 So nice to have Robin Reed. Robin Reed and I are both vestiges of Illrad. Robin came in to put some environmental impacts side to some of our disease control stuff going back so Robin it is great to be talking to you. We're talking about the long shadow of livestock and I guess one is the bigger picture of livestock's environmental image and that's been very much brought to our notice by this book and I see you've got a copy and you've got a real copy and I've got a... how many trees have suffered as a result of this report being produced? I noticed from Carlos's earlier point Carlos acknowledged this report and he made this quote, some of us participated. Did you participate? No I didn't but first I want to get dressed if you don't mind. I've always been impressed with Brian and his dressing at these hard talks and so I want to put on my tie. Okay, stop time wasting Robin. That was effective, another 30 seconds gone. Did you participate? No I did not. Why not? Because I wasn't asked to participate. Why weren't you asked? I mean should this not have been an ill-re-study? Absolutely. Ah okay well if you say absolutely why wasn't it? Why wasn't an ill-re-study? I don't think we saw it in our mandate to do this study at the time this was done. I think that in the future we will see it as in our mandate. So when you say it wasn't in our mandate I mean it was already done before we sort of knew and was it or? Well okay for one thing the report covers the developing and the developed world. You're losing you. Yeah well I'm gonna use it if we talk about gender issues I can do this. This is my foil. And so it's broader than ill-re's mandate that's one thing so this exact report I don't think ill-re would have ever produced because of the broadness of its scope. But you think it was very appropriate for ill-re to have been involved? Yes. Okay well we might have to come back to that one but. Just because I wasn't involved doesn't mean others weren't. There were others in this room that absolutely were involved and then I've seen the comments of there are several people and so there was quite a bit of comments that went back and forth. Oh so there are comments because I an FAO quote I heard the other day from a reliable source who told me that ill-re is not supportive but doesn't agree with this this report has major problems with it. Is that true? I think we'll find out in the great debate that's coming up on Thursday. Is it true that we don't like the report? I think there's some parts of the report that some people agree with and some that others don't like about this report and so I think it's a bit of a balance view about this report. Okay well maybe we should possibly go through some of those. The report sort of outlines the positive side of livestock and the minus side. So the positive side the economic importance of livestock, the social importance, nutrition and health and food security and on the negative side the land and land use change, the gaseous emissions, water use and pollution and biodiversity. Do you feel that that is fair? Does that capture all these different positive and negative issues? Is that something they've particularly missed there? I think that the balance in the report between positive and negative environmental impacts is skewed toward the negative. I think that the livelihood issues that we would care a lot about are missing. Although I'm not so sure it should have been in this report but I think those issues are missing about livelihood. What expand on that? I mean what particular because they talk about the social importance, the one billion poor and for livestock no education is needed, no capital is needed, no land is necessarily needed but it's all there in the report. It is all there, it's just the it's just the matter of how much it was focused on. In other words most of the report goes in depth into the direct and indirect connections of livestock to the environment alone even though there is some preamble on the livelihood issues and then it goes into the mitigation. So it's a report that is from an environmental point of view and can I can I make a point about this? Would you do mine? I'll give you an opinion in a minute. I don't know if folks remember the green books that Leigh put out about three or four years ago. That I think was taken from a human centric point of view and our point of view, a more of a livelihood point of view. These books are taken from an environmental centric point of view and I think that's we have basic values at Illry that a human centric point of view is is really our most important point of view and so that's where we differ with this report but I think one of the things that that from our perspective we have to appreciate that there is an environmental centric point of view and I think the place that we can take the debate and move it out into a new place is to try to bring down together this human and environmental centric point of view together and take a balanced view of both of those areas rather than just going off on a human centric point of view. It's a very difficult argument to explain to to the Western world though isn't it? It's all right I think many people here will be sympathetic to that but when you're putting that over to the West who are totally obsessed with with climate change isn't that rather difficult? How would you do it? Well I think we've started and we've I mean for years we've done it we just I don't think we've gone up to a high enough level in talking about the nutrition issues in relation to livestock and the safety net issues in relation to livestock all the livelihood issues I don't think that we have made that a big enough