a role for beef in the future, future food system. So can we talk about, you mentioned, being better, right? Like we believe that beef can be better. And obviously not the flavour of beef, right? We don't have a flavour problem in the US. Other countries may be yes, but, you know, North America really not as big of a challenge. So what does it look like for beef to be better? You mentioned efficiency, right? So we could talk about that from a feed efficiency standpoint and start there. What does it look like to be better? I think a feed efficiency point of view is a good one. And then I'd also add animal health into that as well, healthier animals as well. We know the best in the beef industry watch this show. So we want to hear from you. We'll pick one listener to win this exclusive future of beef Yeti Kooler. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram, send us your guest ideas, or just drop us a message. We'd love to hear your thoughts. You also have very low mortality rates here in general in this country, but they can probably be better and they probably should be better. But in other countries, you've got more room for improvement in that area as well. I think there's also scope to be better in terms of the management of the landscape. I think we've seen in the last five years here a sort of a new conversation around soil, soil health. We use terms like regenerative agriculture, but for me it's about thinking about soil health and the role of healthy soils in sustaining all sorts of agricultural undertakings as well. And also about providing for nature and biodiversity at the same time. For me these are all elements of, and maybe one last point I'd say there about being better is about animal care. Just making sure that all animals are well looked. It's not just about being healthy, it's about being well looked after as well. So I think in all of these areas, we've probably got some scope to be better. I'm not wanting to sound critical of what's happening in any place. I think that all ranchers that I've met, feeders that I've met, everyone cares about their animals and wants their animals to do well, to produce more, to hit the specs that they're after as soon as they possibly can. But we can all learn from each other and we should all learn from each other and get better at that along the way. In terms of how you collaborate, I think a lot of people here in the US would have heard of pretty more so the US round table. How do you think about that difference between the global round table and the US round table and what role each of them plays? Thank you for drawing me back to the question. Give me 15 minutes to go. Look, the global round table, if you like, sort of sits up here at this overarching level. And then we have national round tables here in the US, also in Canada, Mexico, through South America, Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil. Brazil was actually the first of the round tables at the national level. We have one in New Zealand, we have one in Australia, we have one in Europe, and there's an initiative in China as well, which is hopefully on its way to becoming another national level round table. So think of the global round table as about setting the direction, try to align progress across the different beef production regions, not aligning production systems. That's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to align on what the goals are and what we should be doing to talk about sustainable beef, because we're all doing great things here inside the industry. And one of the comments I learned, one of the comments I made earlier because it's something I learned 20 or 30 years ago, we aren't good at talking about what we're doing outside of this industry. And so we're trying to get better at that, and we're trying to align between the national levels, which is much more operationally focused. That's where you make things happen on the ground. GRSB doesn't have a particular role on the ground, but GRSB is about aligning those activities, and then importantly, that communications piece. Because, look, if GRSB, representing all those interests along beef supply chains, is an out there talking about how good beef can be and what an important role beef plays in the global food system, who do you think occupying that space in the conversation? I mean, it's not a friend. Yeah, and we had it in a previous podcast. If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. And that was a really interesting one. I think the thing that inspired me when I first ran into global roundtable is you think about all of these environmental meetings that happen around the world where they're setting global strategy like carp or even nutrition strategy in some of these countries. There was not a single producer or beef person at it. We were critical. And the first person I ever learned that went to that to actually, I wouldn't say defend beef, but really advocate for beef was the GRSB. And it was like, when you're a producer and you're in the industry and you're thinking about, you don't realize we need to have people at the table there and you don't really think about what happens if you don't have people at the table. Well, you know, a new nutrition strategy gets set and suddenly peace not on the menu. And, you know, I think that's what's really exciting. How do you see that as sort of that role of GRSB moving forward? What could we be doing more there? And where do you see that future as well within GRSB? Well, let me first go back to a comment you may just see in about, you know, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. I'd say if you're not at the table, you're being eaten. And I think that's really the issue here for beef. And you're quite right that beef has not been good at advocating for what we're doing and how we're contributing. And it's very easy for other people to be critical of what's happening, right? It's very easy from the outside to look at the land that's being occupied by grazing and that's an enormous amount of land around the world to look at the numbers of animals. And there are huge numbers of animals when you start looking into countries like India, for example, there are huge numbers of cattle that are there. And you look at the resource footprint that's associated with that and people talk about, well, if you're occupying all that land, then all the rain falling on that land is