Famine

A famine is a phenomenon in which a large percentage of the population of a region or country are undernourished that death by starvation becomes increasingly common.

Characteristics of famine

Famine Today

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network labeled Niger with emergency status in July of 2005, as well as Chad, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe. Today, famine strikes African countries the hardest, but with ongoing wars, internal struggles, and economic instability, famine continues to be a global problem with millions of individuals suffering.

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Many believe that the Green Revolution is still the answer to famine. The Green Revolution began in the 20th century with hybrid strains of high yielding crops. This contributes to not only a larger amount of the product, but it can also stabilize production. Some criticize the process stating that these new high-yielding crops require more chemical fertilizers and pesticides which can harm the environment. Though, it may be an option for developing nations suffering from famine and these crops can be bred as to adapt to the conditions of the country. These high-yielding crops make it technically possible to feed the world and eliminate famine. They can be developed to provide optimal nutrition, and a well-nourished, well-developed population would emerge. Some say that the problems of famine and ill-nourishment are the results of ethical dilemmas over using the technologies we have, as well as cultural and class differences.

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An interesting view is that vegetarian diets can provide food for larger populations, with the same resources, compared to carnivorous diets. A minority viewpoint is that such diets can help prevent famines.

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Causes of famine

Modern famines have often occurred in nations that, as a whole, were not suffering a shortage of food. The largest famine ever (proportional to the affected population) was the Irish Potato Famine that began in 1845, which occurred as food was being shipped from Ireland to England because the English could afford to pay higher prices. Similarly, the 1973 famine in Ethiopia was concentrated in the Wollo region, although food was being shipped out of Wollo to the capital city of Addis Ababa where it could command higher prices. In contrast, at the same time that the citizens of the dictatorships of Ethiopia and Sudan had massive famines in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the democracies of Botswana and Zimbabwe avoided them despite having worse drops in national food production. This was possible through the simple step of creating short term employment for the worst-affected groups, thus ensuring a minimal amount of income to buy food, for the duration of the localized food disruption and was taken under criticism from opposition political parties and intense media coverage.

Related Topics:
Irish Potato Famine - 1845 - 1973 - Ethiopia - Wollo - Addis Ababa - Dictatorship - Sudan - Botswana - Zimbabwe

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Because herding and agriculture allow for greater population, both in numbers and in density, the failure of a harvest or the change in conditions, such as drought, can create a situation where large numbers of people live where the carrying capacity of the land has dropped radically. Famine is then associated primarily with subsistence agriculture, that is where most farming is aimed at producing enough food energy to survive. The total absence of agriculture in an economically strong area does not cause famine; Arizona and other wealthy regions import the vast majority of their food.

Related Topics:
Agriculture - Population - Drought - Carrying capacity - Subsistence - Food energy - Arizona

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Disasters, whether natural or man-made, have been associated with conditions of famine ever since mankind has been keeping written records. The Torah describes how "seven lean years" consumed the seven fat years, and "plagues of locusts" could eat all of the available food stuffs. War, in particular, was associated with famine, particularly in those times and places where warfare included attacks on land, by burning fields, or on those who tilled the soil.

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Famine has a strong impact on demographics. For example, it has been observed that periods of extensive famine can lead to a reduction in the number of reported female children in some cultures. Demographers and historians debate the causes of this trend. Some believe that parents deliberately select male children (by killing or selling female children, see infanticide), who were perceived as more valuable. Others believe that biological processes may be at work.

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As observed by the economist Amartya Sen, famine is usually a problem of food distribution and poverty, rather than an absolute lack of food. In many cases such as the Great Leap Forward, North Korea in the mid-1990s, or Zimbabwe in the early 2000s, famine can be caused as an unintentional result of government policy. Famine is sometimes used as a tool of repressive governments as a means to eliminate opponents, as in the Ukrainian Famine of the 1930s. In other cases, such as Somalia, famine is a consequence of civil disorder as food distribution systems break down.

Related Topics:
Food distribution - Poverty - Great Leap Forward - North Korea - Ukrainian - 1930s - Somalia

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There are a number of ongoing famines caused by war or deliberate political intervention.

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Today, nitrogen fertilizers, new natural pesticides, desert farming, and other new agricultural technologies are being used as weapons against famine. They increase crop yields by two, three, or more times. Developed nations share these technologies with developing nations with a famine problem. However, since modern famine is usually the result of war and distribution problems, it is questionable how much relevance or impact new agricultural technologies would have on this problem.

Related Topics:
Fertilizer - Pesticides - Desert farming

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Levels of food insecurity

In modern times, governments and non-governmental organizations who deliver famine relief have limited resources in which to address the multiple situations of food insecurity that are occurring simultaneously. Various methods of categorizing the gradations of food security have thus been used in order to most efficiently allocate food relief. One of the earliest were the Indian Famine Codes devised by the British in the 1880s. The Codes listed three stages of food insecurity: near-scarcity, scarcity and famine, and were highly influential in the creation of subsequent famine warning or measurement systems. The early warning system developed to monitor the region inhabited by the Turkana people in northern Kenya also has three levels, but links each stage to a pre-planned response to mitigate the crisis and prevent its deterioration.

Related Topics:
Non-governmental organization - Indian Famine Codes - 1880s - Turkana people - Kenya

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The experiences of famine relief organizations throughout the world over the 1980s and 1990s resulted in at least two major developments: the "livelihoods approach" and the increased use of nutrition indicators to determine the severity of a crisis. Famine does not begin to kill people until it destroys livelihoods. Individuals and groups in food stressful situations will attempt to cope by rationing consumption, finding alternate means to supplement income, etc before taking desperate measures such as selling off plots of agricultural land. Only when all means of self-support are exhausted does the affected population begin to migrate in search in food and fall victim to outright starvation. Famine may thus be seen as a social phenomenon, involving markets, the price of food, and social support structures. A second lesson drawn was the increased use of rapid nutrition assessments, in particular of children, to give a quantitative measure of the famine's severity.

Related Topics:
1980s - 1990s - Income - Agricultural - Starvation - Market

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Since 2004, many of the most important organizations in famine relief, such as the World Food Programme and the U.S. Agency for International Development have adopted a five-level scale measuring intensity and magnitude. The intensity scale uses both livelihoods' measures and measurements of mortality and child malnutrition to categorize a situation as food secure, food insecure, food crisis, famine, severe famine, and extreme famine. The number of deaths determines the magnitude designation, with under 1000 fatalities defining a "minor famine" and a "catastrophic famine" resulting in over 1,000,000 deaths.

Related Topics:
2004 - World Food Programme - U.S. Agency for International Development

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