issue high enough on the agenda of the world and communicated that in a way you know even higher level. Well that nutritional issue is is very important you say it is mentioned about 33% of protein going to the diet five and this range of consumption but when you look at consumption in the US at 123 kilograms per head isn't that we're not making enough mileage of maybe pressurizing the West from our point of view to decrease some of that meat consumption. Can we play a role in that or is that out of our totally out of our field? It does seem to be a bit out of our field but actually if you talk to Michael Blumell he will argue that we actually need to decrease the consumption of meat in the developing world that would be one of his arguments from the perspective of some of the resource impact. But in India he certainly won't have a problem with five kilograms per head per year. I mean there's not a great consumer. I've misquoted Michael too and so I'm sorry about that worries. Okay let's come into some of these let's come into some of these these negative I mean 26 of the ice-free terrestrial surface of the planet has got livestock on it much of this area unsuitable for crops. I mean it's a huge amount. Gaseous emissions 18% of the global warming effect much more than gases out of cars comes from livestock according to this report. Do you agree with these figures? Some people don't agree with all the figures in the report. I mean are these accurate? I'm not an expert on how these things are calculated especially from the climate change perspective and I've heard and I've read that they didn't follow the standard protocol from the IPCC and how you do that but let's not focus on the problems with the calculation because it's probably close to being right even if it were half that only 10% it's still a worry and so I think that the value of this report is rather not so much if it's 18 or 10% but that what they did is they took it beyond the animal and we focused a lot on how the what the animal does but it's gone to deforestation and said yeah livestock are actually responsible for that actually people responsible for that but that and a number of very indirect connections in the water issues and the biodiversity issues that I think we haven't focused on are very important and it's one of the things that if you have a little bit of an environment-centric point of view I feel like I've kind of both you worry about a lot it is these indirect effects of livestock and the environment that they talk a lot about in this report can I just a second that we do the deforestation is largely South America isn't it's largely South America and it's the driven by livestock and soya we are basically saying we're not we're not going to do with South America so is this something that we should worry about well I think it's as you know I I don't think that we're going to work on this issue directly but as has been said in a previous presentation boy we better know about it Ian mentioned that we better better be at least knowledgeable about these issues and to be able to suggest a way forward in a sort of general way and be part of the debate if we missed the debate and we don't talk about it then we're gonna have all sorts of folks coming in and saying well why aren't you dealing with that and and so we need to be much more educated and have a more high profile message on a number of these things one one thing that worries me a little bit and you probably will share this these that which worry which I don't really want you to share my opinions but the and that is that on some of the the small print for example the gaseous emissions very little actually paid in in respiration of animals so burping plays actually a very tiny role compared to these these terrible figures of 37% of methane 67% of nitrous dioxide coming from from livestock and the other one on the water of although 8% of global human water use is associated with livestock in fact only 1% is drinking do you think that those those different contributions are adequately portrayed in in the report I guess I would go back and say that I think the value of it is pointing out the connections and trying to put some number numbers on those issues and raising the debate and being provocative I mean look at us we're talking about it right now we're going to talk about it again and so it's I think it's very important that those issues be raised and that's why I wish that we had not done this report but rather that that we would we would do reports at this level on these issues because I think that we have a lot to say that's very very different from this report and that I'd like to see us get out there okay I'd like to talk a little bit about what people can do first of all about what the the world as a whole can do and then come back to what we can do relating to livestock the world as a whole we've got this this concept of carbon credits so in the environment so you can I mean good old Al Gore who gives this is wonderful Oscar-winning film and then we suddenly learnt that he spends goodness has how many more times expenditure on electricity in his own house than the whole of the American population of something in a year just extraordinary but he gets peak but he says no worries because I've got by that with my carbon credits I've given money to one of these companies that is going to there's going to do something about it is that is that valid I'm sorry carbon offsets carbon offsets so Al Gore buying his green credits again he calculates these green credits on your carbon dioxide debt valid I think that there are places where that's valid yes would you like me to expand this piece okay okay