The Country 25/02/25: Part 2 - Dr Vaughn Holder talks to Jamie Mackay

In the second part of our World Without Cows interview we ask if methane is a "victim or villain". And are farmers being dealt a dud hand when it comes to measuring emissions and subsequent sequestration? And is it time to get revenge on Suzie for 1995?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the country, and welcome back to doctor
Vaughan Holder from all Tech out of Lexington, Kentucky. He
is the global research director for Beef. Let's talk about
methane once again, referencing your presentation to the Ontario Sheep Pharma.
Sorry to keep throwing it at you, but I haven't
seen the film yet, and I've seen that now. Methane

(00:22):
you're saying only lasts in the atmosphere for twelve years.
It's not such a big deal. Or have I misinterpreted you?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
No, I don't want to know. You haven't at all.
I don't want to minimize the impact of methane because
methane is a really potent greenhouse gas, right, but we
have to just be careful with how we measure the
effets of methane and the way that we're doing it
right now. And in a lot of government programs, they
are comparing methane directly to carbon dioxide, and these two

(00:50):
gases behave very, very differently in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide accumulates.
In fact, when you drive your car to work today,
you put out a certain amount of CO two. When
you drive tomorrow you double that. Right, If your car
was putting out methane. If you drive the same distance
every day and you excrete the same amount of methane

(01:12):
every day, the amount of warming stay the same over time.
What that means is if we have stable herds of
capital and sheep, we actually end up not having an
increase in warming over time. It also means that if
we take methane out that we end up having coup
over time, which is really really important. So we've just

(01:32):
got to be careful how we handle it. It's not
that it's not important. I just think it's been mischaracterized
by the media.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
You were talking about stable herd numbers. Well, I know
that the number of bovines in the world hasn't really
increased since nineteen ninety. Here in New Zealand, incidentally, when
it comes to sheep and beef numbers, our emissions have
dropped by about thirty percent since nineteen ninety due to
attrition in our national flock and herd. So we're already

(02:00):
doing our bit. Why are we penalizing farmers for methane
emissions if the methane emissions are not increasing. Surely the
problem with global warming and climate change is, as you said,
man burning fossil fuels.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, and that's very very clear. If you look at
the burden of the different gases in the environment over time,
the vast majority of the impact is due to CO
two accumulation. So that's without that goes without saying. But
I do think that we need think about methane as
an opportunity as well for us. Like I said in

(02:35):
that presentation, it is one of the only industries that
exists at the scale that can actually do something about
climate change. So are they getting a fair shake? No,
I don't believe so. But I also think that doesn't
mean we should just say we've done our bit and
that's the end of the story, because there's a lot
of opportunities with methane, and in fact you will see

(02:55):
that in the developed world as you describe in the
reductions in methane over time are pretty significant, but as
a global injury, they ask all going up. So the
opportunity exists to go to the places where we are
increasing herd numbers and do the same thing there and
we will have the same effect over time. So there's
a lot of opportunity in terms of addressing this issue.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Worth agriculture itself tell me about the Buck Islands project.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, this is a really interesting place, and I've mentioned
probably a couple of times on this interview that some
of the areas of science are not yet so not
I find right. So this is a really interesting group
of ecologists that are working together with animal scientists in
understanding what the role of cattle are in ecosystems and

(03:43):
the effect of the ecosystems are on cattle. So looking
at carbon sequestration by the landscape, looking at emissions by
the animals, and what interventions we can do to manipulate
that system right too, so that we can increase the
amount of carbon that that ecosystem is taking up while
simultaneously actually reviewing the amount of carbon in the environment.

(04:05):
And they've shown that they can actually produce a calf
crop in a carbon negative fashion. They have carbon negative
beef out of Buck Island.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
All this will be revealed in the documentary, the feature
length documentary World Without Cows, doctor Vaughnholder out of Kentucky.
How can we see it here in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, so they will be at least limited screening initially,
So if you can make it out to one of
our events that have a limited screening. You can go
to those, but otherwise you will have to wait and
see which streaming platform we end up on, because that
is eventually the goal for the movie to reach as
bigger audience as possible.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
As I said, you're in Kentucky. That is not an
American accent. Sounds South African to me, no hiding it.
I know you're a big Rugby fan, yep. Are you
looking forward to the spring Box losing or US continuing
our winning streak at Eden Park? We haven't lost there
since nineteen ninety four. We're playing you later this season.
It is going to be literally the game of the

(05:04):
century or the best game of footy between World cups.
I put to.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
You, you know what, I'm quietly confident about that one.
But this is Aton Park, so you guys have a
pretty big fortress over there, so you know what, Whichever
way that game goes, it's going to be epic and
it'll be good for rugby in general.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
So I'm pretty excited about it.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Now you realize the Springbok attack coach former All Black
Tony Brown plays golf at our golf club, so we
might just do something to him, you know, I don't
know chuck something into his food or his corona. He's
a big fan of that. Just before the test he
might get a bit of food poisoning.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
You guys just never going to let that one go.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
It will be our version. It will be the Otago
Golf Club's version of Susie. Doctor Vaughanholder, thank you so
much for your time today. It's been a wonderful chat.
We'll put the link for your presentation up on our
social channels and I'm really looking forward to seeing this
feature length documentary World Without Cows AA SAPE.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Thanks so much, it's been great.