How Ethiopia can become self-sustained on a vegan diet, and end starvation and poverty

Here is another example that I did just right now calculating how many that could be fed in Ethiopia if everyone ate a vegan diet and there wasn’t any animal agriculture.

Arable land (hectars): 13606000.0
Population: 86,613,986

“Only 400-480 pounds of meat can be produced by one acre of land [Of an animal that has the right to live, and shouldn’t be killed for someone’s taste], compared to 20,000 pounds of plant foods that could be grown on the same slot.” [1]

More specific of the current agriculture methods in Ethiopia:

“Ethiopia's potato area had grown to 160,000 hectares, with average yields around eight tons per hectare.” [2]

The average adult person would need about 1 ton of potatoes per year. Some of this would be replaced by vegetables and fruits in order to get all nutrition needed. Of course one can also grow other starches other than potatoes, this is just an example.

Plant foods that can be grown on the arable land:
13606000.0 * 8000 kgs of potatoes per year

People that could be fed = 13606000.0 hectars * 8000 kilograms per hectar / 1000 kilograms per person = 108 848 000 adults

Everyone could be fed on a vegan diet. Today because of that they also have domesticate, breed and kill animals for food, they don’t grow enough foods to sustain all the population.

Starvation in Ethiopia:“The U.N. World Food Program estimates that 2.7 million Ethiopians will need emergency food aid because of late rains — nearly double the number who needed help last year. An additional 5 million of Ethiopia's 80 million people receive aid each year because they never have enough food, whether harvests are good or not.”

“Samuel Akale, a nutritionist with the government's disaster prevention agency, said the hunger will get worse. "The number of severely malnourished will increase, and then they'll die."”

“Ethiopia is a country with a history of hunger. It's food problems drew international attention in 1984 when a famine compounded by communist policies killed some 1 million people. Pictures of stick-thin children like Bizunesh were broadcast onto television sets around the world.”
Quotes from: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24731042/ns/world_news-africa/t/once-again-children-are-starving-ethiopia/
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Do you know how much of Ethiopias arable land that is used for animal agriculture?

"Of Ethiopia's total land area of 1,221,480 square kilometers, the government estimated in the late 1980s that 15 percent was under cultivation and 51 percent was pasture. It was also estimated that over 60 percent of the cultivated area was cropland. Forestland, most of it in the southwestern part of the country, accounted for 4 percent of the total land area, according to the government. These figures varied from those provided by the World Bank, which estimated that cropland, pasture, and forestland accounted for 13%, 41%, and 25%, respectively, of the total land area in 1987.[4]"

4.Wubne, Mulatu. "Agriculture" (and subsections). A Country Study: Ethiopia (Thomas P. Ofcansky and LaVerle Berry, eds.) Library of Congress Federal Research Division (1991). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.[2].
Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Ethiopia
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I am advocating a vegan diet. All production of animal foods involves or indirectly causes unnecessary harm and death: http://abolitionistvegansociety.org/tavs-initiatives/tavs-articles/how-to-go-vegan/should-i-go-vegan-by-adopting-a-vegetarian-diet-first/

Footnotes:
1.http://www.belsandia.com/comfortably-unaware.html
2.https://research.cip.cgiar.org/confluence/display/wpa/Ethiopia

What about droughts???
Solution:
1.Permaculture.
2.With a plant-only agriculture they will be able to feed all the population and also save some of the harvest, which can be used when there are droughts, etc.

In any instance, a plant-only-agriculture is much more efficient compared to an animal agriculture - both in terms of plant protein required, water required (especially important in Ethiopia!!!), etc.:
According to Cornell University Professors David Pimental and Marcia Pimental, it takes 13 kilograms (2.2 pounds) of grain and 30 kilograms of forage to produce one kilogram of beef; 21 kilograms of grain and 30 kilograms of forage to produce kilogram of lamb; 5.9 kilograms of grain to produce a kilogram of pork; 3.8 kilograms of grain to produce a kilogram of turkey; 2.3 kilograms of grain to produce a kilogram of chicken, and 11 kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of eggs. Livestock in the United States consume 7 times as much grain as is consumed by the entire U.S. human population and that the grains fed to livestock could feed 840 million humans who had a plant-based diet. One kilogram of animal protein requires about 100 times more water than does 1 kilogram of grain protein. It takes between 20 and 100 gallons of water to produce most vegetables or fruit. The Pimental study says it takes more than 2000,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of pasture-raised beef. The estimates of water required for a pound of beef go from 2,000 to 12,000 gallons; it takes about 110 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat. Most estimates vary between 1000 to 2000 gallons of water to produce a gallon of milk.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states that animal agriculture contributes more greenhouse gases, which are linked directly to global warming, to the atmosphere than does burning fossil fuel for transportation. According to Worldwatch Institute, animal agriculture produces an estimated 51% of the worldwide total of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. Moreover, a significant amount of fossil energy is required to yield an animal-based product. The average fossil energy input for all animal protein sources is 25 kcal of fossil energy input to 1 kcal of animal protein produced, which is more than 11 times greater than for grain
protein production.
Quote: https://www.facebook.com/abolitionistapproach/posts/596843230335435

