My intial assumption was that fewer people eating meat means lower prices because of a larger supply for lower demand. But of course it might mean fewers ranchers and companies investing in livestock in the first place because fewer expect to make a profit on it. What’s the market analysis say to anyone familiar with it?
I’m the US at least, animal agriculture is heavily subsidized, so consumers don’t see what it actually costs. Supply/demand economics everyone learned in school rarely applied amidst the chicanery rampant everywhere.
Ice@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
Compared to the massive increase of meat consumption in the population-dense developing world & other major influences on price such as improvements in the efficiency of meat production, the impact of the veg-movement is nigh negligible.
The price impact is rather on the side of restaurants & grocery chains in their logistics, now requiring a more diverse offering to be able to serve both the traditional clientele and veg-customers. Spreading the same demand over a larger range of products leads to a lower per-item throughput. Hence slightly lower efficiency, more waste & more overhead, which leads to marginally increased food prices overall in western countries.