being used to produce beef. And, you know, so you get these unbelievable sort of numbers being thrown out about, you know, all these resources that the beef industry is using. As if those resources would be used for something else if beef wasn't there. And there's the first point that beef wasn't there, those resources wouldn't be used to produce food. Cattle are grazing on land more or less that can't be used for other forms of food production. Other types of grazing, sure, but not other type, not cropping, that's for sure. The cabin can be rough. The calves come whether you're all ready or not. In the rain, the snow, from a sweet mama cow, or a seam to be broder. Reader sky your back. Manage all your cabin records in breeder, free until fall. When your calves are getting more sleep than you are, don't waste time second guessing yourself. When you sign up before April 30th. But in going back to the point about advocating and representing beef at these industries, let me give you a few examples of what GRSB is doing just this year. Let's look forward a little bit. You mentioned the climate change, the international climate change meeting under the United Nations Framework Agreement on Climate Change. That'll be in Brazil in November this year. GRSB will be there. There will be some of the national level round tables there. But GRSB will be there for, I don't know, the fifth, sixth, seventh year in a row. The GRSB has been there talking about the contribution that beef can make and starting to build a data driven picture of what beef is actually doing and how we're starting to make improvements. I think that's an important point. We're not just talking, we're actually showing as well. We have recently been in Ethiopia at a meeting which is an update on the UN Food Systems Summit. This was a summit that was held, first held a couple of years ago. This is a stock take. A few years ago it was a very non-meat agenda that they had. I think GRSB has been quite successful in saying, hang on a second, this is an important part of human nutrition that needs to be considered here in a food system. We have launched a paper talking an initiative really with an animal health group called Health for Animals, which is about healthy herds for healthy herds and the sustainability contribution that healthy herds make to the planet. We are launching some work with Illry, the International Lifestyle Research Institute, looking at metrics which define nature and biodiversity. How do we define nature positive production? So GRSB is out there defining these things around these metrics and norms around sustainable beef from the point of view that if we're not defining them, somebody else is. So it's a good thing for beef to be defining. People concerned and knowledgeable about the beef industry to be defining these things so that when we set goals and targets, we do that from a position of understanding how the system works and what we can change. Well, you've seen some of the impact. I know when I started Breeder Part of it, it was a frustration if you read the UN Food Report and they're like, you should just, everyone should stop eating, not stop eating beef but seriously reduce beef. You look at the more recent one and I think a lot of this is due to the work of GRSB where it's like beef is an important part of that food system and can play a huge role in grazing lands and all of that sort of thing that goes with it. And I think in the last 10 years we've seen some of that shift away and like that wouldn't happen without having people at the table. Absolutely. Look, I think on nutrition in particular we've seen quite a lot of criticism over the last five, 10 years. Leveled not just at beef but about a lot of animal protein consumption as well and to start with I'm not someone who wants to tell anyone what to eat or drink but I do believe that we should educate people, we should inform them, we should give them choice and I hope they make good choices in what they eat. But beef is, you know, beef people should feel that beef is an important part of a healthy diet. The high bioavailability of micronutrients, essential nutrients that I'm not saying you can't get them in other places but the bioavailability out of beef and I don't want nutrition to sound like it's a chore. Nutrition should be a pleasure in our lives and we talk about the quality of beef here in the US. You know, food is there to be enjoyed. There's all sorts of cultural norms around consumption that are important as well. So we want nutritious food, we want to be able to enjoy nutritious food. They fit right into that. So it's interesting, it makes me think about sort of the old adage of keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Right? And so I think as we look at programs like GSRB and those types of programs that allow beef to be at the table with people that we may not agree with. Right? And that's the hard part. I think that sometimes we don't want to walk into a room where people might not like us or people might have reasons that aren't founded to have an opinion on beef. And I applaud people like you and and the global around table that is able to walk in those rooms and advocate for our industry. Which you might be just jumping inside the good news is that GSRB is doing it so you don't need to. Right. And that really is the role that GSRB is playing. And so that brings me to the next question is for producers that are watching or listening that are on a ranch someplace. How can they get involved? How can they participate or do we just sit back and let you guys handle it? You know, so that's sort of how do we get involved? And why is it important to you know the rancher and Wyoming that's got 200 cows. Tell us how it gets down to him. Well, let me be clear. Don't sit back and leave us to it. Right? I mean, we need to hear from everyone and we need to hear this industry is full of diverse voices and we want to hear all of them because it's only by hearing all of them that we can feel that we're making representation on behalf of the beef industry. But let me also be clear that the GSRB does not pretend to represent everyone. You know, we're advocating for sustainable beef. We've set some criteria that define that. Not everyone believes in that and that's fine. You know, that's what the beef industry is about. It's a broad church as we as we say. But I think if you, you know, if people watching