Crop failures caused by natural disasters including poor weather, insect plagues, and plant diseases; crop destruction due to warfare; and enforced starvation as a political tool are some causative factors of famine.
However, modern famines, like most of those throughout history, are manmade. Many of the worst famines have been due to the poor distribution of existing food supplies, either because of inequities which result in a lack of purchasing power among the poor or because of political interference with the normal distribution or relief movements of food.
Europe and Asia used to experience frequent severe famines, but have employed social and technological change to largely eliminate them. In the Horn of Africa a humanitarian disaster is fast unfolding with the spectre of famine looming. The worst drought for 60 years means that crops have failed and livestock has perished, leaving impoverished communities increasingly vulnerable to malnutrition and hunger-related diseases.
Poverty, climate change and rising grain prices are combining to tip an already vulnerable population into a state of crisis. An estimated 10 million people are affected across a vast swathe of Africa taking in areas of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. Huge numbers of people are on the move, leaving their homes and walking hundreds of miles to seek food in camps and feeding stations.
Harrowing media reports describe mothers having to choose between seeking medical treatment for their weakest child and nourishment for the others. They live in a situation in which their everyday decisions have the most extraordinary consequences.
Fewer than years ago, a similarly terrible famine occurred within the British Isles, then the most economically advanced region in the world. There was not one food crisis but several as the potato crop failed in , , and The rural Irish poor, many of whom were subsistence farmers renting small plots of ground, were reliant on the potato for their staple diet. When a mysterious blight, now known as Phytophthora infestans , destroyed the potato harvest huge numbers faced starvation.
Millions of people fled the country with the population of Ireland dwindling from around 9 million in to 6. In comparative terms, the Great Irish Famine was one of the worst demographic tragedies of the 19th century and possibly the worst famine in recorded history when judged in terms of the mortality rate.
In Human Encumbrances: Political Violence and the Great Irish Famine , Dr Nally examines the complexities and nuances of the political, economic and social context of the Irish Famine - and in doing so throws up some disturbing parallels between what happened in the s and what is happening in Africa today.
In particular, the book looks at 19 th -century sources to shine a light on the dialogue, sometimes taking the form of heated exchanges, that went on between economists, politicians and public officials. By studying archives of contemporary material, Nally analyses the fundamental human perceptions that shaped political decision-making and had a direct bearing on the lives of millions of poor farmers.
Many of these discourses are as topical and controversial today as they were almost two centuries ago, centring on the ethics of free markets and non-intervention versus intervention in the form of government aid. This description neatly sums up the perception of the Irish smallholders as expendable, and their way of life as backward, immoral and in urgent need of reform. Famine is a widespread condition in which a large percentage of people in a country or region have little or no access to adequate food supplies.
Many people believe that famines are food shortages caused solely by underproduction. However, in many cases, famine has multiple causes.
A natural disaster , such as a long period of drought, flooding, extreme cold, typhoons, insect infestations, or plant disease, combined with government decisions on how to respond to the disaster, can result in a famine.
The famine might be initiated by a natural disaster, and a government's inability or unwillingness to deal with the consequences of that event may magnify the effects. This happened in North Korea in the s when government mismanagement of food supplies and an inequitable rationing policy led to a famine that killed over two million people by some estimates.
Human events also lead to famine. A major human cause of famine is warfare. During war, crops are destroyed, either intentionally or as a result of combat. In addition, supply lines and routes are cut off, and food cannot be distributed or is prevented from being distributed by combatants. Forced starvation for political reasons is another cause of famine. Anyone caught violating the policy could be executed.
Europe and other developed parts of the world have mostly eliminated famine, though in earlier history, particularly the Middle Ages, some European countries experienced widespread famines that killed thousands, possibly even millions of people. Today, famine is most common in African countries.
In , for example, widespread famine began in the African nation of Somalia. More than , people died as a result. In , the United Nations officially declared a famine in parts of South Sudan, where a civil war had begun in It brings in publicity and puts it on the news agenda - without it, the public doesn't know it is happening. Aid agencies are not the only ones to exercise prudence.
The word famine is politically contentious, and governments also shy away from using it. Ireland, Russia and Ethiopia have at various times struggled to move away from their image as famine-ravaged countries.
More recently, in , Niger's President Mamadou Tandja lashed out at the international community's use of the word in relation to his country. According to the UN's criteria, he was right. Governments believe the f-word has too many negative political associations, says Simon Levine, a research fellow with the Overseas Development Institute, a UK think-tank.
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