Cargill Animal Nutrition and Health delivers a wide array of feed, digital, biosecurity and farm management solutions to producers across multiple animal and aquaculture species. Naturally, sustainability has long been, and will continue to be, a core aspect of this business. “Our customers are relying on us to help them achieve their sustainability goals and we expect demand [for sustainable solutions] to go up,” asserted Linda Midgley, Enterprise Sustainability Lead Animal Nutrition and Health.
Cargill is currently in the midst of launching a new sustainability strategy for animal nutrition and health, emphasizing innovation and collaboration across the entire value chain. In today’s Industry Perspectives piece, Ms. Midgley discusses how this new strategy translates into concrete sustainability wins, all while keeping customers and their needs at the heart of what they do.
[Feedinfo] How is the refreshed sustainability strategy for Cargill Animal Nutrition & Health different from your previous approach? What is behind this change?
[Linda Midgley] We are now working to accelerate and scale impact in areas we believe we can have the most influence.
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First, let’s touch on what’s the same. Cargill has had the trust of farmers and producers for more than 159 years and this continues to be our priority. We are here to create value for them. Working together, we strive to increase customer productivity and profitability through new and improved agricultural practices, providing access to farm inputs, market opportunities, and digital farming technology. We are driven to give customers and producers more with less – more performance, more offerings, more efficiency, more circularity, more data-driven advice – with less waste, fewer emissions, less environmental impact and less burden. |
Linda Midgley |
Now, what’s new. We are going deeper on several of Cargill’s sustainability priorities, embracing a focus on greenhouse gas emissions, including methane emissions, transforming our agricultural supply chains to be deforestation-free by 2030, improving water quality and availability, and more. These topics are urgent, which is why they are rightfully important to many other companies in the animal and aqua nutrition industries.
And as many know, we exist in a deeply interconnected food system. No single company, sustainability product, or farming operation can drive positive systemic impact alone. Our new strategy embraces the unique role Cargill has at the center of the food system. We can enable connections that support and incentivize one another to work together toward meaningful sustainability outcomes. Sometimes we do this by pulling in partners along the supply chain to explore new opportunities that weren’t there before. Sometimes we go beyond our traditional industry network to leverage broader Cargill’s reach in 70 countries and 125 markets, bringing in people, ideas and resources to the table to create new opportunities for our customers to grow. This is our differentiator, and it’s exciting to think about what doors will open in the years to come.
[Feedinfo] What are some of the sustainability challenges facing Cargill customers where the company can make the greatest difference? And how do you make sure that solutions are supporting the economic sustainability, as well as the environmental sustainability of animal farming?
[Linda Midgley] By its very definition, sustainability demands a long-term view. It’s through this lens that we explore ways to deliver greater value to customers. The change is about being more intentional in two areas. First, it is improving our understanding of the full context of economic, social, and environmental challenges that our customers face – today and tomorrow. The second is better leveraging our strengths to help them do something about it.
For example, in Brazil, we are trialing a lower methane emissions diet with one of the largest beef feedlots in the region. Using data from BeefMax and insights from Cargill Nutrition Cloud drone cameras that use vision technology and infrared thermography to observe herds, we helped them better understand the sustainability challenges they faced, specifically around methane emissions. We then made ingredient adjustments and recommended use of SilvAir to help them achieve a lower emission diet. We also advised use of Cargill Cattle View to support animal welfare. This project is ongoing, and we are excited to see the outcomes including financial returns.
[Feedinfo] What are other ways Cargill puts its sustainability strategy into action? Can you give any examples or case studies of how these activations translate into meaningful change on the ground?
[Linda Midgley] Here are a few more ways our sustainability strategy comes to life:
- We innovate with purpose. With more than 500 research professionals working in 15 state-of-the-art innovation and application centers around the globe, we are exploring and developing solutions that nourish animals, empower producers, and support a sustainable future. For example, in Vietnam, livestock manure is commonly used as fertilizer. However, it often contains high levels of zinc, which can result in poor plant growth and soil degradation. This team used research to find ways to reduce zinc in animal feed, while ensuring animal performance.
- We support customers in making decisions that contribute to the long-term resilience of their business. For example, Cargill Nutrition System (CNS) is a database that offers customers real-time analysis of feed ingredients. CNS allows for precise feed formulations tailored to species, climate, business goals, nutrient requirements, and local ingredient costs, resulting in improved performance predictability and less nutrient waste.
- And we pick strategic partners to scale impact. We don’t have all the answers. That’s why partnerships – with customers, industry peers, academic institutions, nonprofits – are critical. A recent example is our collaborative project in Norway with salmon farmer Hofseth Aqua AS and data experts at Manolin. We used data to reduce the need for salmon lice treatments, resulting in lower mortality. This sets a new standard for sustainable aquaculture practices.
[Feedinfo] What do you think differentiates Cargill’s sustainability strategy from those of its peers in the animal nutrition and health space?
[Linda Midgley] First and foremost, farmers and producers success will always be at the heart of all our sustainability goals. This is non-negotiable.
Second, we are a comprehensive animal nutrition and health partner that has connections across global and local food systems. We also have talented and passionate employees who come to work for Cargill to live our purpose of nourishing the world in a safe, responsible and sustainable way. Put these factors together and we have a distinct vantage point to deliver end-to-end sustainability solutions. Now, more than ever, we are determined to enable these strengths to incentivize all parts of the system to work together toward meaningful sustainability outcomes.
For example, we know methane emissions cannot be solved with one product or by one team. Our Reach4Reduction is focused on offering multi-faceted solutions – like the application of feed solution SilvAir (which is approved for us in certain geographies), digital insights from DairyMAX, modifications to an animal’s diet to reduce waste, and leveraging Cargill’s RegenConnect program. Reach4Reduction is also looking to the future, researching methane in-house and with strategic partners, and managing multiple pilots around the world with other important players in the food system, like food processors and retailers. Together we are reimagining ways to reduce methane emissions and drive sustainability outcomes while bringing value to farmers.
[Feedinfo] What should the industry expect from Cargill on the sustainability front going forwards? Where specifically are you concentrating your R&D attention, organizational influence, or other resources in order to make a real difference in the sustainability of the animal protein value chain?
[Linda Midgley] Our Micronutrition & Health Solutions team is working on exciting things. They investigate new science-based animal feed solutions to improve performance, support health status, and enhance welfare. They are exploring solutions to methane and other kinds of on-farm animal emissions, like aerial ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorus, which in excess can have negative impacts on land, air, and water. Research is done with single ingredient feed solutions, as well as combinations between categories, like phytogenics and postbiotics.
And to broaden Cargill’s view, we will continue to enable partnerships across the food system that accelerate and scale sustainability outcomes and provide monetary benefit to farmers. For example, we recently announced two research partnerships – one in China and one in the US – to advance our ruminant methane emission reduction strategy. In the US, we invested in Cornell’s Department of Animal Science, which is now home to new, state-of-the-art animal respiration stalls that will enable research on livestock feed, health and climate impacts. Research done here will help us understand how much methane a cow produces and what management techniques could reduce those climate-warming gases, like optimizing nutrition and supporting animal health status.
Overall, we will continue to lean in to maximizing the diverse minds and backgrounds of Cargill’s global team. “Sustainability” is not in many of our job titles because it’s not a single group’s responsibility. Whether it’s a scientist researching animal performance to reduce methane emissions, a merchant sourcing alternative ingredients for fisheries, a person managing sustainable supplier relationships, or an on-farm advisor offering data to help a producer make decisions, all of our employees shape the ways we can have a positive impact and change the system in a sustainable way.
Published in association with Cargill Animal Nutrition and Health
