(Note that I’ve replaced that exact sentence with a new paragraph about plant-based and conventional meat production volumes in response to a comment from Stefan.)
Thanks!
The production volumes were not chosen as a comparison to plant-based meat. It was more that we started with an upper target we thought would be meaningful (arriving at the >50M metric tons in 2051) and then wanted to add an intermediate time prediction. >1M metric tons we thought could indicate cultured meat was “on track” since it would have exceeded mere startup volume, and then the >100,000 and >10M were simply picking one order of magnitude up and down to increase the range of estimates. We didn’t choose lower volumes such as 10,000 mostly to not overload the forecasters since there were already 29 questions.
I agree that animal advocates should care whether or not alternative protein production is actually replacing/displacing conventional meat production (to reduce numbers of animals farmed). I do not know of any questions directly asking about this. The closest might be the Metaculus questions asking “How many commercial cattle, in millions, will be slaughtered in the U.S. in 20XX if the lowest retail price of clean meat in 20YY is less than $Z per kg?” (here, here, here) (which fwiw, only suggested the number of cows in 2032 would drop (by 8M) if cultured meat was <$8/kg in 2026). We didn’t develop replacement/displacement questions here since pure production volume was a “cleaner” question in that it didn’t require forecasters to also develop models of meat substitution. To use forecasting for this purpose, I personally would be more interested in taking pre-registered studies aiming to test if people are buying & eating cultured meat instead of conventional meat and having forecasts of what the results of that study will be. (Versions of these studies (Lusk et al 2021, Piernas et al 2021, Tonsor & Lusk, 2021, Zhou et al 2021, Malan 2020, Lusk et al 2019))
(Note that I’ve replaced that exact sentence with a new paragraph about plant-based and conventional meat production volumes in response to a comment from Stefan.)
Thanks!
The production volumes were not chosen as a comparison to plant-based meat. It was more that we started with an upper target we thought would be meaningful (arriving at the >50M metric tons in 2051) and then wanted to add an intermediate time prediction. >1M metric tons we thought could indicate cultured meat was “on track” since it would have exceeded mere startup volume, and then the >100,000 and >10M were simply picking one order of magnitude up and down to increase the range of estimates. We didn’t choose lower volumes such as 10,000 mostly to not overload the forecasters since there were already 29 questions.
I agree that animal advocates should care whether or not alternative protein production is actually replacing/displacing conventional meat production (to reduce numbers of animals farmed). I do not know of any questions directly asking about this. The closest might be the Metaculus questions asking “How many commercial cattle, in millions, will be slaughtered in the U.S. in 20XX if the lowest retail price of clean meat in 20YY is less than $Z per kg?” (here, here, here) (which fwiw, only suggested the number of cows in 2032 would drop (by 8M) if cultured meat was <$8/kg in 2026). We didn’t develop replacement/displacement questions here since pure production volume was a “cleaner” question in that it didn’t require forecasters to also develop models of meat substitution. To use forecasting for this purpose, I personally would be more interested in taking pre-registered studies aiming to test if people are buying & eating cultured meat instead of conventional meat and having forecasts of what the results of that study will be. (Versions of these studies (Lusk et al 2021, Piernas et al 2021, Tonsor & Lusk, 2021, Zhou et al 2021, Malan 2020, Lusk et al 2019))