The beef and dairy industries will collapse by the year 2030 due to improved methods of producing meat and milk products more cheaply in laboratories, independent think tank RethinkX predicted.

The think tank analyzes technology-driven disruption. It said more food will be manufactured more cheaply in laboratories due to “rapid advances in precision biology that have allowed us to make huge strides in precision fermentation, a process that allows us to program microorganisms to produce almost any complex organic molecule.”

Essentially, foods will be engineered by scientists at the molecular level and then uploaded to databases to be accessed by food designers around the globe.

“Due to rapid improvements in underlying biological and information technologies, the cost of precision fermentation development and production is dropping exponentially – from $1 million per kilo in 2000 to about $100 today. Assuming existing technologies and using well-established cost curves, the report projects that these costs will fall to $10 per kilo by 2023-25, and that these proteins will be five times cheaper than traditional animal proteins by 2030 and 10 times cheaper by 2035.” ​

These developments, RethinkX noted, are now being combined with a new model of production called “Food-as-Software.”

“This model ensures constant iteration so that products improve rapidly, with each version superior and cheaper than the last,” the report said. “It also ensures a production system that is completely decentralized and much more stable and resilient than industrial animal agriculture, with fermentation farms located in or close to towns and cities.”

By 2030, demand for cow products, including milk and beef, will have dropped by 70%. As a result, RethinkX projected, the cattle farming industry will be nearly bankrupt by then. By 2035, demand for such products will have plunged by 80% to 90%. Other livestock markets such as chicken, pig, and fish will share similar fates.

The demand for other cow products such as leather and collagen will likely drop by more than 90% by 2030.

The volume of crops that is needed to feed cattle in the U.S. will drop by 50%, from 155 million tons in 2018 to 80 million tons in 2030. Also the value of farmlands will collapse by 40% to 80%, depending on location and size.

These modern alternatives in food production will be up to 100 times more land-efficient, 10-25 times more feedstock-efficient, 20 times more time-efficient, and 10 times more water efficient, RethinkX indicated.

“Product after product that we extract from the cow will be replaced by superior, cheaper, modern alternatives, triggering a death spiral of increasing prices, decreasing demand, and reversing economies of scale for the industrial cattle farming industry, which will collapse long before we see modern technologies produce the perfect, cellular steak,” the report said.

RethinkX estimated that industries currently engaged in rearing and processing animals will suffer losses of at least $100 billion.

By 2035, about 60% of the land that is presently used for livestock and feed production (representing one-quarter of the continental U.S.) will be freed for other uses.

Food engineered by software will also generate benefits to the environment -- with net greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture-livestock sector falling by 45% by 2030. It will also alleviate such problems as deforestation, species extinction, and aquatic pollution from animal waste.

Looking at the consumers bottom line, the average U.S. family will save more than $1,200 a year in food costs by 2030.

Also, more than half of the demand for oil from the U.S. agriculture industry – which currently runs at about 150 million barrels of oil equivalent a year – will disappear.

The report highlighted that while some things will be lost by this food transition, other opportunities will arise in its place. For example, RethinkX projects that one half of the approximate 1.2 million jobs in U.S. beef and dairy production related industries will be lost by 2030; with 90% gone by 2035. However, the newly emerging precision fermentation industry will create at least 700,000 jobs in the U.S. by 2030 and up to 1 million jobs by 2035.

RethinkX added the new production system will “be shielded from volume and price volatility due to the vagaries of seasonality, weather, drought, disease and other natural, economic, and political factors. Geography will no longer offer any competitive advantage. We will move from a centralized system dependent on scarce resources to a distributed system based on abundant resources."

However, some are skeptical about RethinkX’s projections.

The National Milk Producers Federation criticized the report, calling it a "vegan fantasyland.” ​

"This report would have you believe that in 11 short years we will be living in 'The Jetsons,' with consumers massively adopting industrially developed, untested food-like products on their way to vegan fantasyland,” the federation said. “In reality, U.S. dairy is part of the sustainability solution: our greenhouse-gas emissions have fallen in absolute terms since 2005, and we are committed to further reductions.” ​

Liz Specht wrote in a blog for The Good Food Institute, which promotes plant-based eating and clean foods, that such dramatic changes are unlikely to occur in just 11 years. She raises such factors as the necessity of a massive new production infrastructure, questions of consumer acceptance, and political support for incumbent industries.

“This transition is far from inevitable,” she wrote. “Scaling and market penetration in the agriculture industry don’t happen overnight in the same way as new electronics or healthcare technologies, if for no other reason than the massive size of the industry and the need for substantial physical infrastructure to produce the required volumes of product throughout the value chain.”

Jack Bobo, head of Futurity, a food and technology consulting firm, told FoodNavigator-USA that it was “incredibly unlikely that this ​ will happen in the timeframe they describe.” ​

“Not even the companies in this space are suggesting they can scale at that speed," he added. ​

Currently, only one dairy company, Perfect Day, has been able to create a product from proteins fermented in a laboratory (i.e., making milk without the need for cows).

Some other companies are also trying to ferment animal protein products, but have yet to bring any to market. A number of other firms, Memphis Meats, Just, Shiok Meats and Aleph Farms have made small amounts of meat in the lab, but not enough to bring to market.

The U.S. dairy industry is already in decline due to lackluster milk prices and stunted profitability. From 2017 to 2018 alone, 6.5 percent of U.S. dairy farms went out of business, U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics show.

Eating beef and raising cattle have been closely linked to global warming. Domesticated cows and buffalo produce about 5 billion tons of carbon-equivalent emissions each year, about one-seventh of all fossil-fuel emissions. Western nations have to cut beef consumption by about 90% to avert disastrous climate change.

Meanwhile, Americans are eating less beef. Even though the U.S. population has climbed about 40% since the 1980s, beef consumption was up only 15%.

In Europe, beef production in 2017 was 26% below peak figures in 1991; in Russia, it plunged 55% from a 1992 peak. Production in Canada and Argentina in 2017 dropped 41% and 16%, respectively, from peaks in the mid-2000s.

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