Hay Meets AI & Innovation: a discussion with Dr Andrew Walters

Jon Paul Driver 0:00
Welcome to the Feed Central Hay Matters podcast, your go-to source for all things hay-related in Australia. I’m your host, Jon Paul Driver. In today’s episode, we’re joined by Dr. Andrew Walters. Andrew, among many other stations in life, serves on the Agrifutures Export Fodder Advisory Panel. Welcome to the podcast. I’m really looking forward to this conversation.

Dr. Andrew Walters 0:28
Thank you, Jon, for having me.

Jon Paul Driver 0:29
My degree is in economics, agricultural economics. I actually worked at my university host, the Western Center for Risk Management Education, farm policy, and crop insurance type education work. I worked for an agricultural lender for six years, and then I worked for the University now as the farm and ranch management specialist. So, a lot of work on ag policy. And I also sit on the Washington State Hay Growers Association board. We have one forage researcher left in Washington state, at the university. We’ve been told that they’re not going to replace his position unless the hay growers come up with $7 million to fund it. So that’s been one of my causes here in the last year, is trying to find $7 million to endow a chair and keep that position funded. So we maintain any level of forage research in Washington State, which should make anybody in Australia feel really good about collecting an assessment and a levy. Look,

Dr. Andrew Walters 1:31
I think we’re very lucky to have the system that we have in Australia, where we have a levy on a full range of our agricultural products, whether that be grain or hay, livestock, wool, and the like, cotton, and that’s fed back into a formalized research and development program for each industry. And having traveled around the world a number of times in various capacities, I do think that Australia has a great advantage with that system. And I think sometimes industry and to some extent our research providers, take it for granted because it has been in Australia for more than two decades.

Jon Paul Driver 2:16
As a point of interest, we have it for everything except hay. We have tree fruit and berries and wheat and potatoes and cattle and everything except hay.

Dr. Andrew Walters 2:26
And we’ve only recently, in the last five, six years, had our levy on hay in Australia. And the challenge was to find a what’s called an endpoint royalty, where is the end that you can capture the collection of hay? And it came down to being an export fodder levy. That was the one point where we could actually capture the levy on hay. So it’s the export hay. So I sit on the Agrifutures Export Fodder Advisory Panel. I have to emphasize that it’s export fodder, and that accounts for roughly 10 percent of Australia’s cereal hay production. So I say that, you know, we’re doing the R and D on one in 10 bales of hay that are produced in Australia, but there’s a lot of flow-on effects and benefits too. Oh,

Jon Paul Driver 3:25
Of course, the variety development and absolutely yes, yes. One of the things I want to do here is a little rah rah for AFIA. I find a lot of value in those associations.

Dr. Andrew Walters 3:36
I think it’s incredibly important. AFIA is the peak body for the Australian fodder industry. It brings together everybody in the supply chain, from seed companies, machinery manufacturers, twine, plastic wrap suppliers, transporters, farmers, growers, export traders, domestic hay traders—the whole lot get to come under the one banner. And I think it’s a very important organization for being able to talk to government, the media, and the broader community.

Jon Paul Driver 4:10
I’m going to come at this as somebody asking for advice again, that compare and contrast, we don’t have really good national or, to a certain level, state representation for the hay industry. What’s made Australia successful?

Dr. Andrew Walters 4:30
I think it really comes back to the founding people of the Australian fodder industry. Back in the late 1990s, they identified a critical problem in the quantitative assessment of fodder and tried to get greater accuracy and relevance from the quantitative data analysis of hay. And that was really the foundation stone for AFIA, and then everything else followed through—how to grow it, bale it, process it, and market it better. But that was the foundation, and even today, that’s still a major component of AFIA. I think the networking opportunity that the organization allows or encourages is particularly important and beneficial to everybody that’s involved.

Jon Paul Driver 5:30
I understand that you were an advisor to John Howard.

Dr. Andrew Walters 5:35
I was, yes.

Jon Paul Driver 5:36
Can you talk about how that experience, really at a national government level, has aided the direction of the forage industry? How does that experience in politics relate to experience in the hay industry?

