Oli Le Lievre 0:08
Got a lucky last interview? It is the end of day two of Okay. Ag 2020 For some reason I keep saying 2022 When I'm done some things but anyway, we'll definitely be on that. Yeah. Mill eight. Yes. It's a lost future young leader. Become an old future young leader.
Unknown Speaker 0:26
Oh, no trick, really?
Speaker 1 0:30
Reverse martingale is here with us. She is Italian originally, but you've lived in four different countries before really immersing yourself in Ozzie agriculture and aquaculture specifically so welcome, Roberto. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 0:44
thank you so much. Yeah, I'm originally from Italy in a small fishing village in the coast near Genova by ditching Katara everyone loves it because beautiful place and pesto info catcher is like the most important and amazing foot that we get there. But I also lived in French Polynesia in a little Athol, in the middle of nowhere. call it an area where I started my passion, I suppose about aquaculture was working with pill Easter's. And it was just fantastic experience very nitty gritty, like you had to go out and catch you on fish. And if not, you had coconut and rice, rice and coconut, rice and Coconut, coconut and rice. So yeah, very, very interesting experience. And then after that, I fell in love for a kiwi guy. So that is now my husband. And I moved to New Zealand and did a PhD there in salmon farming. And then now I'm here in Australia. Yeah. What's next? I don't know. Oh,
Oli Le Lievre 1:45
well, I'm interested. And you can educate me, I would think that the New Zealand aquaculture industry would be ahead of Australia. negligible. Let me ask you a simple question. How come you came to Australia? In and around the studies of aquaculture and the work? You do?
Unknown Speaker 2:04
Yeah. Okay. So New Zealand, knees are fantastic country. And there are lots of opportunities and lots of Well, I wouldn't say lots of aquaculture is mainly like mussels, we have oysters, and we got salmon. But if we think about Australia, we have so many different climates. So that means that we can find so many different species of fish crustaceans, and mussels, or oysters and stuff like that. So there is a lot of diversification in Australia compared to New Zealand, I was very lucky that I got offered this postdoc. So once you do your PhD, you like either moving into the industry or saying to academia, I wanted to say into academia, and I got offered this postdoc, and I'm working with bar Monday. So I completely changed from working in climate change in salmon. I'm now working with barramundi and fish pigmentation, so completely different world but learning heaps, so it's fantastic.
Oli Le Lievre 2:58
And I think we can talk more about maybe the pigmentation of the flesh of the bearer. But yeah, farmed agriculture. What are we talking?
Unknown Speaker 3:05
Yeah, the farm barramundi Yeah, so the whole Africa, like when we working with, I personally work with aquaculture, so not really fishing too much. But if we think about barramundi is a fantastic PC. But most of the time when you fill it down, you can see that there is a little bit of that greyness in the fill it I'm sure that you've probably tried barramundi before and looked at it, and you're like,
Oli Le Lievre 3:28
oh, no, I got into making fish tacos. Yeah, he's
Unknown Speaker 3:31
ever quarterback. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 3:32
ha, there you go. Yeah, but if you have a look in the field, there's a lot of greatness in the Fitbit and these for the consumers it can be seen as something that is old that is not as fresh. And so if you go to the supermarket, you have no idea what this species is, and you just look at white fill it and one that has a little bit of greyness, which one are you gonna buy? Most probably the white fields. And so for this reason, the industry is trying to understand why. And what is that? greyness in the fill it and how can we reduce it? So I can go on for ages? If you want to go in there in the science
Speaker 1 4:09
part of it? Well, definitely. But I think we could probably go a little bit like broader and talk about the evolution of aquaculture and just fishing wild caught in general and how it has evolved in the last couple of generations to where it is today.
