A shift to plant-based diets in Europe could hit livestock farmers hard. According to the study “Stranded assets in European agriculture during food system transformations” enormous assets are at risk. Even moderate changes – such as a reduction in meat and milk consumption by around a tenth – could reduce the value of agricultural assets in the EU and the UK by tens of billions of dollars. With investments of this kind, there is a risk that they will become “stranded assets”, i.e. they will lose value faster than expected or become worthless.

According to the study, almost four-fifths of all agricultural fixed assets in the EU and the UK are linked to the livestock sector. Around €158 billion is directly linked to animal husbandry, with a further €100 billion linked to animal feed production. A 9.5% decline in meat and milk consumption would render almost one-fifth of agricultural assets worthless, putting €61 billion at risk. A 60% reduction would render half of these assets, worth £168 billion, useless. And a complete switch to plant-based diets would ultimately render £255 billion in agricultural capital economically redundant, the researchers calculated.

Photo: Arla Foods