Dr. Andrew Walters 5:50
Just to give a little bit of background, I’ve worked in a whole range of roles, nothing quite as exciting as yourself, Jon Paul, but I’ve worked in a range of government and business roles. And I do confess to having done some policy work for the office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The background to that was that I, at the time, was the coach of the Australian Biology Olympiad team and head of the Australian Science Olympiads. And so I had to have a good understanding of science in a range of disciplines, and then I had to be able to communicate it. And I think one of the things when you’re involved in education is you need to understand your subject material and be able to break it down into bite-sized snippets that are relevant to the audience. By accident, throughout life, I’ve had to be able to break down different technological subjects into bite-sized elements for people to be able to receive and digest. When you’re talking to our political leaders, you’ve got to cast the information you convey in a different way, as if you’re giving an academic presentation in our national research organization, CSIRO, where I did my PhD, to a bunch of farmers that might be my neighbours back on the family farm. So you’ve got to be able to cast the information that you’re wanting to convey that’s relevant.

And look, it was a great privilege to be able to work in all of that. And in a way, I feel very privileged. I’m not necessarily that athletic, but I note that there are people who are athletic who are very easily able to adapt to different sports, and they do it pretty easily. I was blessed with parents who gave me the genetics and the environment where I was able to work hard, and I just had a love of learning. So I’d rather be in the library at uni than out partying. I am the ultimate nerd, and I think that was a blessing. And in a way, it’s similar to when people learn multiple languages—they can adapt easily from one language to another. So I say to people that I’m blessed, that I have the capability, if I can say modestly but quite frankly, to understand one area of science and technology, and then it’s rather easier to adapt to other areas of science and technology. I’ve been called upon to give advice and come up with ideas on a range of science and technology policies in a range of environments.

Jon Paul Driver 9:15
How did you get into the fodder industry?

Dr. Andrew Walters 9:18
Well, I was born and bred on a farm at Violet Town in northeast Victoria. Right from the start, I think my father had me standing on the ute seat as a three-year-old steering the ute as he fed hay off the back tray. Then I graduated to the tractor, I think, about eight or nine years of age, and I remember driving my first, as you would call it, combine harvester. We call them headers in Australia. At 12 years of age, I got to do—we had a tractor-drawn, PTO-driven combine harvester in those days—and I got to do one lap of the paddock when Dad was having his lunch, and I’d hang out all day in the Australian heat just to do one lap.

In my second year, I thought I was pretty good, being now a 13-year-old, and we had just bought the first tractor with an air-conditioned cab in the district. So to have an air-conditioned cab on a tractor with a PTO-driven combine harvester behind it, we thought we were fantastic. I got to do a lap around the paddock, and there was one part where the crop was really quite heavy, and I didn’t want to slow down to a lower gear. I kept it in top gear because I wanted to prove how good I was. I managed to block it from the back of the straw walkers to the front of the cutter bar. So, we then spent four or five hours unblocking the combine harvester. And I think it was a really valuable lesson at 13 years of age, to be aware of what you’re doing.

Jon Paul Driver 11:02
There’s something in there about slowing down to go fast, and there’s all sorts of really good lessons in that experience.

Dr. Andrew Walters 11:11
There is, and it’s about being appropriate for the task at hand. Yes, and I think in my various roles, those early childhood lessons served me very well. My mother was a person who went to her grave never telling a lie, and she could not stand anybody telling a fib or inaccuracy or stretching the truth. I must confess that I did try to get Mum to write a school note when I had three science assignments due simultaneously, with the excuse that I had to help the dog because the dog had been sick. She was having none of it—she said, “No, that’s lying, Andrew. You explain your situation, you communicate it. I am not going to do that.” God bless Mum. It was about honesty and integrity, from her perspective.