Unknown Speaker 4:23
Yeah, for sure. So aquaculture has been like, around forever, like it was, you know, if you think about Italy, that it was there, I think at the time of Greek and Romans, so like it goes back and very long time. However, it stayed small for so long, because if you think about it, right, if you're in a poor country and you want to go out and you want to have some fish, you can just go and catch it. So having that enclosure and feeding the animals and stuff like that it becomes you know, expensive and not as accessible as going out and get your own fish. However, we have seen that lay 50 years ago Right, the decline of the marine life in the not only in the Mediterranean Sea, but in every ocean. So there is a drastic decline on the catch fish. And that's because in one hand, we are now trying to fish more sustainably, but in the other, we are also facing the fact that there are not as many fish left in the ocean. So that's when aquaculture just started booming. So in the last 50 years increased drastically. But of course, there's a lot to learn. If we think about terrestrial animals, we have like breeding programmes, and we have we know how to look after them. Like, in my talk, I was talking more simply like we can see if a pig or sheep is hot, because it will go in the shade. But for our fish is underwater, it's very hard to see. And if it's hot, cold, stressed, it always looks the same part. When is the head looks the same, but just upside down. I did it in the water.
Oli Le Lievre 5:58
And what I find so interesting, I would say, especially for younger consumers, let's talk Gen Z, millennials. Yeah, the likes of salmon is a huge part of people's diets that people really love to look at it. Yeah, but it does. And you mentioned it in your tour through Netflix and others. Yeah, there is a bit of a dark passing and quite an amount. And I say I feel quite uneducated, yet of what actually happens in that industry. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 6:21
so I call it the CS POC 2.0. And that's what we need to go we need to go around the world and showcase all the great work that aquaculture is doing. I think that there is a lot of misconception aquaculture as a side is younger, when you are a young industry, you can make mistakes, like you are learning from how to you know farm those animals and you might need to have different temperature salinity or or different diets. So as an aquaculture scientists and as aquaculture in general is still learning and SEO improving towards a more sustainable and productive industry. So that's the first point. And in the past, there has been some issues like for instance, we see the salmon farming, like there are issues, but it's not because the farmers don't look after the animals is a combination of climate change is a combination of parasites that might be there. But I think that the biggest misconception is that to actually one is that we are not doing anything to improve that. There is so much research, there are so many people are there that are trying to improve and trying to reduce the skin lesion in the salmon. Like, you know, there are all these picture of very sad six salmon swimming in this Scottish water and stuff. And he's like, Yeah, okay, we've seen that. Fantastic. There are people behind the scene, they're trying to do something. And I think that that is one big misconception that needs to be addressed by possibly media by possibly talking about the fact that there are scientists out there trying and making a difference. Then there is another big misconception that is we are feeding aquatic animals such as salmon or other fish, wild caught fish. That's kind of the past like it. Aquaculture, it's over that stage, like most of the feeds now, more and more sustainable made from leftovers are what we as humans consume of the wild caught and then they just make fish meals and including alternative diets as well. We are looking into farming black soldier flies, for example, to start feeding fish, insects. So it's, I think that we need to see spirits in 2.0. Well, you just showcase the great work that is done.
Oli Le Lievre 8:42
I think you know you're talking to Olympia Yaga. About her work that she's doing. Yeah, farming black soldier flies. What's interesting to that? And I only saw something popped up on my Instagram the other day? And I think it is. So there's an opportunity for media, but there's also an opportunity for businesses in this. Yeah, Patagonia. Obviously, they're dedicating their business to the planet. Yep. And at the moment, a big focus of theirs is in in around salmon farming. Yep. And the footage they've got is actually like really shocking when you look at Yeah, what the fish are like. And I think that's where in our conversations and things like that, at events like evoke ag we actually I think there's a role in acknowledging it. Yeah. And going, this is what we've seen. Yes. Now, talk to that. And we talk about it a lot mill around, we want to understand what is agriculture look like today? And we talk about agriculture, we do it in the lens of sustainable foods, sustainable fashion, and what that looks like, but then how's it going to be different in the future? And I think, as you kind of said, it's a new industry. And exactly, as you said that I was like, Oh, that makes sense. Like, you don't expect children and teenagers and stuff to make all the great decisions.