the show here think, oh, that sounds relevant to me, then I think the thing to do is to become active in the the the US roundtable to start with. And if you have a broader perspective and a global perspective, then maybe think about joining the global roundtable for sustainable beef as well. But it's really about turning up, listening, informing yourself, sharing your opinion. And actually more important than that is sharing your good practice, sharing your good stories and showing what you're actually doing. That's what people at GSRB need to be able to effectively advocate on behalf of this industry. We need to know what's really going on. And knowing what's going on is, okay, that's nice. We need to be able to show it. To show it, you need data. What is data? Data is just simply collecting information against a certain number of metrics. So we need to define what those metrics are. We need to start collecting the data that show the progress which is being made. That's what creates a compelling story about what's happening in this industry. I'm sitting here. I feel I'm sounding like guys, you're not doing this. I know it's happening. But me knowing that it's happening, GerasB knowing that it's happening, that's not good enough outside of this industry. We've got to be able to show it as well. Showing it means collecting the data, being able to pull that together, report on that, and showing the people who don't know what's going on, and making, giving a compelling story to the people who don't know what's going on. And that's what we're doing. Ever wondered if you could be getting more out of your cattle? Breeder is the first technology company that's able to track and optimize cattle from conception all the way to the rail. This puts the power of data into the hands of the rancher and enables them to improve their profit line quicker than they have ever had before. My decision to partner with Breeder was made largely after seeing a demo where I realized what Breeder's doing is unlike anyone else in our industry. Connecting the data from the packing plant back to the feedlot, the stalker backgrounders, and the cow-cow even connecting that data to the purebred breeder will just open the door to improvement at a scale and a speed that we have never seen in this industry before. I believe Breeder's putting ranchers in the driver's seat. We can make breeding decisions based on large amounts of data very quickly. The calves that are produced, they have a higher cutout value, their ribbyes are more profitable than it plays back does. As I'm out around the country, people are asking me about Breeder and I always recommend Breeder. It's the tool for the future. At thebreeder.co and book a demo with the team today. So how important is it for us within the beef industry to collect that data and have involvement versus someone else outside the beef industry collecting that data? Well if you allow someone outside the industry to collect that data, I think you're opening yourself up to miss being misunderstood, potentially being misinterpreted and even worse than that. being misrepresented. Well, we've seen it, you know, the amount of some of the films that came out years ago with it like, this is how much water beef consumes and they're counting a drop of rain that falls on the mountains. Yeah. Montana has something that could have been used elsewhere. Yeah. And you're like, that's what happens when you let other people do it. As I said, I don't think we're great at communication outside of the industry. And that's exactly what happens. So, you know, I think it's better to, for that story to be, to be told by people who, who understand what's going on. And as I said, I'm not, I don't sit here suggesting that GRSB is a blind advocate. I mean, we are critical because we're ambitious and because we believe beef can and should be better. But we're not critical because we think that there's things that are radically wrong. We're critical because we think that improvement's important. And I say that because improvement's important to boost productivity. We get into a sort of conversation here about why is this relevant to producers. Number one, improve productivity. The things that you do to get animals to target way faster, to keep animals healthy, boost your productivity, reduce your cost for the same sort of output, which flows through to your profitability. Producers have been doing that for decades, if not hundreds of years. No one listening to this would be in the business that they're in today. If they were doing things the same way that they were 10, 20, 30 years ago. Improvement is part of this industry. We're just wanting to really push it by sharing good practice and those sorts of things. Productivity improvement is the number one reason to really engage on sustainability. Number two, I'd say, improve risk management. Now I've worked at a bank for a number of years and thinking about risk management kind of comes naturally. But let me just throw up an example. Things that maybe a lot of people wouldn't be aware of, but it's happening here in the US where in the state of California you see some Senate bills which are requiring the disclosure of climate change information by companies operating in the state of California. Companies above a certain size. The disclosure of that information about climate change or carbon footprint of those companies is about their whole operations, their whole supply chain, not just their own operations. So you start to see the finance system putting some fingers out. The SEC here in the US has also talked about doing this for listed companies. Now it's backed away from that for the time being. But that might be cyclical with where we are in politics at the moment that may come back. It's happening in places like Europe as well. It's already happening there. It's in place in Australia. Large companies. They need to report to show that they're managing climate risk within the scope of their operations. So being able to show that sort of thing is just about improving risk management. Why? Why do we want to do that? For two reasons. We want to maintain our access to markets. We want to maintain our access to finance. Yeah. I think it's an interesting point. It's like so often when we're sitting here. It's like, well, if we're putting a good product for the consumer it'll all be fine. But I think sometimes we forget that there's a