My father was an exceptionally hard worker. He started off in life with not much, and in fact, for the first year of his life, he was having regular blood transfusions. He grew up in a very poor family. One of his philosophies was, “Never worry about what you don’t have. Be thankful for what you do have, and make the best of what you’ve got.” You don’t get to choose your parents, and with the benefit of hindsight, I was blessed with the best parents, which gave me a great love of the land. I think, you know, standing on the ute seat as a three-year-old steering the ute, I can remember the first time, when I was about 10 or 12, driving the tractor and feeding the cattle, when I could actually change gears—I had enough strength in my legs to push the clutch down and change the gears. Then I remember blocking the header or the combine harvester up. Yes, I never lived it down, but I had a great passion for farming, and I wanted to learn more.

I knew that if I wanted to go to university, we were so poor that I couldn’t afford to go without a scholarship, so I worked really hard. It was a natural linkage—I loved learning, so I got really good marks and earned a full scholarship to go to uni. I was quite good at science, and won different scholarships as a student. One of them was to attend the National Science Summer School, which was sponsored by Rotary in Canberra, to inspire senior secondary school students to pursue a career in science. I sort of went back as an alumnus saying what I was studying and learning at university. And in that role, I became aware that the Australian Science Olympiads program, in those days, was running Olympiads for chemistry, physics, and mathematics. They were looking at setting up a biology program, and I was encouraged to apply to be the inaugural coach of the Australian Biology Olympiad team, way back in 1992. We went into the International Biology Olympiad, which, if you like, is like the Olympic Games for biology. That year it was held in the Czech Republic, and the Iron Curtain was just falling. We had the International Biology Olympiad in the Czech Republic that year. To use a racing analogy, we were lapped before we even got over the start-finish line by our competitors. We were woeful, but we were, I hope, quite gracious in defeat, and they gave all the Australian team members an award for special merit in participation.

Dr. Andrew Walters 13:54
I came back to Australia in my early 20s, wrote up a report on what we should do for the next year, and the Australian Academy of Science said, “Well, we think you should go in 1993.” That year, the Biology Olympiad was in the Netherlands. To use another racing analogy, we were bumper to bumper until the end of the race, and China just beat us by the smallest of margins. We came second in the world, and out of our four team members, one member, Anna Baum, won the competition outright. It was the first time that a Western nation representative had won the Biology Olympiad outright, and the first Australian to do so. She was also the first female to win, which created a lot of international media attention from the global TV networks. You know, these Aussies, to quote from your part of the world, “kicked butt” and did really well.

In 1994, Anna became the Young Australian of the Year, and I was the coach of the Young Australian of the Year. So, I got to meet lots of political representatives in that capacity. Then, when we had a change of government—the Howard government came in, in 1996—I took on various roles through secondment to help in the political scene. At the time, I was doing a PhD in plant molecular biology, and part of my role was to talk about plant genetic engineering and its merits and benefits. I literally helped get some of the legislation through our houses of parliament. That’s where I had roles in talking to politicians, media, environmental activists, and the like about genetic engineering, which today seems so trivial. But in those days, some people thought it was going to be the end of the world. They thought we’d all grow multiple ears and have extra arms and legs from GM foods. But thankfully, and we were pretty confident about this, it didn’t lead to the negative outcomes that our opponents thought. It was a tough debate.

Jon Paul Driver 16:00
It sounds like it.

Dr. Andrew Walters 16:01
Oh, look, Jon Paul, I honestly think I’m the luckiest man in the world to have done what I have done, where I’ve been able to do research and technology, from literally working with Eppendorf tubes in a laboratory, wearing a white lab coat, to doing experiments on the farm, on the back of the tray of the ute with the dog puffing in my face, to working for some of the largest biotech companies around the world. It’s been a wonderful privilege and journey. None of it’s been planned; it’s basically all been by accident. But I think it’s been about a love of science, technology, and people in business, and that would be the summary of Andrew Walters: just love people, love business, and love science and technology. I’m very, very lucky that all of those elements have combined to give me the life experience and opportunities that they have.

Jon Paul Driver 19:00
I understand that you still operate a contracting business?

Dr. Andrew Walters 19:08
Yes, I do. My father started that, and literally, that’s what put me through uni. I think Dad would have started doing contract hay making and harvesting in the 1970s, and we’re still doing it now, obviously with more modern machinery and on a different scale. But we go from the top of Australia to the bottom of Australia. In your language, we’re contracting over a 2,000-mile north-south distance.