Unknown Speaker 9:44
Absolutely. And I think that if back in the days, you know, we had, I don't know iPhones and drones to showcase what farming chickens or pigs or cattle was when we first started industrialising it poorly. We did something stakes and, and we still do. Everything that is done in big scale is gonna have mistakes. But let's put those behind. And let's focus on the good part because we cannot all survive on tofu is not sustainable. And there are, as I say, 3 billion people that rely on seafood and what are we going to just deplete the ocean alternatively, like I was once in Spira See, they were on the street, like protesting and stuff, and it was a Hi, do you mind if I get the mic? And so I started talking and I was like, Well, have you ever thought about going to a person in Vietnam and just tell them or you can not eat fish, that's all they got. So us as first world country, we also have a responsibility, which is to choose fish there are sustainable, so then there is enough fish for the people that actually rely on that as the primary protein source.
Oli Le Lievre 10:54
Following on from that, do you see the bulk of your work and the impact you're having developing countries or developed? I
Unknown Speaker 11:00
think that for Eastern for Australia, when we think about Ozzy aquaculture, we're not farming fish, to feed the planet, we are farming fish, there are for elite or like Chef, you know that you buy a very good price, and you eat a very lovely supermarket. And we not farming fish like such as steel rpoh, or rice fish or whatever. I think that there is a distinction between farming in the third world country and in the first world country, the third world country needs fish, for feeding them that will sustain them, for us is like more of our rich people food that we want to have. So there is two different kinds of of animals, I would say you
Speaker 1 11:48
mentioned something during your speech and probably not gonna get it right. But it was something like a 35% reduction in fish or fish species throughout some sort of generation, like how is that turning around to now become this opportunity, both in developed and undeveloped countries to be a solution.
Unknown Speaker 12:05
So what I was talking about is that in the Mediterranean Sea, especially I don't know, either stats, I just looked into that, in the last 80 years, the decline of the marine life has been huge. So it's 35% of the fish and 40% of the marine mammals. So and that's because I suppose we were not aware of how to, you know, it's difficult to manage stock, how do you understand like, where the fish go, the move, they go up in the ocean, and it's complicated. So we didn't probably also know the impact of fishing. That was what was happening in our oceans. But once we understood that something was was happening, some species started to be classified as endangered. And that were some catch limits and some management that that worked. And that's why I wanted to talk about the Bluefin Tuna, because that was a positive note. And I think that that's what we need to hear like, we cannot just keep hearing, like all this negativity of we are losing all these species, we are losing all these animals around the world, we still need to have a little bit of positivity. Going back to what you're saying. I think that aquaculture can have that hand in hand with sustainable fisheries can have a very good impact into, you know, still go out and catch your fish if you want to sustainably go out. But for the everyday person, why do not eat farmed fish? Like have you ever been to Cole's and had a look at the hundreds of tin cans with tuna? There are so many so many over photo, I'm obsessed with it. There are so many and then you multiply that for every country for every town in every part of Australia, America, Europe, Asia, like people will continue to eat tuna. They want to eat tuna and they want to unavailable at the supermarket. Now, I need you to know out there that we can you know keep taking. Yeah, not. Yeah. Yeah.
Oli Le Lievre 14:13
I think what was like so interesting about what what I really liked about when you spoke and I wish there was probably more of it. And this is feedback for evoke is is that Ted style talk? Yeah, where it's your kind of painting or in the way you did it. You you showed, here's a problem. Here's how it's evolved. Here's the impact of it. Here's my take on it. Now you're involved in through I guess, like your family's influence. And you also talked about like a solutions and optimism and I think before you touched on just that piece around like can't just keep leading with negatives because it's funny, the panel that started straight after yours, someone came out and I'll paraphrase but it was something like food systems broken. And I was like, shut up. Because it's like, you can't just like consumers don't want to feel guilty. make so many other decisions in a day. Yeah do you think well like hope and optimism and be like you can make you can call your
Unknown Speaker 15:04
friends you can make a difference I always take as an example free range chicken like okay, let's think about five years ago I was a broke student that cannot afford free range chicken it was more expensive I wouldn't buy it but then slowly free range chicken more and more people started thinking oh, that's probably important I can't afford it so I'm gonna get in and more and more people started buying free range chicken and now literally I cannot find chicken that is not RSPCA approved or free range at the supermarket. So as customers we have big power which is we drive the market so if we all start looking for sustainable fisheries or for sustainable aquaculture slowly we're going to make the change and that is what I'm looking forward and what I really hope that by giving some hope that you know consumers awareness and by choosing and making conscious decisions they can make a big difference and
Speaker 1 16:01
so if you could get like one key message or one bit of information through to consumers customers to have that hope like what would that one key message be?