whole lot of other influences that can happen on this industry. And I think that's where it's interesting from a GRSB. You're talking to the UN, you're talking to climate change, you're talking to banks. There is a lot of other people that can put rules in place that if we're not at those tables will impact the consumer's ability to be able to buy beef. I agree with everything you say, but you've missed one critical group there. And that is the marketing department at grocery stores and in food service companies. Because nobody defines what fits where in the meat case at a grocery store or what fits where on a menu in food service, then the marketing teams would believe this is what drives the foot traffic that comes to the store that makes the difference to the profitability. You sort of think, oh yeah, but they're food people, don't they understand it? Well, I hope they do. But again, I mean, is hope an effective strategy in any business? I don't think so. Sorry, I'm asking a question and answering. I also feel afraid of that, sorry if you disagree. But hope's not a great strategy, right? They're asking questions of consumers, what do you think's important, etc. And consumers are coming back and saying, oh, these are the things that are important. But generally, they're not asking questions with a blank piece of paper, right? They're already thinking, you know, the use of hormones, the use of antibiotics. To people think that's a good idea, to consumers think that's a good idea or not. They get some data back on that. No one thinks, you know, if you don't understand food production, everyone what likes, no, right? You know, gluten free, no hormones, no antibiotics, lactose free. These things sound good if you don't understand the role that these parts of what happens in the food system. Yeah, we always assume that the people marketing our beef product grew up in a ranch, understand our story, you know, aren't listening to the same news that people in Los Angeles and New York, whatever it is that is trying to do it. And I think, you know, it's a good point at the same time, you know, you never really think about it like that. If they're selling beef, they should understand it like we understand beef. But possibly that probably, probably, probably that I always find it fascinating that a lot of nutritional advice comes from doctors who are not nutritionists, right? And I think that's always interesting, not that there's anything wrong with doctors, but it's just, it's fascinating that they say, well, you should not eat this or you should eat this or whatever. And none of that, you know, they don't have a nutritional background to make those decisions. Well, that, I mean, let me pick up on that point for a second because, you know, this is another area where we need effective advocacy to make sure that we've got information from nutritionists that is informing the development of nutritional guidelines, dietary guidelines, governments around the world all publish dietary guidelines. You want to make sure that you've got people who understand beef and understand the role of beef, a nutritional role of, a nutritional value of beef, representing beef in those settings where dietary guidelines are fixed. If they're not doing it, well, who is? And then again, you're sounding a little bit like my strategy is hope, hoping that those people understand beef. And I'm not convinced that's a good strategy at all. I think that brings up a good point, right, especially for the US structure. For example, we have beef councils, we pay a check-off. And the value of that check-off is to number one, obviously market our product to other countries or even within areas within the US. But number two, those beef councils have human nutritionists on staff. That their goal is to educate the, you know, the very urban dietitians that maybe have never seen a beef animal or understand the value of a beef animal. They also go in and do beef and a healthy diet training for nurses and doctors at different medical centers across the country, right? And so, you know, I think that it's critical that producers understand where their check-off dollars are going. And, you know, as a US beef industry, I think we've done a great job of that is, hey, this is what we're doing. And we're trying to educate those who are supposed to be selling and recommending our product, but maybe don't know anything about our product, right? Our product, obviously, being beef. The side where global round table comes in is, where is that in the other countries of the world who are huge beef producing countries? But do the doctors and nutritionists and dietitians in those countries understand the value of beef in a healthy diet? You're right. And first, on a couple of points, I think that you're well represented here in the US. I think what GRSB adds there is perhaps a somewhat more independent perspective on that. I think there may be a tendency to say, well, that's the beef check-off. That's a marketing program and you're coming here as a marketing program to tell, give me nutritional advice. I think I know where you're coming from. I'm not saying that they don't understand that. I'm just, it's about, you know, communication is about being able to present the facts in a compelling way. And you're absolutely right that there are many other countries. And there are these global initiatives that are sort of all trying to define what role different foods play in diets, etc. Gosh, you can sit back and say that's madness to try and tell people around the world what they should eat. Any more than I try and tell the three of you what you should be eating. But there are people who are trying to do that and trying to influence what people eat because they've got an anti-B for an anti-animal agriculture sort of perspective. And I think that's a shame that they've got every right to hold their point of view. I think that sometimes they take it too far and I think the role of a group like GRSB is to push back on some of those things and say, hang on. First of all, here's the nutritional value. And secondly, if you're concerned about sustainability, let us show you all the good things that are actually happening here. Show, demonstrate, you know, not just talk about. Show, demonstrate, have data. Did nothing go into the senior kind of glating on mushroom pasture? Oh yeah, and nothing ruins that view like weeds and brush soaking