The growth of soy, oat, and almond beverage products is creating additional markets for various crop sectors, while challenging the dairy cattle industry to reduce emissions and improve production efficiency. However, in terms of nutrition and environmental impact, plant-based milks cannot all be equated with cow's milk.
The plant-based beverage market and the dairy industry
Demand for plant-based beverages and raw material production areas
Demand for plant-based beverages is increasing in many markets, driving the expansion of raw material production areas for soybeans, oats, almonds, and several other nuts. However, the benefits of this product group depend heavily on the type of ingredients, farming methods, and processing techniques. According to the South China Morning Post, natural cow's milk provides easily digestible protein, calcium, vitamins, and iodine. In contrast, many plant-based beverages only achieve significant levels of these micronutrients when fortified during processing. A study analyzing 399 products in Europe also showed that protein content and protein quality in cow's milk were higher than in plant-based products, while about 50% of conventional plant-based beverages were fortified with calcium.
Notably, being organic does not necessarily equate to nutritional equivalence with cow's milk. Organic plant-based products are often less fortified with micronutrients. This indicates that the development of organic raw material regions must go hand in hand with appropriate processing technology and nutritional standards, rather than relying solely on the organic label to gain a market advantage.
From an agricultural perspective, the major advantage of plant-based ingredients lies in their ability to reduce environmental pressure compared to dairy farming. A review of life-cycle assessment studies shows that cow's milk generally produces higher greenhouse gas emissions than many plant-based alternatives. However, significant differences also exist among different crops.
Almonds can have a high water footprint, whereas soybeans generally have an advantage in land and water use. A 2026 study estimated emissions of about 0.99 to 1.08 kg of CO2 equivalent per liter of cow's milk, compared with about 0.51 to 0.52 kg for soy beverages and 0.38 kg for oat beverages in the systems studied.
These results open up opportunities for crop agriculture to develop raw material zones serving the high-value-added food industry. However, sustainable efficiency depends on crop yields, water use, fertilizers, transportation, and processing. Therefore, partially replacing cow's milk with plant-based alternatives is not just a consumer preference trend, but directly affects agricultural production structures and future food value chains.
Source: VOAA
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