Dairy-based foods will increase in importance in human diets because of dairy’s role in meeting protein needs sustainably. Dairy enterprises will relocate to regions that have adequate rainfall or water resources and suitable climates. Technologies that will be used have emerged conceptually at basic scientific levels. Dairy enterprises will use laterally-integrated systems comprising physically-separated facilities for pre-weaned heifers, replacement heifers, early dry cows, transition cows, milk cows and dairy beef. Each unit will be managed as if it were a superorganism. Scale of dairy enterprises will increase and manual labor will decrease through automation, robotics and sensors. Resources will be harvested from manure and reused. Perennial crops, including perennial maize and high-starch energy grasses, will replace annual maize as major feed sources. Dairy enterprises will be subjected to more regulations and will put greater emphasis on sustainable agro-ecological systems. Milk output will be contracted with processors and manufacturers, and milk will be separated automatically into pools at farms according to processing characteristics. Dairy cows worldwide will be gene-based rather than breed-based and will comprise genes that have been edited, synthesized or transferred. Cows will be smaller and healthier and selected for their environmental region. Milk yield will exceed 25,000 kg per cow per year in North America. Genetic introductions into herds will move from semen to embryos. Developmental programming and precision management will be used to regulate epigenetic and other gene-regulatory processes to control traits expressed in cattle weeks to years later. Microbiomes of cattle, crops and farmsteads will be manipulated strategically and a herd’s genomic profiles will include genes of its cows and their microbiomes. Dairy beef with lower GHG footprints will grow in importance as proportion of dairy cows delivering male calves increases.