Jon Paul Driver 19:39
The next time somebody gives me a hard time for having fields spread out over 35 miles, I will inform them that I am nowhere near the record holder.

Dr. Andrew Walters 19:51
We’ve just had the national AFIA conference, and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator came in attendance. I normally have a few questions and comments for them about the absurdity of some of the rules and regulations with regard to the movement of machinery, and indeed, just general transport with heavy trucks in Australia. We’ve still got a long way to go. One of the issues I think is happening in the modern world is that things are being dumbed down so much into sound bites. If I could give my observation from being involved in the policy industry and leadership roles over the last three decades, it’s that there’s been a shift from the early days, where there was a real focus on the core science and technology facts. You can’t get away from the basic laws of chemistry and physics. You can have as much media spin as you like, but those facts don’t go away. I sit on a few business and industry advisory boards, some with a science and technology bent, and others purely business-focused—one is actually in aged care for a community group—and I think there’s, as a general comment, a big dumbing down of science and technology. In this country, in Australia, we have a push to make science simple. I say, “Let’s make science digestible,” but you can’t change the basic laws of science.

Jon Paul Driver 21:44
I like the “digestible” comment in relation to fodder.

Dr. Andrew Walters 21:49
It is, and look, I have the privilege of sitting on the Agrifutures Export Fodder Advisory Panel, which is in charge of doing research for the benefit of the hay industry. One of our key focuses is what makes hay of benefit for animals to consume. If we just look at what a dairy cow consumes today compared to what it consumed 10 or 20 years ago, it is remarkably different. Gone are the days when the cow just goes out, eats some grass, and comes in, and when the grass isn’t growing, just feeds on a bit of hay. Now, you have all of these byproducts, you have computer programs mixing up total mixed ration diets. There’s a tremendous amount of science that goes into feeding them a huge diversity of products. And when you look at the production and the overall health benefits of these diets to the animals, it’s totally and absolutely amazing.

That leads me on to one of my other philosophies, Jon Paul: agriculture is often seen as a sunset industry. It’s had its glory days in the sun, and now it’s getting old, tired, and backward. It’s environmentally damaging and the like. And this leads to what I call the “grandparent effect,” where no grandparent wants their grandchild to go into farming or agriculture because it has floods, fire, drought, and doesn’t have any modern technology. Well, take a look at the latest machinery. I’ve got some clients who are actually airline pilots, and they come in some of my farm machines and go, “Wow, you’ve got satellite guidance to, in your language, fractions of an inch—in our measurements, within centimeters.” When they’re flying a jet aircraft, they’re running within a couple of meters, and they’ve got traffic control to help them do their job. We don’t have that. And so one of my frustrations, in wearing my small business hat, is that I get approached by schools saying, “Look, we have these students. They’re disruptive in the classroom. They’re not really doing well in English or maths, but they’re good with their hands. We think they’d be really good to work on a farm.” My response is, “What part of modern-day farming allows you to not be able to read, write, or do basic mathematics and follow operating guidance principles?”

I think this is a real problem with the image and misconception about agriculture broadly.

Jon Paul Driver 25:09
Have you happened to watch Clarkson’s Farm?

Dr. Andrew Walters 25:13
Yes, I do, and I actually really enjoy it. I think he’s done more for the face of agriculture than any other human in history. Maybe Norman Borlaug and his Green Revolution, maybe, but Norman Borlaug is not nearly as famous.

Jon Paul Driver 25:30
I totally agree with you, and I can’t discount Clarkson’s farmhand Caleb. I think they do a really great job, and the banter they have is fantastic. It’s true. Twenty years ago in my professional life, I had something like three and a half full-time jobs in various science and technology leadership roles.

Jon Paul Driver 25:58
It’s not just me.

Dr. Andrew Walters 26:01
Well, I was very impressed by the presentation you gave at last year’s AFIA conference, courtesy of Feed Central. I gave a report to my colleagues in Agrifutures, who are focused on export fodder, and I said, “There was this American who came out, trades as the ‘Hay King,’ and he actually gave an assessment of Australian hay from a competitor’s perspective. It was really valuable and interesting. I wish I had had the opportunity to spend more time with you.”