up all the moisture and nutrients. Regardless of precipitation, we have to take care of our pastures. It doesn't ring grass. The passion for cattle ranching starts early. So should the protection. Let's keep our pastures in good hands with Corteva Agro Science. To learn more, visit rangerpastor.com. He said something earlier. I'd like to dive a little deeper into too is that we tend to be on the defensive and we want to be on the offensive as far as beef cattle is an opportunity to offset any other negative carbon footprint that other industries might have, right? And that we need to business yourself as the solution not the problem. So tell us a little bit more, maybe, double a little deeper into into that concept. Sure, I think that, um, simplistically, the process of rumination emits methane and that's a greenhouse gas, which is trapped in the atmosphere and heats up the planet. I think most people kind of get there. And because cattle are in a global way, pretty significant contributors to that global emissions of methane, they're easily positioned as a problem. The biggest problem in terms of global greenhouse gas emissions comes from the energy sector and that's the burning of fossil fuels. What the world has thought about as a solution to burning fossil fuels is just to less of it and get our energy from now the source. And we talk about renewable energy solar energy, for example, right? And so energy is about electrons, you know, electrons flowing and you can't tell where where they come from. The product is completely the same when you when you get it, energy is energy. You don't know what the source is. But that thinking has gone into food as well and people say, Oh, okay. So now we've got methane as a problem. So what we did with coal, for example, or what we did with other fossil fuels is we said, well, the thing to do is to have less of them burn less of them. And so that thinking, same thinking is just drifted over into the food system without us even realizing it. They're saying, Oh, okay, a cattle of the cattle are bigger meters of methane. Well, we just have less of them. And we just substitute with with other food, but the food system doesn't work like that because because what you eat a diet is not just it's not just calories, it's not just vitamins or minerals, it's not, it's not that it's there's a cultural association, there's an enjoyment that comes with it. And there's different diets for different people at different stages of their life and different lifestyles. So that's how we've been positioned as a problem. But I think the opportunity for us now is to flip that whole thing around and say, you know what, the world is not going to achieve its goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero without cattle, without the way that we manage cattle. We're not going to get there for two reasons. One, we have the opportunity to reduce methane production from from the beef and from dairy supply chains. There are things we can do to boost efficiency just simply thinking about feed efficiency, for example, and many other things in the breeding part of the chain. There are things that we can do that produces due to day, we can speed them up, we can keep taking emissions out of the system. We don't need to do that. I'm not changing cattle numbers here. I'm just say I'm holding cattle number steady. I'm just taking emissions out of the system. There are things that we can do. And those things are all about boosting productivity. Some of the lowest cost ways of reducing emissions in the world at the moment are actually around animal health. Just keeping those animals healthy, you know, you know what that means for days on feed, right, to get them to target weights, just keeping them healthy, increasing vaccination rates in other easiest things we can do to reduce emissions. But beyond that, there's the land mass, two thirds of agricultural lands in the world are used for grazing animals. And if we are not thinking about how carbon is cycled through that land, then we are missing, we're going to miss out on the opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And what scientists say, you know, is to bring them down to a level that, you know, allows us to continue enjoying life in a reasonably safe way. And it's that access to land that ranchers have as stewards of the land and the history they have as stewards of the land. And it's simply about making some adjustments there to ensure that we change the carbon cycle and start storing more carbon in the landscape there. And it's only in the land that ranchers are using that we really have the opportunity to change there. So we're not doing it. If those guys aren't doing it, well what's going to happen? And some of the criticism here there was like, we'll take cattle off and then you'll still get the carbon into the grass. And you won't. But I think we had Jeff Goodwin on a while ago. And it's like, it's really interesting. If you don't have something grazing that grass, it doesn't grow. It doesn't drive root growth. It doesn't drive a lot of stuff that needs to happen. I think that's the bit that a lot of people miss is like, you need the cattle there to drive the nutrients, to drive the grazing, to help the grass grow, to drive the root systems, which captures all of that carbon. And I think we haven't been good at telling that story either because the argument we hear is we'll just get rid of the cattle and then you'll do better. Well, you don't actually it stops sequestering carbon after a while. So you ride on two things. I mean, I think cattle are important in that whole biological system that we have there. That's what we're talking about. But on top of that, you need land management. You know, the idea, I mean, you take the cattle off and you don't have land management, right? What's happening with that land? You've got all sorts of socio-economic issues to deal with. But it's not like the land is going to be actively managed if you if you take the ranchers offered. So how are you going to actively manage it? And at the moment, we have an opportunity to actively manage it with ranchers who are producing food. And I think that's what we should be focusing on and we should be enhancing that. Helping ranchers to understand what they can do and recognize and rewarding them for the steps that they are taking, if they are tinkering with this biological system and storing