RethinnkX is an independent think tank that analyzes and forecasts the scope, speed, and scale of technology-driven disruption and its implications across society. Their recent report, 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, forecasts that by 2030 the dairy and cattle industries will have collapsed as animal-derived foods are replaced by modern equivalents that are higher quality and cost less than half as much to produce.
They opine that the industrial livestock industry is one of the oldest, largest, and most inefficient food-production systems in the world. By 2023 or 25, precision fermentation (PF), a process that enables the programming of micro-organisms to produce almost any complex organic molecule, will be efficient enough to produce proteins at 20% of today’s costs of traditional animal proteins.
RethinnkX projects that PF production systems have the potential to spur fast development and improvement of products that are ever cheaper and superior, more nutritious, healthier, better tasting, more convenient, and more varied. Competitors are expected to evolve to drive end-user prices down. The cost to produce modern foods and products are expected to be at least 50% and as much as 80% lower than the animal products they replace, which will translate into substantially lower prices.
So…there you have it. No more leather.