Cause of the injustices in Bangladesh, e.g. in garment factories, and the solution to end poverty and starvation

The cause of injustices, poverty, suffering of animals and people and starvation in our world and how animal agriculture isn't sustainable:

Matt Vercoe wrote about a catastrophy in a garment factory in Bangladesh:
http://www.npr.org/2013/04/27/179251838/double-take-toons-deadly-work-places?utm_source=NPR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130427

Thanks for sharing!

It inspired me to write this, together with what I have read in the World Peace Diet, the writing of Dr. Richard Oppenlander and other sources of inspiration:

Matt wrote: ":( The price they pay so we can have cheap clothes...... why is their life worth less than a few corporate dollars? We perpetuate this by insisting on buying the cheapest possible commodities so we may have new clothes, a new tv, a new phone, a new car.... "

Furthermore we are exploiting the workers and the animals by chemicals that are destructive for the environment. These are used in the process of manufacturing garments.

This is routine in our society. This is a disease in our society. We are making choices without either knowing about the exploitation involved or ignoring the exploitation involved. We are making the choices without reflecting on the individuals hurt in the manufacture process.

Cheap clothes are bought without thinking of the misery it causes the workers in poor countries with miserable working conditions in the factories, and the humans and other animals suffering by the environmental destruction.

Meat, milk, eggs and other animal products are consumed without thinking of the animals hurt, used, exploited and killed in the process; and the poverty and starvation that it causes in the world [2]

And why do people in Bangladesh and other countries have to work in the first place in a factory with miserable working conditions, instead of growing the fruits, vegetables and legumes and being completely self-sustained?

Bangladesh has a land area of 147,570 (km )² = 147 570 * 10^6 m^2 . This is 36 892 500 acres. Their population is 158,570,535

“Only 400-480 pounds of meat can be produced by one acre of land [Of an animal that has the right to live, and shouldn’t be killed for someone’s taste], compared to 20,000 pounds of plant foods that could be grown on the same slot.” [1]

Thus, one acre of land can feed about 10 adult humans per year.

70% of the 36 892 500 acres is arable, i.e it can feed about 36 892 500 acres * 0,7 * 10 adult humans = about 252 million adults.

Thus, if the land was used in a sustainable, effective and just way in Bangladesh, and the land was divided evenly, everyone could grow their own organic, vegan food (by growing using vegan permaculture) in good working and living conditions. No one would have to work in a factory destroying the workers and destroying the environment, and thus destroying for humans and other animals.

But we are culturally indoctrinated by our culture, daily learning to disconnect and exclude animals from our circle of compassion; and this also spreads to excluding or not caring enough/losing our capacity to be able to understand or think of what our choices are causing other individuals, like the individuals in poor countries. Now instead the population of “livestock” increases; and thus the food that poor people need for their survival are in a greater extend going to animals with the tragic misfortune to be bred and raised to become someone’s dinner.  [2b]

The solution is to start caring, and stop making choices that result in the exploitation of others. To always making vegan choices that are not hurting, exploiting, excluding or inflicting violence on any other being.

Here are some resources that will help you with this: Some informative websites [4,5,6].

Foot notes:

 1. http://www.belsandia.com/comfortably-unaware.html

2. http://www.drmcdougall.com/video/expert_testimonies_oppenlander.htm

2b. http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/resources/en/publications/sector_briefs/lsb_BGD.pdf

3. World Peace Diet by Will Tuttle

4.www.vegankit.com ; 5. http://www.facebook.com/abolitionistapproach; 6: http://bloganders.blogspot.com
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Comments:

Wendy Wendy I buy mostly from Goodwill, but sometimes I can't find what I need there. I understand what you're saying. I just think sometimes people forget that there are poor folks in the US, too. Unemployed (hello!), earning little above minimum wage, etc. And when you go into a store that sells fair trade clothes, or at least this is true for me, I can't afford them. I know the whole system is screwed. But not all of us who, from time to time, buy cheap clothes do it because we're unaware, you know? I'm not saying that I don't recognize still that I'm privileged. The fact that I live in the US and have access to things like computers and grad school and stuff I am very very grateful for. But maybe it's not always quite so black and white.

