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GTAP Resources: Resource Display

GTAP Resource #7422

"Hype or Accelerator of Sustainable Dietary Transformation? Evaluating Global Land Use and Spillovers of Diet Shifts from Animal Products to Plant-Based Alternatives."
by Espey, Amelia and Franziska Schuenemann


Abstract
Processed plant-based alternatives (PBAs) could accelerate shifts toward plant-based diets. Although PBAs tend to perform well relative to meat products with respect to GHG emissions and other environmental indicators, intensive processing can lead to resource requirements to approach animal-based foods. Despite growing interest in PBAs, limited research exists on the economic and environmental implications of diet transitions towards these products, particularly regarding the processing technologies inherent to PBAs and their impact on resource demands. This study investigates how the introduction of processing technologies for PBAs and diet shifts from meat towards these products influences the market-mitigated price effects on agriculture, energy, factor, land use, non-agricultural markets, and GHG emissions.

We adopt the GTAP v.10 database and use the recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, GTAP-RDEM, to represent value chains for PBAs and livestock. We increase sector resolution to capture primary raw materials used in the PBA and livestock sectors and plant-protein extraction technologies for soy, starch-based legumes, and wheat. These proteins are intermediate inputs into a representative plant-based meat analog. We simulate diet change scenarios in high and upper-middle-income countries by 2040 with preference changes substituting animal-based foods with PBAs. The reallocation of feedstocks from feed concentrate to plant-based alternatives results in a decline in agricultural production, partially offset by feedback effects that increase final food consumption. Falling land prices drive agriculture extensification and removal of land from production. Diet transitions towards PBAs have the potential to reduce pressure on land and for emissions savings within agriculture. However, the high energy inputs from intensive processing reduce the environmental benefits of these products.




Resource Details (Export Citation) GTAP Keywords
Category: 2025 Conference Paper
Status: Not published
By/In: Presented during the 28th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis (Kigali, Rwanda)
Date: 2025
Version:
Created: Espey, A. (3/28/2025)
Updated: Espey, A. (4/15/2025)
Visits: 75
- Climate change policy
- Climate impacts
- Land use
- GTAP Data Base and extensions
- Other data bases and data issues
- Global


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