Jon Paul Driver 26:45
All we have to do is put it on the books. I hope you hear me saying that there’s an opportunity to trade back and forth.

Dr. Andrew Walters 26:52
Yes, absolutely. I do, and I think it’s great. Going back to what I said about the perception of agriculture being a sunset industry, I actually make the pitch that it’s a sunrise industry. The best days of agriculture are actually in front of us, not behind us. Now in Australia, at least, we’ve got a huge push to try and mitigate so-called carbon pollution. It’s a biological fact that carbon dioxide is actually required for plant photosynthesis, and if we didn’t have plant photosynthesis, we would all be dead. You can put as much media messaging and spin on it as you like, but that is the fundamental truth.

At the recent AFIA conference, I actually asked a question of a group that was talking about the future and how we had to deal with the climate emergency. I asked, “Is it really about trying to mitigate so-called carbon pollution, or is it about managing the effects of carbon pollution?” Now I’m certainly in the camp that I don’t think we can realistically balance carbon emissions globally. We are burning historic carbon—carbon single covalent bonds—and as a result, we get carbon dioxide as a byproduct. That is a chemical and physical fact that we cannot change. In my view, if we want to get to so-called net zero, the economic cost of that is going to be huge. Do we really want to give up our mobile phones, motor cars, airplanes, and the air conditioning in our buildings? I have staff on the farm who complain they can’t drive a tractor because I’ve set the temperature at 25 degrees Celsius and it’s 27 degrees Celsius. I remember as an 11-year-old driving Dad’s header without a cabin on it, just in the open air with an umbrella over the top.

Jon Paul Driver 29:25
We still have an open station tractor that we run.

Dr. Andrew Walters 29:30
I think they’re great. How simple are they? No, no, you can hear what’s going on. You’re breathing fresh air. Okay, you don’t get your Wi-Fi-linked Dolby sound system.

Jon Paul Driver 29:43
No auto-steer.

Dr. Andrew Walters 29:46
I think there’s actually perfection in simplicity. In some ways, you ask about my background in government and industry—it was about being able to break things down into digestible components that are relevant. I’ve had some wonderful mentors throughout my career, and thinking about them coming onto this podcast, I think they were the foundation stones on which I’ve built my life. Starting with my parents—honesty, integrity, loyalty, and hard work. Then my PhD supervisors were always about, “What is the actual result? Not the result that you wanted to have from your scientific experiments, but what was the actual result? What was the procedure you went through?” Then, in my early stages with the Science Olympiads, it was reinforced that you must know your subject well if you’re going to teach it and be ready for those quirky questions from students. And encourage questioning, encourage cross-examination. They were wonderful foundations.

Then, when I got involved in business, I had a CEO of one of the largest mining companies in the world, and he was all about, “We might be running the biggest mining trucks, the biggest dirt diggers in the world, but it all comes back to people. It’s about managing people who can then manage the machines, the processes, the business, and the science.” So, as I said, I think I’ve been wonderfully lucky and privileged, and I hope that I can contribute back to the community and industry in a way that returns some of that goodness that has come to me over the years. And look, I try really hard. I’m normally somewhere where there’s lots of troubles and problems; they seem to follow me. But I do have a saying to the young apprentices in my business: I’d rather them make a mistake by doing something than make no mistake by doing nothing. But don’t make that mistake twice.

Jon Paul Driver 32:22
You talked about mentors and parents and upbringing. My dad always said, “Right, wrong, or otherwise, do something.” That was in that same spirit of learning.

Dr. Andrew Walters 32:32
Yes, and look, over the years, I’ve had colleagues and businesses where something bad has happened, and they get stationary—they stop doing things at all levels. It might be a mate of mine who was a really good football player and blew his knee out, and then just wanted to stop doing anything. It’s like, “Mate, if you’re riding a pushbike, you can’t stay on the pushbike if you’re stationary. You need to be moving so you can adjust your trajectory and keep going.” I see that in all walks of life. It’s typical of farming around the world—they get to a stage in life where they think they need to retire. I have a saying now: “If you stop, you’ll drop.”

