The Country 25/02/25: Part 1 - Dr Vaughn Holder talks to Jamie Mackay

Alltech's Kentucky-based Global Research Director for Beef previews a feature-length documentary World Without Cows that explores the complexity behind a seemingly simple question: "Are we better off in a world without cows?"

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Normally on the country when we head to Lexington, Kentucky,
it's to talk to US farm and correspondent Todd Clark.
But today it's the turn of doctor Vaughan Holder from
all Tech. He's their global research director for Beef. And
the reason we're talking to Vaughan is because this week
premiering in New Zealand limited screening documentary called World Without Cows?

(00:25):
Are we better off in a world without cows? Vaughn
explained the rationale behind this feature length documentary.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, so this was a little bit of a response
to something that we actually saw in the media several
years ago. It was actually the Super Bowl commercial which
was by a company called Oakley, which is an oat
milk or a milk substitute mate out of oats. We
were singing about the advert was actually the CEO of
the company singing about no more cows, no more cows,

(00:55):
and how great that would be. And our CEO, Mark Lyons,
decided that investigate what that would actually look like, what
would actually happen if we did what this guy was
proposing and actually eliminate cars from the world. So what
Mark did was you hired a couple of journalists to
go in and actually independently evaluate what would happen if

(01:15):
we were to remove caps from our world.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Now last night, for my sins, and it wasn't It
wasn't an endurance at all. I sat through a thirty
six minute presentation you had on YouTube done in twenty
twenty two to the Ontario Sheep Farming Association and it
was really interesting. We're going to put the link up
on our social channels if you don't mind. And your
final slide was interesting. You said agriculture has gone from

(01:40):
having the most important job in the world to having
the two most important jobs in the world, one feeding
the world, two reversing climate change. Now, how do you
explain that because there's so much rhetoric about how ruminants
are ruining the planet.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah. Yeah, I think probably most importantly before we get
to the climate change pieces, to not forget that first piece. Right,
We're here producing food for the gold and that is
the job of agriculture in general. So I think that
we sometimes lose sight of that, and it's worth the
reminding people how important that is to us as a society.
But secondly, I think it's really the case, and it's

(02:20):
referring to some more recent research that's come out. You know,
when we look at the history of cattle specifically, or
ruminant animals, cattle and sheep, and the climate change conversation,
it's all been focused on emissions, right, how much methane
does this cow make, how much methane does a sheep make?
And how does that compare to fossil fuel emissions. The

(02:43):
problem with that is is that fossil fuel emissions are
essentially a one way high.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
We take carbon out of the ground, we burn it,
and it goes up into the sky. Whereas animal emissions
are cyclical by nature. We use ecosystems to make food,
and we're just not measure the other side of the equation.
We are both producing methane and absorbing CO two in
this process, and if we don't measure both the emissions

(03:08):
and the absorption of these carbon equivalents, we're only measuring
half the story. It's like having a trying to tell
what your bank balance is when you're only measuring what
you're spending and not measuring what you're earning.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
So it's the carbon cycle that you're talking about, and
you're dead right, we're only measuring one side of the equation.
Can I move on from the carbon cycle to sequestration?
Are farmers getting a fair deal on sequestration i e.
Everything on their farm that sequesters carbon and I'm talking
about grass and soil.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah. No, the answer is no, because I don't think
that we have enough science to be able to predict
that on a large scale. And so this is the
real issue with us making policy decisions this early, and
the understanding of a subject is that we are going
to make the wrong decisions if we don't have enough
science to support what we're doing. So I think in

(04:01):
some cases where it's been pretty well established, some farmers
are getting credit for this, but I think for the
most part they're not getting a fair shake, at least
in terms of diluting their emissions with the sequestration that
actually happens with grazing animals.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Some of the key findings from this documentary humanity has
a profound reliance on cows. And I'll just quote three
facts here. One trillion estimated global market value of cattle
and associated industries. One trillion dollars I'm talking about here.
This was a state that surprised me, Doctor Vaughnholder. One
in ten people depend on cows for their livelihoods. That's

(04:39):
eight hundred million people out of an eight billion world population.
So those are interesting states.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, and that's just directly right, that's people who are
directly involved in agriculture and rely on it for their livelihood.
Every other person on the planet also depends on agriculture
for their livelihood, right, because we all eat food every day.
So that's that number is significantly get bigger. But yes,
it is eye opening to know that directly that many

(05:07):
people actually depend on agriculture as their first their first
option in terms of income.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
You're also saying, well, I saw in your presentation once
again going back to twenty twenty two, but I'm sure
some of this is replicated in the movie, that we
could not feed the planet without ruminants because they take
stuff non digestible protein converted grass and to food we
can eat. You know, we can eat grain, but we

(05:34):
can't eat grass.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, that's absolutely case, and that's that idea of upsicking, righting.
They are producing more food than they're eating, and even
folks will say that we shouldn't be feeding grain to
these animals, but they actually increase the nutrient concentration of
even the grains that we feed them, so it is
a critical piece of our food security picture. And in

(05:58):
a world where the the estimate is that more than
half of the world's countries and territories are currently protein
and secure, it's a pretty important role for these animals.
And again unintended consequences. If we are talking about removing
ruminants from these pictures, it will create a devastating effect
on the global food security picture.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Doctor Vaughan Holder with us from all Tech Global Research
Director for Beef. We're going to take a break back
on the other side of it. We're going to look
at methane. Dr Vaughan victim or villain