first of all expand and then I'll yeah in other words I think that that yes we want to try to mitigate in other words take some of the carbon out of the atmosphere it's a question of what for example trying to sequester carbon in the global range lens is going to be really hard to do it's a vast area it seems like it would be a useful thing to do but actually might make more progress in growing trees in higher potential areas for example but and so there's a range of different things that are you know more feasible and less feasible to actually carry out but I think that it's a I think it's important thing to do and I'd love to see Ilri become carbon neutral I know there's been some talk about that and that would be great oh really I was going to come on to that I mean Ilri can go they do book their flights on lastminute.com I notice you they've also got a little space where you can buy your buy some credits at the same time there is a there is an organization called clean air cool planet do you are you familiar with that they've said it doesn't work carbon credits doesn't work planting trees installing solar panels whatever they there's a quote in nature saying that the calculations are tantamount to guesswork they did a calculation on the CO2 per person traveling from London to Bangkok and several companies one calculated at 2.1 tons per person another one at 9.9 tons so is it how do we improve that or is it necessary to improve that well I don't think we improve that in the first place meaning us in this room but I mean I'm sorry I'm still focusing on the global response rather than the response I'm sorry how do we include car improved carbon sequestration or how do we improve the the response to that such as this this carbon credit scheme how do we make it more effective how do we get the numbers right yeah well I think if we get into that area and I would question whether we would get into that area I'm not sure we should but there's a number of organizations that have are thinking very very hard about this and then in our sister CG centers for example a craft and I bet you see for us thinking about a lot so I would go to you know the folks that are really thinking about this hard and thinking about the ways forward rather than sort of starting an initiative brand new formulary but I think that because of the role of livestock in these issues we need to engage with that community at least from the perspective of knowing the issues and raising raising awareness absolutely quote from friends of the earth on this carbon credit saying you might as well try stopping sea levels are rising by drinking a glass of water one of the things that worries us what worries me and you were talking about flowers that we're talking about flowers earlier on and that is many of the the supermarkets now are going to start to introduce this issue of of flown so you'll have a little flown so the the the never a month before the Kenya flyer is that a good thing isn't that a terrible thing for how do you balance that you as an ecologist and and our market people are looking to create in those markets what's the balance and how does it respond so what you're referring to is the is the fact that that when food has a lot of miles on it often will come hopefully from some of the small holders going to value and markets yeah exactly but it'll have that little sticker with an airplane saying flown so dear old auntie Ethel going into Sainsbury's we'll say oh I can't buy that one I guess I in the first instance I want to know if there's actually into the poor that actually have any their food flown anywhere you know so in other words is that really an avenue out of poverty and if it is then why don't we put poverty miles on the food or something like that in other words good social you know put the social part onto these food miles I think the idea of eating locally all of us would agree that it would be a good idea to reduce environmental impacts and and support the people in Ethiopia we let's eat locally here but if it's going to have these other consequences then let's try to think about those and think about the poverty miles or whatever that that we might know but that was a good point this on the way to do in this report they have that they want to do in climate change and there's a whole lot of technical issues conservation tillage organic farming what to do in water which is basically water use efficiency and Sullivan your man by a diversity doesn't say much do you are you satisfied with these technical responses there's not much on the policy side in the in the document do you feel the technical responses are all good sensible messages and if they are is there something that you can pick up to use in there I think there's a number of technical responses that look like they're reasonable and but there's all chapter on policy I'm not sure you got to it I did get to it yeah I just barely got to this morning so I read it freshly yeah and and so I think there are the policy issues I guess one of my things about this report is how much of it is applicable to the smallholder you know to the people that are our clients and so that's a question of how much of the manure management type of issues really apply to the smallholder are they already recycling most of their nutrients anyway you know I mean pastoralists aren't going to go out there and recycle the dung from their animals or the urine or something like that it's more in these industrial high intensity systems so around out of Saba there might be issues that relate to smallholders so there be particular places in our mandate where these would be useful but other places where we'll be useful at all