The Tomato Fight That Ignores World Hunger
It all started in Spain in 1945, right in the blistering grip of the summer heat, when a group of teenagers decided in the midst of a boring afternoon to throw tomatoes at each other. This friendly street fight became the ultimate monument to agricultural surplus and a profound lack of teenage creativity henceforth.
The messy spectacle has been exported worldwide to countries like Colombia, the US, China, Costa Rica, and India. Clearly, for this event to thrive, tropical climates or highly industrialized agriculture must exist so people can enjoy the luxury of pelting each other with the reddish fruit. In Colombia's own replica, an astonishing 45 tons of tomatoes were ejected from the hand of one participant to another.
Allow me to play the role of the buzzkill for a few lines here. No one is explicitly against any kind of festivity; indeed, one could argue it is vastly superior to watch civilized humans throwing tomatoes at each other rather than bullets. Perhaps we should pitch this to the UN Security Council to promote tomato warfare in all active global conflicts. The worst-case outcome? Rotten fruit splattering across faces and a chorus of silly laughs echoing from your crimson-painted body.
However, when cold data shows that over 673 million Earth inhabitants, a staggering 8.2% of the planet’s population, endure chronic hunger or find themselves trapped in food insecurity, one must question these cultural events.
Imagine if those 45 tons of surplus tomatoes were delivered straight to vulnerable communities unable to practice proper agriculture due to Climate Change; the difference would be monumental. Where exactly do we sign up for that? That colossal weight could easily be added to the food surpluses of other global events, bypassing the heavy production lines of the US and China. After all, who can genuinely trust the heavyweights of GMO monoculture?
La Tomatina, this playground for the sun-drenched and terminally bored, perfectly spotlights the massive food security issues on our apocalyptic blue planet. Yet, our pathological attachment to tradition continues to blind our awareness, leaving the starving to watch us waste food in absolute disarray.
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