more carbon in the landscape as a result. Storing in vegetation, storing in the soil, I'm not wanting to go into the detail there, but that's what we're going to do. Did nothing go to the senior kind of glating on lush green pasture? Oh yeah, and nothing ruins that view like weeds and brush, soaking up all the moisture and nutrients. It doesn't rain grass. Let's keep our pastures in good hands with Corteva AgroScience. To learn more, visit rangermpastier.com. Another question. How do you address the folks that might say, you know, methane from beef production is such a small percentage of the total greenhouse gas that gets produced in the world. Can we really make a difference with beef production considering it's such a small percentage? I think last time I looked at it, like agriculture was 5% or something like that. Beef production was even a smaller percentage than that. So can producers really affect greenhouse gas and emissions in globally? And there are the other issues bigger, too big to overcome. Look, there are other things that are bigger. That's for sure Jim. But I think there's a risk in sitting back and saying, look, we're kind of small here, therefore we'll do nothing. If you do nothing, then the chances are that somebody else comes along and starts telling you what to do because the challenge of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions is significant and all parts of the economy really need to contribute to that. So I say, you know, the option that we have is to say, we'll sit back and see how long we can get away with inaction. I don't think it's a good approach for two reasons. One is someone else will come and tell you what to do. And it's unlikely they'll understand the system. The second is we'll miss out on the opportunities to capture new revenue streams potentially as you start to see a price being put on those things. And maybe I'll add a third one, which is the things that we're doing at the moment in the beef system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Also boost our productivity. Also improve our risk management. Also help us access markets. Also help us access finance. Also help us build a database which creates a virtuous circle that helps us to further improve productivity down the track and builds that story, builds that quantitative story of what we're actually doing here. So you're missing a trick and you're risking that somebody else is going to come along and tell you what to do in ways that might be fine, might not be. Again, that's a question of do you believe in hope as a strategy? Hope those people understand it and hope what they tell you to do is kind of more or less what you're heading on anyway. Yeah, I think it's largely us figuring out as an industry what best management practices are because best management practices are obviously going to be the most profitable for your operation. They are going to provide the animal this much water, this much feed. If you have the more feed efficient animal, it's going to take less feed for the same pounds of gain, right? And all those different things. But if we can come to a conclusion as an industry and obviously that will change based on geographical location and across the world. But if we can figure out best management practices have better care of our animals and make healthier animals, we all win at the end of the day. And so I think it's all these small little adjustments that you can make in your operations. And I'm not saying that we need to completely reduce in taric methane production because we don't. We do not have a room in an animal if you completely get rid of taric methane production. But there's all of these little adjustments that can be made. And when you add up all the little adjustments across the beef supply chain, we come out with a very positive end result. But it's a whole bunch of little things that add up to have one big impact. Which is interesting, because you think about it. Like, and you look at productivity and agriculture over the last 50 years. And we're producing as much beef now and we're way from the peak of cattle. Be it we still had all of this attack on the industry. I think the other part of that is producers are going to do that. I think what's interesting about what Justin Zayn is like, how do we how do we tell that story? Totally. And with data. And with data and what we're doing. Because we were doing this 10 years ago when we were all felt really threatened to now be some of that up. And you know, we were doing a lot of those things, but we still felt threatened and we didn't have a seat at the table. I think it's really, it really, it really comes back to like, you know, what's now for GRSB? Obviously, and from where we sit in the US today in North America today, sustainability is not really a buzzword, as you'd say. Like, it sort of, you know, it's dropped off the radar and it's nothing. Why should we care? Like, from now next five years, next 10 years, like, why does this remain an important topic for you? And why do you keep focusing on it? For three reasons. The first is actually about consumers. You said beef is on the up. Yes. Consumers, especially here in this country, I'm visiting at the moment and I cannot believe how much you guys are having to pay to buy a steak. Beef is expensive and consumers are really enjoying it. And I think that's a great thing for the industry, but consumers are increasingly interested in beef production or all food production, right? Where it's produced, how it's produced and those sorts of things. In part, there's a health dimension to that. I don't want it to have, I don't want ultra processed, how is it produced? I want things that are natural. I want things that are good for me. I want health. And part, there's a curiosity. I think some consumers, not all, but some consumers are kind of genuinely interested in where things come from. But if you look at the data, if you look at some of the consumer data, and I was looking at some of this just before we came, we got together here, there's 37% of US consumers, according to the power of meat, who are regularly making choices about meat on environmental considerations of production. I think what's even more compelling than that is that there's now about 27% of consumers who never look for claims or very rarely look for claims on meat about how it's produced and what's involved in its production. That's 27% okay, you