{"id":1084,"date":"2024-01-15T08:36:32","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T08:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1084"},"modified":"2024-01-15T09:40:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T09:40:42","slug":"food_detail_6","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1084","title":{"rendered":"FOOD_DETAIL_6"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\">FOOD<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\">NOVEMBER+DECEMBER 2023 ISSUE<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Plant Milk Is Better for Us and the Climate. So Why Do We Subsidize Dairy?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Dairy milk is cheaper at the counter\u2014and your taxes keep it that way.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:15% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" src=\"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/PauleyMadison-2-web.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-930 size-full\"\/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<ul>\n<li>JULIA METRAUX<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fellow<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"321\" height=\"180\" src=\"http:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/486_COLUMNS_PLANT-MILK_2000.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-633\" style=\"width:760px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/486_COLUMNS_PLANT-MILK_2000.webp 321w, https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/486_COLUMNS_PLANT-MILK_2000-300x168.webp 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 321px) 100vw, 321px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Vito Ansaldi<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Like an estimated&nbsp;<\/strong>two-thirds of the world\u2019s population, I don\u2019t 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 didn\u2019t have to ask\u2014or pay extra\u2014for a milk alternative. Since 2022, the once Oakland-based, now Nestl\u00e9-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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plant-based milks, a\u00a0multibillion-dollar\u00a0global market, aren\u2019t just good for the lactose intolerant: They\u2019re 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 milk\u2014four times the water cost of alt-milk from oats or soy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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, they\u2019re often more expensive. Walk into any Starbucks, and you\u2019ll likely pay around 70 cents extra for nondairy options.Big Milk spends millions annually on lobbying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dairy\u2019s affordability edge, explains Mar\u00eda Mascaraque, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International, relies on the industry\u2019s ability to produce \u201cat larger volumes, which drives down the cost per carton.\u201d American demand for milk alternatives, though expected to grow by 10 percent a year through 2030, can\u2019t beat those economies of scale. (Globally, alt-milks aren\u2019t new on the scene\u2014coconut milk is even mentioned in the Sanskrit epic&nbsp;<em>Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata<\/em>, which is thousands of years old.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What else contributes to cow milk\u2019s dominance? Dairy farmers are \u201cpolitical favorites,\u201d says Daniel Sumner, a University of California, Davis, agricultural economist. In addition to support like the \u201cDairy Checkoff,\u201d a joint government-industry program to promote milk products (including the \u201cGot Milk?\u201d campaign), they\u2019ve long raked in direct subsidies currently worth around $1 billion a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Big Milk fights hard to maintain those benefits, spending\u00a0more than $7 million\u00a0a 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 guidelines\u2014and why it has featured content, such as a 2013 article by then\u2013Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, trumpeting the dairy industry as \u201cleading the way in sustainable innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the USDA doesn\u2019t directly support plant-based milk. It does subsidize some alt-milk ingredients\u2014soybean 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\u00a0report\u00a0by 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 \u201cstrategy for growth is advertisement and promotion and publicity,\u201d which isn\u2019t cheap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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. \u201cMarket-level conditions allow us to move more quickly\u201d than other companies, a spokesperson for the coffee giant told me, but didn\u2019t say if or when the price drop would happen elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the United States, meanwhile, it\u2019s 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 \u201cprice isn\u2019t the main thing\u201d for their buyers\u2014as long as enough privileged consumers will pay up, alt-milk can fill a premium niche. But it\u2019s going to take a bigger market than that to make real progress in curbing emissions from food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Plant Milk Is Better for Us and the Climate. So Why Do We Subsidize Dairy? Like an estimated&nbsp;two-thirds of the world\u2019s population, I don\u2019t 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&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/?page_id=1084\" class=\"\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">FOOD_DETAIL_6<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":370,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"on","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":"","footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1084"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1084\/revisions\/1118"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aiecasia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}