so we have to really think those through and then obviously in the policy side there may be some okay well it's come to those policy ones the policy the two main areas that they they say about market failures and policy failures and the and the ways of of adjusting those are one through regulatory approaches in other words telling people to do things because they make them more environmentally very and the other one is the economic instruments in other words things like removing subsidies and pricing water when we're talking about the environments here and the smallholders and all those people are those realistic they're basically putting them out of business if we're going to what is the balance with these sort of the the weights of those types of measures well I think they're missing some of the approaches and in the first instance so I don't think it's all about economic incentives and and regulatory although I think they all have they'll have a you know apart so from let's let's take the economic incentives the payment for ecosystem services so that people can you know from the the lower watershed pay for the services of good clean water from an upper watershed those sorts of approaches have problems but they might be one way to go forward certainly to look at these issues but then what about the you know sort of social and cultural issues and community institutions and all those sorts of things that can look at some of these issues we certainly this is an area that we though that many of us work in quite a bit and so I think it's it's well beyond you know economic incentives and command and control regulatory type of approaches Robin do sort of at the end of this little chat do you feel that you're a bit out on a limb here in the Institute in terms of these environmental issues but here we've been talking this morning about about competitiveness and about markets and and about improving productivity and improving efficiency and many of those processes are in the environments that we're in are going to have inevitably negative effects on the environment how is it really added has a really got an adequate balance well of course from my point of view no but but actually let me back off and say and point out one of the words you use efficiency I mean I think you know the whole idea is to produce more meat milk etc etc you know with fewer inputs and that's less water and that's less you know nutrient fewer nutrients and and feed and things like that that is a fabulous way to in decrease the impacts on the environment so you know moving in that direction which and you don't even have to use the e-word you don't even have to say the environment but that's what that that's where we'll go there also are some trade-offs and then there will inevitably be trade-offs but I think that one of the things that we don't do well yet and we've been talking about this in theme five over the weekend and I'm looking again at Michael and Jean and Don and Tom was sort of about how can we raise those issues particularly in relation to these efficiency issues and sort of kind of make a big deal about it in other words what if what will efficiency gains get us I mean if the livestock revolution is going to is is going to double demand in X number of years then we have to double our efficiency over the same time just to stay in the same place you know it's in other words we're sprinting in trying to keep the environmental impacts just where they are today much less improving environments and so I would I guess I would say I would love to see that come together and we've talked about that in a sort of more synthetic rate way in a high-profile way in not as one way to respond to these kinds of issues raised by the long-term so it's the importance is the interpretation of this efficiency absolutely okay last you mentioned Illry becoming carbon neutral by a certain period of time very interesting that do you think we should be actually going out and I mean I saw in the same way of Al Gore the commissioner from the EU who was absolutely hammered because he drives a some Volkswagen Tuareg or something one of these as they call them in UK Chelsea tractors do you think we should be asking asking Carlos to be driving a riding a bicycle around how do we how we should we be putting over the the image more effectively that we take efficiency of the environmental natural resource use seriously I think we could take a lead I think we could take a leadership role and I and Carlos is probably the first one to get on a bicycle and then we'll be following him you know he'll be out there in front we have to worry about Carlos doing that right on the bicycle but I mean here's an example we seem to have all these water bottles the plastic water bottles that we're drinking out of and throwing away is there another way that we could actually do that so that we didn't actually you know create that kind of waste it's huge it's really awful and and you know in other words there's a number of things and if we got to be with a small group together at illry that just had an idea of what are as Phil would say the low-hanging fruit or the low-hanging mangoes on these environmental things so that we can sort of say not only do we study environmental issues and and and try to come with solutions for small holders but as the we're pretty elite in a lot of ways as as sort of that sector of society that we're actually paying attention to it in our own home and cleaning up our own acts a little bit thank you even in this report they do suggest that you know the use of plastic instead of getting polyester shirts from from other sources but you get them from plastic bottles now that's