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.

  • arc@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I donā€™t see why dairy should be subsidized but some plant milks arenā€™t exactly environmentally friendly either. The best can be said is theyā€™re better than dairy, assuming the same land could be used for both. But they can be devastating in their own right. E.g. to grow 1 almond (i.e. one kernel) takes over 3 gallons of water. Other crops used to make milk like oats have lower water consumption.

    • runlikellama@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      The almond example is frequently brought up, but this is still half of what dairy milk requires, without taking into account the difference in land use too

      • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        the sources of the water are vastly different though. the totals for dairy milk include the rainwater that grows the grass but otherwise is inaccessible to humans. the almonds, by contrast, are irrigated. not to mention the potable water that goes directly into the final product.

        • runlikellama@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          They can be, in NZ there are is a huge amount of land that has been converted to dairy through massive irrigation schemes which has caused massive problems for the rivers that flow naturally through these placesā€¦ I imagine there are other places in the world used for dairy that wouldnā€™t be suitable if not for irrigation?

      • arc@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Like I said better than dairy but still awful. Moreso because almonds are grown in places like California where water is being depleted.

    • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Hereā€™s why dairy should be subsidized. Because all farms should be subsidized. Most of our food production needs to be subsidized to prevent bad economic shifts creating financial hardships that sink farms and lead to a food shortfall.

      I mean, hereā€™s a microcosm for you. Some seafood verticals had price swings recently, and when the swings hit bottom, it was actually cheaper to keep the boat in port than go out for a trip. If the swings remained or kept going down, it would have tanked some of the smaller fishing companies. So when that swing would end, the shortage of production would have the opposite effect - dramatically higher fish prices. Yes, thatā€™ll get people back into the industryā€¦ bigger businesses that will carefully milk the increased prices instead of simply increasing food availability.

      Now, the way dairy and and beef farms are subsidized is a problem right now. Even most farmers are against it. Most dairy farms donā€™t get a penny (and in fact, PAY IN. Iā€™m not kidding), while the larger factory farms get their feed fully paid for and large scale production subsidized.

      That does mean youā€™re probably not actually seeing a penny of price savings from the subsidies. People tend to forget that when blaming subsidies in the price of milk vs plant-milk.

    • QuaffPotions@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The environmental problems of growing plants isnā€™t because of the individual plants, itā€™s because the farming practices used are bad (conventional industrial ag, synthetic fertilizers, monoculture, etc). In a well designed polycultural system, almonds can have their place too. But there is no way to make animal ag sustainable, and since that has both deep ethical and health problems as well - why bother?