India’s average annual per-capita protein consumption is set to more than triple by 2070, rising from 9.5 kilogrammes in 2025 to 30 kg, as rising incomes, urbanisation, population growth and changing dietary preferences reshape the country’s food system, according to a new report.
But India’s protein transition is unlikely to resemble the meat-reduction debates playing out in Europe and the United States, as the country is starting from a fundamentally different point: its animal agriculture is still largely smallholder-run rather than industrial, and its future protein demand is expected to remain anchored in dairy and pulses, alongside significant growth in eggs, poultry and seafood, while red meat plays only a minor role.
The report, Charting India's Protein Transition, was released on September 8, 2026 by Asia Research & Engagement (ARE), a Singapore-based organisation working on energy and protein transition, in partnership with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
Yet that lower-intensity starting point does not mean India’s protein system is without climate risk.
The report models what this tripling of demand could mean for emissions if current production and consumption patterns continue largely unchanged, and finds that the scale of the increase, even from a modest base, carries significant consequences for India’s climate trajectory.
Drawing on parameters from the Science Based Targets Initiative’s (SBTi) Food, Land and Agriculture Guidance (2022), the analysis explores how different pathways affect emissions, resilience and protein security.
India’s food system is both increasingly exposed to climate-related pressures and a significant driver of them. The report pointed out that agriculture already accounts for around 14 per cent of India’s greenhouse gas emissions, with livestock responsible for more than half of that share. If demand rises unabated, the report projects annual emissions from India’s protein system would reach 1.92 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2070 under a business-as-usual pathway (BAU) — more than seven times the report’s estimated climate-safe threshold of 0.25 gigatonnes, and equivalent to nearly two-thirds of India’s current total annual energy-related emissions.
The climate-safe threshold itself is defined in the report as the annual emissions level India’s food system would need to stay within to remain compatible with a 1.5°C-aligned global carbon budget.
Through 2070, this pathway would generate approximately 44.55 gigatonnes of cumulative excess emissions above that threshold, equivalent to about 16 years of India’s energy-related CO2 emissions (at 2023 levels), the authors of the report noted.
“This underscores the scale of the long-term climate risk embedded in current consumption and production trends,” they said.
Much of this projected emissions growth is driven by the continued dominance of dairy, the report finds. While consumption of low-emitting pulses is also expected to rise sharply, those gains would be outweighed by the scale of growth in emissions-intensive dairy production, which the report identifies as the single largest driver of India’s protein footprint through 2070.
BAU total protein emissions trajectory by category (2025-2070)
Dairy is already India’s biggest source of animal protein and is projected to account for the largest share of future protein growth: protein consumption from milk alone is expected to rise from under 5 million tonnes in 2025 to 13.3 million tonnes by 2070, far outpacing poultry, eggs or seafood.
On a per-capita basis, milk protein consumption is projected to climb from 1.63 kg in 1990 to 13.1 kg by 2070 — pushing well past the moderate dairy intake benchmarks recommended under the EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet.
While pulses will become the second-largest protein category, increasing substantially from 2.61 kg to 9.12 kg per capita, the report said India’s future protein system is likely to remain heavily shaped by dairy regardless.
That poses a distinct challenge, because unlike many highly industrialised dairy systems, India’s dairy remains predominantly smallholder-supplied.
India produces approximately 248 million tonnes of milk annually — more than any other country — but most of it comes from households that own just two to three animals, the report said.
The sector’s central challenges, it notes, are therefore not only emissions and methane intensity but also low productivity, feed deficits, animal health and welfare constraints, and fragmented aggregation systems.
India’s dairy sector has already expanded output significantly without relying solely on herd growth: Milk production rose 63.6 per cent over the decade to 2024, from 146.3 million tonnes in 2014-15 to 239.3 million tonnes in 2023-24, while bovine productivity increased 27.4 per cent between 2014 and 2022 — among the fastest such gains globally.
“The challenge ahead is not simply producing more milk; it is improving productivity, resilience, water, and emissions efficiency without undermining rural livelihoods,” the report said.
Beyond dairy, the report projects seafood-derived protein consumption to grow nearly five-fold, from 0.6 million tonnes of protein equivalent in 2025 to 2.9 million tonnes by 2070 — modest in absolute terms but one of the faster growth rates among India’s protein categories.
The sector spans inland aquaculture, marine fisheries, shrimp exports and local fish markets, each shaped by different economic and environmental pressures.
India’s total fish production has more than doubled over the past decade, from 9.6 million tonnes in 2013-14 to 19.5 million tonnes in 2024-25, while seafood exports — driven largely by shrimp — reached roughly $7.3 billion in 2024-25.
Further, the report finds eggs and poultry represent some of India’s fastest-growing protein categories, though from a much smaller base. Egg consumption is projected to rise to 25.7 million tonnes by 2070 and poultry to 16.2 million tonnes, pushing per-capita protein from these sources to 1.85 kg and 1.79 kg respectively — figures the report said remain broadly within the moderate intake ranges recommended by the EAT-Lancet Commission's Planetary Health Diet.
Unlike dairy, however, egg and poultry production is already far more commercially concentrated and vertically integrated, while backyard systems contribute a far smaller share.
The report’s strongest results come from what it calls an integrated pathway, where efficiency gains across dairy, poultry and seafood systems occur alongside greater uptake of pulses, traditional plant proteins and emerging alternatives.
Under this scenario, annual emissions fall to 0.30 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2070 -- still above the estimated climate-safe threshold of 0.25 gigatonnes, but it narrows the gap, reducing cumulative excess emissions through 2070 to 8.37 gigatonnes.
But the report cautions that this transition must also be just. Dairy remains smallholder-led, while poultry and fisheries rely on contracted or fragmented producer networks, meaning many transition costs could be pushed upstream onto farmers, contract growers and small and medium enterprises.
“Without financing targeted at smallholders, procurement reform, and stronger producer support systems, sustainability requirements risk becoming another cost pushed upstream onto farmers and MSMEs. A resilient protein transition will therefore require not only technological improvements but mechanisms that ensure the process is just: consultation, costs, re-skilling, incentives, access and benefits distributed equitably across the value chain,” it said.
To close the gap left by production efficiency alone, the report also calls for a demand diversification pathway, in which alternative proteins substitute a rising share of conventional animal protein — roughly 10 per cent by 2035, growing to 35 per cent by 2070 — while traditional plant proteins continue growing along their existing trajectory.
That combination, building on the production-mitigation scenario, brings annual emissions down further to 0.50 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2070, with cumulative excess emissions falling to 12.90 gigatonnes.
Pulses do much of the work in this scenario, the report said, describing them as “India’s underleveraged advantage”, as they have relevance beyond direct household consumption.
“Protein-rich crops such as chickpea, pea, and lentil can be processed into concentrates, isolates, and other functional ingredients used in plant-based meat and dairy and egg alternatives,” it said, adding that this is a trajectory built on a food source already deeply embedded in Indian diets, unlike the newer plant-based and cultivated proteins many Western transition plans depend on.
Currently India imports around 90 per cent of its plant-protein isolates and concentrates, according to Ministry of Food Processing Industries data cited in the report, because domestic extraction and processing capacity has not kept pace with raw production.