say, well, that's a quarter, more or less, that aren't interested. Just 10 years ago, that was 47%, almost a half, weren't interested. So we've now got three quarters of the consumer base that are interested, and it was only a half that were interested just 10 years ago. So consumers are interested in how beef is produced, and we need to make sure, as an industry, and GRSB is playing a part, the US Roundtable is playing a part, the Canadian Roundtable is playing a part, we need to make sure that we keep getting that story out there into food retail and food service, how beef is produced, and all of the reasons why you should be comfortable about the choice that you're making when you're choosing beef. Not saying you need to choose it more often, or less often, but when you're choosing beef, you should be comfortable about the choice that you're making you should enjoy it. So that's one reason. The other reason is that there continue to be global discussions, national level discussions, there continue to be critics of this industry that are out there wanting to misrepresent what we're doing for whatever reason they happen to have. So we're not telling the story they are, and I think that still, that remains a risk. We should not be complacent about that because whether it's the marketing people at a food retailer, or whether it's a radical NGO that's got an anti-animal agricultural agenda, or whether it's even someone at the UN who is trying to influence what governments are doing in various parts of the world. I don't know. If we're not telling our story, we run the risk that it's not being told in a way that properly represents all the good work that ranches and feeders are doing in beef production. That's good. I think it's been a great discussion. I really appreciate you coming over. That's not a short flight. But yeah, so, and I think this, the feature beef show now is a global show because we've included someone from not in the US. And so we appreciate you coming over and thanks for being a guest. My pleasure. Thanks very much for having me. And look, it's great to have this sort of conversation. From my point of view, I think it's really important that we continue this conversation. And I love beef. I know this industry isn't perfect, but gee, we're doing so many things right. And I really hope that shows like this can help to just share the message that there's plenty for us to celebrate, plenty for us to be getting on with, and plenty for plenty of room for us to be better at telling our story and showing what way all the good things that we're doing in this industry. So thank you. Yeah, thank you. And I think the the shows, the future of beef, and I think it's important to have these types of discussions so that we can, you know, we can all sort of move that that future together. So I appreciate you coming. Stay tuned. It's time for Ian, Jess and I to go behind the beef. All right, so that was, that was a, that was a really interesting episode. Yep, really interesting. It's a topic that if we don't talk about it, it's one of those things it gets pushed the back. And so it's important that we keep the dialogue going. And I think it's really important when you listen to what GRSB is doing, we get so stuck in our own industry sometime that we forget how many influences and outside influences are out there that we need people like GRSB to be representing. And I think, you know, Justin's very eloquently speaks very well as well, which makes it makes it be different. You need people like that advocating for you. But yeah, I think it's critical, you know, some of the points that he brought up and beef is already great, but how do we make ourselves better? And we always need to be looking forward in the future of beef, right? We're talking about how do we get better? And so every little impact or every little shift in production helps us get better. And it's not just that we're trying to reduce inter-comethane production, which is what many believe is, is what the whole goal of sustainability is. But sustainability is really like production efficiency to help us get more product at the end of the day, or the same amount of product at the end of the day with less resources going into those animals. And he brought up great points about animal health. And I think that that's so critical. And in talking about vaccine rates in the rest of the world and beef production in the rest of the world outside of Canada and the US. And how critical it is to keep that animal alive through the process to give us essentially more beef at the end of the day. So yeah, I thought he did an excellent job in in comparing consumer thoughts and trends on sustainability, but then also what we need to be doing as stewards of the land, but also stewards of the cattle. Yeah. I mean, you know, this is a controversial subject within the beef industry, right? And we see it all the time. There are beef producers that think we should not be participating in things like this. And there are some that are very much advocates for things like this, right? And so I think getting those even those two groups together to understand what the reasons for why people think we shouldn't be and why the people think we should be. And hopefully producers get something like that out of this episode, right? That they can see the other side and understand and appreciate it. And I think Justin talked about seeing their side, right? I mean, and understanding that that we know that greenhouse gas is a bigger bigger thing than just the beef industry. But as as a beef industry goes, we just want to do our parts, right? And we want to be better. And also the importance for people to hear that we are doing stuff better and we're caring for our animals. And you know, that isn't always data. That is things, you know, like we've had in the past with people like Tucker telling that story and seeing that story and showing that story. And I think, you know, it's interesting with organizations like GRSB, they're talking at such a high intergovernmental level sometimes that you forget they need these individual producers with these individual stories to actually advocate. And you know, that is a role that produces that no one can replace the producer in telling those stories and how important it is for them to get involved. So yeah, I'd encourage people to look at it. There's interest and there's other people doing