Jon Paul Driver 33:21
That’s a good one, and very observable.

Dr. Andrew Walters 33:23
Yes, and I think that comes back to my PhD mentors and supervisors, who were all about “observe, record, analyze, and communicate.” You get to see things where you’re looking at everything, all the time, from a science and technology perspective. I think the big challenge that we have in the Western world, globally, is the dumbing down of science. You can’t get away from the basic laws of physics and chemistry. As a coach of the Australian Biology Team, I always said biology is the interaction of chemical and physical phenomena based on mathematical principles. Biology is the science of life—it’s the all-encompassing science. Now sometimes this would get my physics and chemistry and mathematics colleagues a little bit upset, but I had the privilege of being the executive director of the Science Olympiad. I was both the coach and director of the biology program, but I also oversaw the overall Olympiad, and I would always slip that in. The point is, you can’t have biology without good physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The sciences are very complementary.

Just like we were talking before—if you’re very good at sport, you can often play multiple sports. I think that’s a natural extension into science and technology and academia. If you’re really good at one area of science and technology, you can normally apply those systems of thinking and knowledge creation into other areas.

Now, relevance: we’re talking on a podcast sponsored by a hay firm. If you can make one type of hay, you’re probably going to be pretty good at making different types of hay and being able to understand what works in one area is likely going to work in others. There’s a complementarity that makes it easier.

Jon Paul Driver 36:37
How do we more closely link the efforts of the Agrifutures Export Fodder Advisory Panel with our efforts in the States? Because we’re in the same markets. If we’re talking about export fodder, the Timothy that I’m growing is in direct competition with the oat and hay being grown in Victoria.

Dr. Andrew Walters 36:59
We would certainly welcome the opportunity to collaborate on the fundamentals. I used to be involved in the committee that was the predecessor to Agrifutures—it was called the RIRDC Fodder Crops R&D Advisory Panel. I gave a paper presentation on this, which was, “We need to feed animals in the world, and are we going to base their diets on starch (i.e., grains), or are we going to base it on cellulose?” Right now, we actually know that you’ve got to have some cellulosic-based feed in a ruminant’s diet for effective fiber functionality and to encourage the animal to eat. So, it’s not like you can just feed them grain. You can feed them just cellulosic-based fodder, but you’re probably not going to get the performance results that you do now with the multitude of meals and grains going into the diet.

We are in a competitive market. I thought the presentation that you gave last year at the AFIA conference, from a competitor’s perspective with your Timothy grass, was absolutely fantastic. Internally, I reported back that the AFIA conference last year was the best exporter-focused conference you could ever have. Complimenting your presentation, we had economists talk about currency rates, economic growth in our target markets, and the like. So all of that combined made for a really great conference.

The question that I would put back to you is, how do two key competitors work together?

Jon Paul Driver 39:04
I think we actually, we’ve already broached the subject about fibre digestibility, because I think that’s something that we’ve all lost sight of.

Dr. Andrew Walters 39:14
Yes, absolutely, and the role of fibre digestibility, non-digestible fibres, and effective fibre in diets is critical. From a technical perspective, part of the argument that we’re now looking at in the Agrifutures Export Fodder Advisory Panel is: what makes hay, hay? In a simplistic term, it’s just dead, cut crop or grass that’s packaged up, right? But I break it down into three primary components: there’s the carbohydrate component, there’s the protein component, and then where I think the opportunity for collaboration lies is in what I call the ‘other stuff’—the long-chain molecules, the aromatic molecules, the flavonoids, and the like.

A little over a decade ago, we had a research project in Australia that was actually looking at what makes hay, at the actual molecular, mechanical basis of what makes hay attractive to animals to eat. Now, all of us who have made hay sometimes produce the best-looking hay—it looks perfect—but the animals won’t eat it. Nothing touches it. It’s amazing. We still don’t have an answer to that fundamental question of physics and chemistry as to why the animals won’t eat it. So what we do now is put it in a TMR (total mixed ration), we add a heap of meal and molasses, and we throw in attractive agents to make them eat it. But let’s go back to the fundamentals: why didn’t that animal want to eat that hay?

