Rethinking Food and Agriculture 2020-2030: The Second Domestication of Plants and Animals, the Disruption of the Cow, and the Collapse of Industrial Livestock Farming

Abstract

W e are on the cusp of the deepest, fastest, most consequential disruption in food and agricultural production since the first domestication of plants and animals ten thousand years ago. This is primarily a protein disruption driven by economics. The cost of proteins will be five times cheaper by 2030 and 10 times cheaper by 2035 than existing animal proteins, before ultimately approaching the cost of sugar. They will also be superior in every key attribute-more nutritious, healthier, better tasting, and more convenient, with almost unimaginable variety. This means that, by 2030, modern food products will be higher quality and cost less than half as much to produce as the animal-derived products they replace.The impact of this disruption on industrial animal farming will be profound. By 2030, the number of cows in the US will have fallen by 50% and the cattle farming industry will be all but bankrupt. All other livestock industries will suffer a similar fate, while the knock-on effects for crop farmers and businesses throughout the value chain will be severe. This is the result of rapid advances in precision biology that have allowed us to make huge strides in precision fermentation (PF), a process that allows us to program microorganisms to produce almost any complex organic molecule. These advances are now being combined with an entirely new model of production we call Food-as-Software, in which individual molecules engineered by scientists are uploaded to databasesmolecular cookbooks that food engineers anywhere in the world can use to design products in the same way that software developers design apps. This model ensures constant iteration so that products improve rapidly, with each version superior and cheaper than the last. 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.This rapid improvement is in stark contrast to the industrial livestock production model, which has all but reached its limits in terms of scale, reach, and efficiency. As the most inefficient and economically vulnerable part of this system, cow products will be the first to feel the full force of modern food's disruptive power. Modern alternatives 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. 1,2 They will also produce an order of magnitude less waste.Modern foods have already started disrupting the ground meat market, but once cost parity is reached, we believe in 2021-23, adoption will tip and accelerate exponentially. The disruption will play out in a number of ways and does not rely solely on the direct, one-for-one substitution of end products. In some markets, only a small percentage of the ingredients need to be replaced for an entire product to be disrupted. The whole of the cow milk industry, for example, will start to collapse once modern food technologies have replaced the p...

Thermodynamic Constraints on Electromicrobial Protein Production

“…The cost of autotrophic protein production is dropping rapidly. The cost of production of a single protein has reduced from $1 × 10 6 kg −1 in 2000 to ≈ $100 kg −1 in 2019 ( Tubb and Seba, 2021 ). It is projected that the cost of production of a single protein could drop to below $10 kg −1 by 2025, thereby achieving price parity with animal-based protein products ( Tubb and Seba, 2021 ).…”

Thermodynamic Constraints on Electromicrobial Protein Production

“…The cost of autotrophic protein production is dropping rapidly. The cost of production of a single protein has reduced from $1 × 10 6 kg -1 in 2000 to ≈ $100 kg -1 in 2019 24 . It is projected that the cost of production of a single protein could drop to below $10 kg -1 by 2025, thereby achieving price parity with animal-based protein products 24 .…”

Food system resilience thinking: from digital to integral

“…Yet, animal‐based food products provide livelihoods for millions of people, providing essential protein and micronutrients to the world's poor, and are key in reducing stunting and wasting around the world 25 . For this reason, the production of animal protein for human consumption is under rethinking, which will lead to a radical reconfiguration 26 …”

“…25 For this reason, the production of animal protein for human consumption is under rethinking, which will lead to a radical reconfiguration. 26 Another way of rethinking the diet is the use of unicellular proteins 27 (such as yeast, microalgae, 28 or bacteria) and insects. 29 These new protein sources are also increasingly positioning themselves as new protein sources for food owing to their generally high protein content and favorable amino acid profiles.…”