Like an estimated two-thirds of the worldā€™s population, I donā€™t digest lactose well, which makes the occasional latte an especially pricey proposition. So it was a pleasant surprise when, shortly after moving to San Francisco, I ordered a drink at Blue Bottle Coffee and didnā€™t have to askā€”or pay extraā€”for a milk alternative. Since 2022, the once Oakland-based, now NestlĆ©-owned cafe chain has defaulted to oat milk, both to cut carbon emissions and because lots of its affluent-tending customers were already choosing it as their go-to.

Plant-based milks, a multibillion-dollar global market, arenā€™t just good for the lactose intolerant: Theyā€™re also better for the climate. Dairy cows belch a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide; they contribute at least 7 percent of US methane output, the equivalent emissions of 10 million cars. Cattle need a lot of room to graze, too: Plant-based milks use about a tenth as much land to produce the same quantity of milk. And it takes almost a thousand gallons of water to manufacture a gallon of dairy milkā€”four times the water cost of alt-milk from oats or soy.

But if climate concerns push us toward the alt-milk aisle, dairy still has price on its side. Even though plant-based milks are generally much less resource-intensive, theyā€™re often more expensive. Walk into any Starbucks, and youā€™ll likely pay around 70 cents extra for nondairy options.

. Dairyā€™s affordability edge, explains MarĆ­a Mascaraque, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International, relies on the industryā€™s ability to produce ā€œat larger volumes, which drives down the cost per carton.ā€ American demand for milk alternatives, though expected to grow by 10 percent a year through 2030, canā€™t beat those economies of scale. (Globally, alt-milks arenā€™t new on the sceneā€”coconut milk is even mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata, which is thousands of years old.)

What else contributes to cow milkā€™s dominance? Dairy farmers are ā€œpolitical favorites,ā€ says Daniel Sumner, a University of California, Davis, agricultural economist. In addition to support like the ā€œDairy Checkoff,ā€ a joint government-industry program to promote milk products (including the ā€œGot Milk?ā€ campaign), theyā€™ve long raked in direct subsidies currently worth around $1 billion a year.

Big Milk fights hard to maintain those benefits, spending more than $7 million a year on lobbying. That might help explain why the US Department of Agriculture has talked around the climate virtues of meat and dairy alternatives, refusing to factor sustainability into its dietary guidelinesā€”and why it has featured content, such as a 2013 article by thenā€“Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, trumpeting the dairy industry as ā€œleading the way in sustainable innovation.ā€

But the USDA doesnā€™t directly support plant-based milk. It does subsidize some alt-milk ingredientsā€”soybean producers, like dairy, net close to $1 billion a year on average, but that crop largely goes to feeding meat- and dairy-producing livestock and extracting oil. A 2021 report by industry analysts Mintec Limited and Frost Procurement Adventurer also notes that, while the inputs for dairy (such as cattle feed) for dairy are a little more expensive than typical plant-milk ingredients, plant alternatives face higher manufacturing costs. Alt-milk makers, Sumner says, may also have thinner profit margins: Their ā€œstrategy for growth is advertisement and promotion and publicity,ā€ which isnā€™t cheap.

Starbucks, though, does benefit from economies of scale. In Europe, the company is slowly dropping premiums for alt-milks, a move it attributes to wanting to lower corporate emissions. ā€œMarket-level conditions allow us to move more quicklyā€ than other companies, a spokesperson for the coffee giant told me, but didnā€™t say if or when the price drop would happen elsewhere.

In the United States, meanwhile, itā€™s a waiting game to see whether the government or corporations drive down alt-milk costs. Currently, Sumner says, plant-based milk producers operate under an assumption that ā€œprice isnā€™t the main thingā€ for their buyersā€”as long as enough privileged consumers will pay up, alt-milk can fill a premium niche. But itā€™s going to take a bigger market than that to make real progress in curbing emissions from food.

  • DarthFrodo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    in order to extract that much oil, we must press about 85% of the global crop of soybeans. the vast majority if the soy fed to livestock is the industrial waste from that process.

    Iā€™ve already told you that we can produce plant-based meat or soy protein for other uses from that, which you conceded, and you still call it ā€œindustrial wasteā€. Why are you knowingly spreading misinformation?

    • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      not only can we do that: we DO that. but there frankly isnā€™t enough human use for that, so it would be wasted if we didnā€™t feed it to animals.

      • DarthFrodo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If the rest of the plant would be wasted, it would be more economical to just grow another plant thatā€™s more efficient for oil production (canola, sunflower), not soybeans which are incidentally the crop highest in protein.

        https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/area-per-tonne-oil

        Itā€™s not grown in such quantities because itā€™s essential but simply because thereā€™s demand for the extra protein from factory farms right now.

        • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          soybeans are grown for nutrient fixation in rotation with corn. theyā€™re more of a soil crop than an oil crop.

            • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              Among the cereals, the most prominent as a source of energy is corn. Between 70% and 80% of its production is used as a feed ingredient worldwide.

              this can be true while, at the same time, soybean oilā€™s byproduct is soy meal that would be wasted if it werenā€™t fed to animals.

            • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              ā€œWe need animal agriculture because we need to grow the feed plants to grow more feed plants for animal agricultureā€

              this phrase never appears in your source or anywhere else in this thread. what are you quoting?

              • DarthFrodo@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Itā€™s your argument put in another way

                soybeans are grown for nutrient fixation in rotation with corn. theyā€™re more of a soil crop than an oil crop.

            • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              if you donā€™t know what crop rotation is, you donā€™t belong in any discussion about agriculture.

    • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Why are you knowingly spreading misinformation?

      i am doing no such thing. iā€™m simply pointing out your lies.