that. I think one thing we're talking about after show is I know all text on an amazing job of producing well without cows and not sure it's released yet, but you can certainly go to the website and sign up and we'll put in the show notes and things to have a look at that. But there is people out there now really advocating for this industry. And well without cows is probably a controversial name that, you know, obviously it's talking about the story that wouldn't exist. Having seen it, you know, what a disaster would be in with we didn't have cows. And you know, I think it's well worth people trying to have a look at that and try and get that consumer level conversation to happen because we all run into someone who's misunderstood the beef industry at some stage. And you know, for us that starts with like walking down the street and talking to a stranger. But for people like Justin, they're obviously dealing with much higher level conversations and not to make sure we're supported. Yeah, I think that's interesting. I talked to ranchers all the time and they they feel like, hey, it starts on Sunday mornings at my local church, right? I can go in and have a conversation with someone who who isn't a rancher there and educate them about what I do and what I and so for all of us, it doesn't have we don't have to be on the global roundtable for sustainable beef. We just have to have a conversation with our neighbor. And I think that's I think that's a really important factor in this. And so we just need to understand each one of us needs to do a little bit of our part. Whether we agree with it or we don't, it's still educating the common consumer on the importance of beef in their diet and beef production and the culture and everything else. And that mindset of not being on the defensive but being the solution, right? Like I think that's a very different shift. Like and it's great to hear organizations like GRSP which I'm sure when they started it was all defensive. Now they're very much like on the front foot with a solution. Cattle are up cycles, you know, we were talking about that off air, but they're taking forage that no human can eat and they're turning it into an edible, highly nutritious product that you can't get anywhere else. And not just cattle, obviously, other rumenants as well, but it's, I think it's important that we think about that as like this is a solution and we are doing really good stuff, we just need to get that message out there. Yeah, I think it was interesting that A, like you said, we're changing that conversation, right, from defensive to offensive and we're supporting that with data and then how the US and Canada are leading that, right? We're already the most efficient, reductive, you know, country in the world and beef production and those best practices now can be taken other places and how we're leading that. Yeah, I think I've seen that, now probably have to correct this, but I think US beef is like 20% more efficient than nearly anywhere else in the world just because of the way cattle are grown and fed and the genetic improvement, the health improvements like use of technology, use of technologies. It's, yeah, it's incredibly efficient. Yeah, I think that's the critical thing for us as an industry here in the US and Canada is how do we define our best management practices, how do we implement them, but then how do we collect data points that can be used with groups like the global round table to then say, hey, this is how much we can improve our beef production and feed beef efficiency and your country can do it also if you implement practices in this way or this way. So I think it's a very critical topic. Obviously with the change in administration here in the US, sustainability and measures of interrac methane and whatnot and the beef sector have kind of come a little bit to the way side, but there is a lot of universities that still are doing research in those areas and it's not because we are not wanting to have or we're trying to reduce cattle on this planet, that's not what we're doing. Our goal is to make every animal that is here more efficient in the beef production chain so that we're producing more or the same amount of beef with fewer resources and that's, that's our goal and I think many institutions are still going to be working towards those goals, which is just going to give us even more data to share what the rest of the world did in beef production. Well, and we might be in that political cycle now and it is where it is, but we all know it's a cycle. The same as the beef cattle market, it's a cycle. There'll be a different government with a different point of view. Maybe it's not the next one, but it could be the one after and we need to have done that advocacy through and we can't just let it drop every four years. So yeah, it's great, those are, and we know globally there's other countries in completely different cycles. You know, Australia is on the opposite cycle when it comes to sustainability and the pressures there for that beef industry and same with Europe. So I think you know, these are really important things, globally that we continue to drive beef and rising tide plates or boats. Well, I think that one of the really important things for me in this whole concept is having a seat at the table, right? I don't want someone on City Council making a decision on how I run my farm, without asking me questions about things that they may not understand. And so whether it's your City Council or your State Government, whether it's your, you know, US government or whether it's your global round table, right? The importance of having a seat at the table, it can't stress enough, right? It is critical. Yeah, and those people need the support of, you know, individual 200 head ranches in Montana to tell those stories. That's it for this episode of The Future of Beef Show. And a big thank you to our guests for joining us and sharing their experience and insights on this topic. Hit the subscribe button for more great episodes like this one. If you want to dig deeper into what you heard today, head over to futureofbeef.com or you'll find free resources and helpful links. Don't forget, we'll pick one listener to win this exclusive future of beef Getty Cooler. Follow us on Facebook, or Instagram and drop us a message for a chance to win. Until next time, keep your boots on the ground and your eyes on the future.