We can survive thanks to vegetarians

You may have lots of reasons to be a vegetarian (and lots of reasons not to be), but anyway this post is not about the reasons why someone decides to become vegetarian, but the reasons why thousands of people are “forced vegetarians” –in short, those people whose diet has no (or very few) proteins of animal origin because they cannot afford meat.
Meat production is much more expensive (in terms of money and surface) than vegetable and cereal production, because animals are fed with large amounts of vegetables for each kilo of eatable meat. Therefore, as we are no longer a hunter-gatherer society, eating meat is a luxury that not everybody can afford.
In 2002, FAO announced that the current food production rate would cover all the needs of the world’s population and there would be even 10% surplus, but there must be something wrong because a large amount of the world’s population is starving. And this is so because a large amount of food production is meant for other purposes, like biofuels or animal feed.
Our diet in Western countries is very rich in meat and non-basic food, thus requiring wide extensions of arable land. To be precise, a non-vegetarian Western diet needs 4,000 square metres of arable land per capita. On the other hand, a vegetarian diet based on intensive farming needs about 700 or 800 square metres of arable land per capita. At present, most people cannot follow a “Western” diet and that’s why we can: if all the inhabitants of our planet needed 4,000 square metres of arable land per capita, just one planet would not be enough. Then, what would happen if hunger was over, poverty was reduced and the rest of non-Western people claimed our diet? It would simply be unsustainable.
Therefore, there are two choices left: either reducing our consumption or forcing the rest of the world to go on starving. The former is not such an extreme option and it does not involve giving up meat: FAO estimates that a balanced diet would be enough --that is, including 30% of proteins of animal origin (specially dairy products, egg, poultry and pork), fairly intensive farming and 2,500 kcal per capita (a little bit more than WHO recommendation) to feed 10 billion people without increasing the current extension of arable land. This type of diet only requires 1,500 square metres of arable land per capita: almost one third of the current Western consumption.
This is not such a radical change in our diet and it would improve the life conditions of millions of people. We cannot go on consuming such huge amounts of meat because it just does not add up. We can either gradually change our habits and our diet, or turn our back on this problem for a couple of more generations, but eventually we will be forced to react. As Gandhi used to say, live simply that other may simply live.

Sources:

1. FAO’s website: http://www.fao.org/
2. Delivering Data post about world hunger: http://www.deliveringdata.com/2010/11/how-much-money-is-needed-to-eradicate.html
3. WHO’s website: http://www.who.int/en/
4. Gandhi’s quotation:  http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/35236.html

Where do flowers come from?

Human beings have been fond of flowers for many thousand years, so that’s why in many cultures offering flowers is a token gesture. In Catalonia, for instance, on Saint George’s Day on 23 April, it is tradition to give a rose. Just on 23 April 2010, six million roses were sold in Catalonia. 
Where do all these roses come from? In the case of Saint George’s Day, 82% of the roses are imported mainly from Colombia, Ecuador and Kenya. And most likely, this percentage does not vary much in the other celebrations involving flowers.
We know that we live in a global world where raw materials from one country are transformed in another country which is at the other side of the planet to be eventually sold in a third country. But this process has a price and we are often not aware of it. Let’s take the example of Saint George’s roses to realise that being grown at the other side of the world has its drawbacks:
Environmental costs: Needless to say, moving flowers from one country to another involves some significant fuel waste, especially if we take into account that fresh roses are shipped by air. But also, as roses should be kept fresh and healthy throughout the trip, they are often treated with pesticides and agrochemicals which contaminate the waters and the soil where these flowers are grown.
Work exploitation: As freight expenses are so high, farmers and employers are exploited in dreadful work conditions so that the price of these flowers can be competitive in the market.
Drawback for local agriculture: Flower monoculture (or any single-crop farming) usually lays waste to the rest of local agriculture, which forces farmers to buy food instead of growing everything they need for themselves. Single-crop farming never releases farmers from their life of poverty, on the contrary.

Then, should we stop giving flowers? No way! We can give roses or any flower we like, but just make sure that they are grown by local farmers.