I think there’s a great good-news story with hay. Basically, if you’ve got the right hay, you can get an animal to consume 100% hay. So my pitch to you would be: how about we work together as competitors in the global market of animal nutrition? How do we work together to make the market demand for our respective products greater?

Jon Paul Driver 41:39
Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Walters 41:40
What is it that you could breed into Timothy grass? Is there an alkaloid or a flavonoid or something that would make your Timothy grass better? Because chances are it would also make our Australian oaten hay better, and we could actually get diets to have less grain, less meal, and more of our cellulosic-based fodder. Now, as a competitor, I’m going to say that the customer in Japan and Korea’s first choice should be Australian oaten hay, and you’re going to say it should be American Timothy grass. But I think the collective opportunity is to get them to want more cellulosic-based fibres, less grain.

Jon Paul Driver 42:30
Yes, I’ve been formulating these digestible, bite-sized pieces of policy—to use your vocabulary here—I really like that, to talk about climate change too. And as we think about Lucerne, there are few crops that have a better story in relation to carbon than Lucerne. Yes, that’s a great story we can tell. So in Washington state, our governor and legislature are almost exclusively focused on carbon emissions, even though all—100%—of our electricity comes from hydroelectric, or now wind and solar, because hydroelectric wasn’t sufficient. We probably have the cleanest electricity in the world, and they’re still focusing on nothing but carbon emissions. You’re getting a little bit of a conservative and questioning perspective on this, but at the same time, we’re about to lose our last forage research specialist from our university at a time when we need to be talking about less grain and more forage.

Dr. Andrew Walters 43:45
Yes, and we have the same issues in Australia. And…

Jon Paul Driver 43:50
I mean, these are the opportunities for that cross-pollination. How do we pitch these positions to legislatures, to governments, to help them understand the importance of fodder, these forage crops, in relation to climate change and carbon emissions?

Dr. Andrew Walters 44:09
Yes, and I think there is a real opportunity for agriculture to be a sunrise industry on this topic. At the end of the day, we manage a lot of the land mass, and we have enormous opportunities to be carbon sinks. But I also state, fundamentally, that I don’t think we’re ever going to get to net zero. Now, there’s going to be people—if this makes it to the podcast distribution—who say, “Oh my goodness, that’s terrible. We’ve got a person saying we’re never going to get to net zero emissions.”

Jon Paul Driver 44:51
Somebody who doesn’t understand how much carbon China is putting out.

Dr. Andrew Walters 44:56
Yes, and the fundamentals that we’re all based on. A covalent bond, one of my favourite topics. Because of the profile I have, I’ve got cousins and neighbours who get a school or university assignment, and they say, “Andrew, we’ve got to address this climate change crisis.” And I ask them, “Well, what does it all come back to? What actually is a single covalent carbon bond?” They have no clue, and these are university graduates. This is such a basic fundamental. I think this dumbing down of science is a real problem. When I was in the Biology Olympiad, we went to so-called Third World nations, and their respect and appreciation for the value of real science—because they didn’t have much of it—was extraordinary.

When I was the director of the Biology Olympiad, I would go to a Western country, walk through the airport, and no one would know me. Nothing like that. When I went to a Third World or less capable country, I was put up on a pedestal. I couldn’t move in the airport—people wanted my signature, as a nerd, as the ultimate nerd. They wanted my signature. I think it’s because we have so much science and technology in the Western world, and it has delivered so much advantage. Think about the 1970s: we didn’t have a microwave oven. In the 2020s, which kitchen in the Western world doesn’t have a microwave oven? Very few. To heat your food up, all based on science and technology principles around electromagnetic radiation. When you say to people, “That’s not a microwave, that’s an electromagnetic radiation emitter,” they go, “What are you talking about?” People have no concept.