Unknown Speaker 16:13
My auntie once told me you need to start from styling so many people talk about oh certification then what is a certified certified sustainable rubber RSPCA chicken? But can you just start from starting? Like choose certified sustainable look for that little badge of certification? There is MSC there are so many out there. They're certified sustainable and not just dolphin friendly. Because you go and see Oh, yep, this is called dolphin friendly. But in reality, do you know if is certified, so if I could ask something to the consumers and given advices look for the that certified sustainable, it might be not perfect. It might not be the silver bullet that solves everything but at least you are doing something good. And you're starting from siding.
Oli Le Lievre 17:07
You know what? I've got to wrap it up while we're talking is a Jag Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 17:13
fishing J.
Oli Le Lievre 17:18
producer Andy, you already said it's okay. For our fishery expert here. Aquaculture expert. Why is there no tuna north of Australia?
Unknown Speaker 17:29
Or better jokes?
Oli Le Lievre 17:31
They're all stuck in kids
Speaker 1 17:35
live in Townsville towns. Yeah. Yeah, I actually. I mean, the sunny coast. I actually have another joke.
Oli Le Lievre 17:45
Did you like that one though? Writing on that? Yeah. No, it was good. It was that let's go down. Okay, Milt, what would you write out of? out of 10 countries seven,
Unknown Speaker 17:54
six. They got Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 17:58
I'm gonna be more positive seven. Because my
Oli Le Lievre 18:02
producer Andy doing the weigh in on this as well. Oh.
Unknown Speaker 18:08
Can I try my joy? Ashley? I had I told his joke and I had a few views and let him walking away from me.
Oli Le Lievre 18:19
Okay, Milly well,
Unknown Speaker 18:20
how do you tell a fish to shut up
Oli Le Lievre 18:34
I feel like that's right
have you got Jax Millie? No, I
Speaker 1 18:44
do when I go fishing with me. So I say how'd you go? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Got a mole. There's nothing left to fish. So it's actually probably a really bad joke. And I'm gonna stop using it after this conversation.
Oli Le Lievre 18:57
There's nothing responsible about Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 19:00
It's not certified sustainable. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 19:02
yeah. Cool. Well, we're
Oli Le Lievre 19:03
about a good luck with everything that's ahead. Thank you so much. We'll be following your journey. Hopefully you're back on stage next year and other events because I think what you add to the room from an energy and insights lens, but also from an agricultural ends is so important. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 19:15
I think. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1 19:17
We'll be buying tickets. Yeah. Fantastic. Thanks, Millie. Pump
Oli Le Lievre 19:21
up. What's your only loud like one sentence 40 style. Give her a pump up for the future. I can't you have to
Speaker 1 19:30
come on. We use my word energy. If you can bring your energy that you've brought on stage to your research your team in whatever environment you immerse yourself in then the world probably will be fed through aquaculture.
Unknown Speaker 19:42
No, thank you. Not a lot of approval from Olli. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 19:48
Thank you very much.
Oli Le Lievre 19:49
Thank you. Well, that's it for another episode from us here at humans of agriculture. We hope you're enjoying these podcasts and will if You know, let us know hit us up at Hello at humans of agriculture.com. Get in touch with any guests recommendations topics, or things you'd like us to talk and get curious about. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Right subscribe, review it. Any feedback is absolutely awesome and we really do welcome it. So look after yourselves. Stay safe, stay sane. We'll see you next time.
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