18 hours ago · Like

Anders Branderud Wendy Wendy,
Thanks for your comment!
I am aware of this. We can only do our best!
It is great to buy at Goodwill instead of new things when possible as you are doing. Also Ebay may be an option, they sell alot of used clothes.
I didn't mean to paint a black-and-white picture that is claiming that everyone who is buying cheap new clothes is not aware of what their choices are causing/or that everyone have can afford fair trade-clothing.
I just wanted to paint a general picture of the mentality that our culture has created. Of course there are many people, like you, who are fighting against this mentality.

Have a wonderful day!!

My thoughts about The Farm of the Future: Earthship-Inspired Greenhouse

I think it is a very good initiative, except for that they advocate using -and eating fish: "produce vegetables and.. fish year around" [Quote from the 'The Farm of the Future: Earthship-Inspired Greenhouse'-video].
Surely it is not the fish purpose in this world to be confined, used and eaten. Just like it is not our purpose to be confined, used and eaten.

I recommend this:
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/what-are-the-roots-of-freedom-and-slavery/
And the wonderful book World Peace Diet (http://www.worldpeacediet.com/ )

Me and my wife plan to become totally self-sustained somewhere in the States, and live 'off-the-grid'. We also plan to sell some of our produce and start a vegan café.

My comment to this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lejuwaan/the-farm-of-the-future-earthship-inspired-greenhou

Self sufficient. Grow 6000 pounds of fruits and vegetables per year on 300 m^2 (1/10 of an acre): http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/03/urban-homestead-being-self-sufficient.html

----Added 4/13/2013:
Thanks Veronique!
It is also impossible for me and my wife for the moment since we live in an apartment.
However, we plan to buy ourselves our own plot of land in about a year (I will quit my job and hope to be completely off-the-grid, self-sustained, and also some income from selling crops). We plan to buy it in the US for about 5000 USD and then build a geodesic dome (6m diameter x 3m height strawbale dome can be done for about $861, and then some additional costs for housing infrastructure ).
http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Geodesic_domes
And in parallell with building/after building we will buy seeds and start all the planting.

Urban homestead, being self-sufficient by planting 6000 pounds of vegetables on 4000 square-feet

I found an interesting video clip.
Here is part of the content.
It is about a family that grow everything they need on 4000 square-foot , a 10'th of an acre.

It feeds a family. Revolutionizes what you can do in a city.
Started 10 years ago. They grow almost all the food they need. They produce organic.
Sustainably. 400 variets of vegetables, fruits and edible flowers. 6000 pounds a year., Enough to feed themselves, with plenty over. They also sell to restaurants.

They make 20 000 dollars from their front-yard sell.
In the beginning he didn't believe he could do it.

He didn't want them to eat GMO-food.
A decade later he is off the grid. He calls it the path to freedom.

They do canning. The menu depends on what is in season. No micro-waves.
The electricity from solar-panels.Less than 12$ month.

They can sense that something is off with the climate. Bugs come at different times.
Their whole food traveled 100 feet.
He plans a village of home-steads. Their family, their extended family, and other people in the same village. 'Urban homestead'.

[Unfortunately they also domesticate and use animals, e.g. chickens and bees; and unfortunately their garden is not veganic.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM

Another article to read
http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/04/my-thoughts-about-farm-of-future.html

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More of my thoughts:

"This is good. Especially the starting up a vegan cafe! " Thanks!

 

The first of my links showed a family that sustained their self and also earned 20000 USD per year only of their produce on 1/10 of an acre (only 400m^2).

I think that we should transform all our system to small-scale farming. To create a grass-root-movement that shows that small, sustainable veganic gardens are possible.

The small veganic garden highly reduces the environmental impact and harm, including reduces the harm and death caused to the animals that are killed when harvesting with big machines, and reduces the amount of fossile fuels neeeded (e.g. harvesting by one's hands compared to harvesting machines).

I don't believe in the GMO-'farming meat from living tissue'-movement. It perpetuates viewing animals as resources, the antithesis of veganism and our goal to make everyone view animals with love and compassion. Veganism is making everyone seeing animals as individuals and this goals can't be used by advocating something that is perpetuating the animals being viewed as resources.

 

When it comes to animal food: Dogs thrive on a vegan diet, and many cats (not all) also do very well on a vegan diet: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/03/vegan-diet-for-dogs-and-cats-what-is.html