Sources:

1. Saint George’s day in Catalonia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George%27s_Day#Catalonia
2. On 23 April 2010, six million roses were sold: http://w3.bcn.es/V01/Serveis/Noticies/V01NoticiesLlistatNoticiesCtl/0,2138,1653_35144087_3_806752598,00.html?accio=detall&home=HomeBCN&nomtipusMCM=Noticia
3. Article by Vets without Borders about Saint George’s roses (in Spanish): http://www.veterinariossinfronteras.org/news/2010/04/22/0002

Canned dolphins

Tuna is one of the most consumed fish around the world, especially when it is canned. Just in United Kingdom in 2006, 700 million tuna tins were consumed. Very aggressive fishing methods are used to fish so many tuna, with little catching discrimination: it is estimated that one of every ten kilos of catch is not tuna but other species (turtles, sharks, dolphins, rays…) or too young tuna to be fished. 
Since the 80s, the association Greenpeace and the Earth Island Institute are fighting to raise public awareness about such aggressive fishing methods. As everybody comes to like dolphins, these awareness campaigns are quite successful and there are even stamps called Dolphin Safe depicting those companies which do not catch dolphins along with tuna, although there are certain doubts as for how to certify it. Moreover, these stamps do not mention turtles, sharks or rays, among others.
Although it is quite an interesting enterprise, this stamp is not enough to control the environmental impact of tuna fishing. We’d better control fishing methods and avoid unsustainable practices. But this is not enough: we should also reduce tuna consumption, as well as the rest of proteins of animal origin, if we want to be fed for long. In other words, it is not possible to base the diet of 7,000 million inhabitants on proteins of animal origin.

Sources:

1. Greenpeace article of 2008 about tuna catch: http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/usa/press-center/reports4/canned-tuna-s-hidden-catch.pdf
2. Dolphin Safe stamp: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_safe_label
3. List of companies per country with Dolphin Safe stamp: http://www.earthisland.org/dolphinSafeTuna/DolphinSafeCanners.html

Women’s suffrage in Western countries

When talking about women’s right to vote, such countries as Saudi Arabia or Brunei are always mentioned because women cannot vote there. It is true: some countries ban the participation of women in any kind of election and this is abhorrent (there are many countries in which neither men nor women can take part in elections, but this topic will be discussed in another post). However, it is also true that we often talk about these countries as if, democratically speaking, they were light-years behind us, and maybe we should take a look at women’s right to vote in western democracies to check that, in fact, it is not such an old, well-rooted tradition among us.
To begin with, there are only three countries (New Zealand, Australia and Finland) where women have been casting their votes for more than one hundred years, but not longer: New Zealander women were first allowed to vote in 1893, but they could not stand as candidates. In 1902 in South Australia and in 1903 in Tasmania women could take an active part in elections. The rest of western democracies accepted women’s suffrage later on –the last country was Liechtenstein in 1984. In Switzerland women’s suffrage was not accepted until 1971, after it was put to the vote in 1959 and two thirds of Swiss men voted against the law that allowed women to cast a vote.
Moreover, some of these countries fiddle with their democratic past: the US and South-Africa granted women’s vote in 1920 and 1930 respectively, but only for white people (until 1965 in the US and 1994 in South Africa). In Spain, women’s suffrage was introduced in 1931 (during one of the two really short periods of Spanish history in which there was no king or dictator running the country), but then there was a period of 40 years in which no-one (neither men nor women) could exert their right to vote.
It is obvious that democracy does not progress at the same rate around the world, but it would not be fair to believe that we are so far ahead. There is much work to do to be considered fully democratic countries, for our democratic attitudes and for the universality of vote. We feel ashamed when we realise that, not long ago, women did not have the right to vote… Will we also feel ashamed in a future when we will be reminded that, in 2011, immigrants had no right to vote and be part of our society like the rest of us?

 
Sources

1. Women’s vote in Saudi Arabia: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/9090933/no-votes-for-women-in-saudi-municipal-elections/
2. List of countries with women’s suffrage in chronological order: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage#Table_of_international_women.27s_suffrage
3. Women’s vote in Switzerland: http://www.swissworld.org/en/people/women/the_right_to_vote/