Dr. Andrew Walters 47:09
When you talk about sunlight and what a photon is, and what a photon does for a solar array, people don’t know what a photon is today. That is so basic. So I get angry when I talk to educators about dumbing down science. And look, I have this issue at all levels of government and industry, and even with my colleagues, about getting back to real science and the integrity of science—not just about media messaging and sound bites.

I would welcome, and I think there would be a lot of my colleagues in Australia who would welcome, the opportunity to really have a great collaboration with America on forage research. I love travelling to North America, and Europe for that matter, and talking about forage and how we can do it better and get more science behind it. But it’s hard stuff. I’m associated with, or we’ve got projects with, Agrifutures at the moment, where we’re looking at the role of the different components, trying to fractionate hay into its components to try and understand their role and benefits in the diet. Quite frankly, Jon Paul, it’s about competing with you guys from America better.

It’s been interesting. I have another role where I’m involved with Formula 1 race cars—brand representation.

Jon Paul Driver 48:40
This doesn’t surprise me at all.

Dr. Andrew Walters 48:42
That’s a highly competitive industry, right? They don’t share secrets between teams. But what’s really great is that when there is something that needs to be addressed from a whole Formula 1 perspective, they work together so magnificently well. To me, they’re like an ant species. They act individually with great competition as individuals, but when it’s necessary, they work together as a collaborative group very, very effectively. I think that would be my pitch to you and your colleagues in North America: yes, we might be competitors at an individual level, but our real competition is in the grains and by-products area. We should, where we can, be working on some great collaboration, and that collaboration should be at an academic level, at an industry level, and, if you like, when it comes time, at a grower-to-grower, processor-to-processor level. I think there’s a lot more to be gained by that kind of collaboration.

Certainly, having done a PhD and worked in the academic environment, that’s where you have a lot of peer-to-peer review of academic publications. You might be competitors for getting research grants, but when you can, you do collaborative work. So, I think there is a huge opportunity, and I know that Agrifutures would be very keen to explore every opportunity there was for international collaboration. We have a mantra—and I’m not certain I get it exactly right—but it’s about collaborating, being real, being honest, and being loyal. I think in this global environment, our borders have broken down. We can do anything, anywhere. We can basically fly anywhere in the world within about 24 or 30 hours. We can talk over the phone, over the internet, without delay. You know, the world’s become our backyard on all levels.

Jon Paul Driver 51:49
I don’t think I’m overstepping my boundaries here by extending an official invitation to you to come and speak at the Washington State Hay Growers Convention, the Northwest Hay Expo in January.

Dr. Andrew Walters 52:01
I would welcome that opportunity, Jon Paul. I’m not certain whether I’d have much to say that would be of any interest to your colleagues, but…

Jon Paul Driver 52:12
I think you’re way off the mark—that’s the first thing you’ve said that’s way off the mark.

Dr. Andrew Walters 52:19
Jon Paul, I might have to introduce you to some of my colleagues, family, and neighbours. They might give you the real view of Andrew Walters!

Jon Paul Driver 52:29
Interestingly, we have the US Forage Export Council—I think maybe it has 56 members. They likewise are fiercely competitive, but on issues of phytosanitary regulations in Japan or Korea or China, they act in lockstep. And it’s exactly as you’re describing.

Dr. Andrew Walters 52:50
Yes, yes. Now, I could be a little facetious in saying this, but I’d welcome the opportunity because it would be an opportunity to learn more about the opposition. One of the things I learned in politics was: you have your friends close to you, but you have your enemies even closer.

Jon Paul Driver 53:10
You fully understand why I enjoyed my trip to Australia last year.

Dr. Andrew Walters 53:17
And you were very good at it. I might say you had a very good host in Feed Central.

Jon Paul Driver 53:24
Few better for sure. I expect that we could go on for hours more, and I hope to someday have a beer and do just that.

Dr. Andrew Walters 53:32
Yeah, I do too, wherever that might be in this great globe that we have. I love what you do. I think you’re part of the mantra of making agriculture be seen as a sunrise industry and not a sunset.

Jon Paul Driver 53:49
A big thanks to our guests for today. This podcast is proudly presented by Feed Central. Stay tuned for our upcoming episodes.