The aim of this essay is to define famine and also to identify the underlying causes and possible solutions. To begin with, major concepts will be defined followed by a discussion, thereafter a conclusion shall be drawn.
Famine has been defined differently by many scholars. In terms of food supply based, Brown and Eckholm (1974) have defined famine as sudden, sharp reduction in food supply resulting in widespread hunger. In food consumption based, famine is defined as lack of food over large geographical areas sufficiently long and severe to cause widespread disease and death from starvation (Chamber’s Encyclopedia) and in relation to mortality based, Ravillion (1997:1205) defines famine as an unusually high mortality with unusually severe threat to food intake of some segments of a population. In general terms famine is a complex process, usually arising from a combination of factors over an extended period.
Famine is caused by a number of factors. The immediate causes are drought, flooding and low levels of crop planting. In addition, chronic poverty and inadequate policies in developing countries are also contributing factors. These conditions have combined to result in severe shortfalls in food production and in turn high prices for maize, the staple food of most developing countries. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (the standard used by the UN), famine occurs when the following conditions occur; 20 percent of population has fewer than 2,100 kilocalories of food a day, 30 percent of children are acutely malnourished, two deaths per 10,000 people, or four deaths per 10,000 children per day. Others include Pandemic illness, access to less than four liters of water per day, large-scale displacement, civil strife and complete loss of assets and source of income
Africa and a few western hemisphere countries such as Haiti, have been labelled as the worst famine stricken continent. In the year 2011, Africa was at its worst in 60 years and this period is usually referred to as the Horn of Africa Crisis. Somalia is one of the worst affected countries that experienced famine caused by a combination of sustained drought, swiftly increasing food prices and escalating conflict. Kenya and Ethopia on the other hand, are also among the famine stricken nations in Africa. Some of the causes of famine in these nations include long term effects of climate change. This comes as a result of intensification of rainfall patterns that may lead to floods hence causing soil erosion. In Somalia, for example, a region already suffering from low rainfall is further affected by erratic water flows in the rivers running through Somalia which has caused serious soil erosion. Other attributed factors to climate change are associated with deforestation. Deforestation is interlinked to a rapid growing population. This entails that when deforestation occurs, the space is used to for settlements in the meantime agricultural land is turned into settlements as rapid population takes place. As a result, this has caused limited or no land for agricultural practices hence causing a reduction in food supply which in turn leads to famine. (Tadesse, 2010)
Another effect of deforestation is that it causes low rainfall. This is due to the fact that the process of evaporation from forests to form clouds will not take place; hence draught sets in causing famine. It is argued that ninety-five percent of the food grown in the Africa is rain fed, thus production is vulnerable to adverse weather condition (Devereux, Howe and Deng, 2009)
Natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, hurricane sands and wind storms are other causes of famine. Haiti is one of the nations that has undergone through predicaments such as earthquake in 2010 and hurricane sandy in 2012 which destroyed 70% staple crops and over 64,000 livestock. It is important to note that the agriculture in Third World Countries is a dominant activity. Hence a small change or disturbance to the means of production relating to agriculture greatly affects the food security.
Pandemic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, cholera epidemic, Ebola, influenza are other causes of famine. The majority of people in developing countries are greatly affected with these illnesses, a large number have died leading to a reduced labour force and increased household dependency ratios. For example, in 1968, "Hong Kong Flu" pandemic caused deaths of 34,000 Americans and as many as 700,000 people around the globe; This has lead to vulnerable people with very low or no income to take up responsibility such as female headed, child headed as a result, the poorest of the poor cannot afford to purchase the food even when it is available. Sen (2001:246) observed that ‘food insecurity affects people who cannot access adequate food (e.g. because of poverty) irrespective of food availability – a famine can occur even if food supplies are adequate and markets are functioning well.’
Famine is also caused by political associated conflicts within the nation. The internal violence and conflicts inhibits production and development to take place. As stated in the Oxfam Report (2011) that “An atmosphere of “lawlessness, gang warfare and anarchy” is also upheld as one of the major causes behind the famine.” These sentiments were in reference to the civil war that Somalia was entangled in the last twenty years causing destruction of both its rural and urban economies. It is on record that the drought in Somalia killed off the pastoralists’ prime livestock assets (up to 90% animal mortality in some areas), slashing further their purchasing power, whilst severe internal conflict made development almost impossible to achieve.
Furthermore, response failure by the governments of famine stricken nations is another cause of famine. The governments are also to blame because of the inability to tackle the country’s chronic poverty, which has marginalized vulnerable people and fundamentally weakened their ability to cope. There’s been a lack of investment in social services and basic infrastructure and lack of good governance. In addition, reliance on donor aid and indebtedness are also contributing factors to famine. It is believed that some countries that have subscribed to the Structural Adjustment Programmes advocated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have laid the foundations for their country’s transition towards economic dislocation and social chaos. This is due to a number of reasons which include fragile exchange relationship between nations, reinforcing dependency on imported goods to mention just a few. (FitzGibbon and Hennessy, 2003)
In view of the above, the immediate solutions to famine should evolve around accelerated production, accessibility and emergency response. Under production solution, there is need to have an accelerated investment in food production. This would be made possible by giving more support to small-holder farmers and pastoralists by way of providing cheaper inputs, disaster risk management training and also promotion of climate resilient sustainable agriculture which should include drought resistant crops such as cassava, pearl millet and sorghum. This however will strengthen the capacity of farmers to produce sustainably grown crops for their local markets, build emergency seed reserves, develop disaster risk reduction strategies through participatory processes in case of natural disasters. Access solutions entails that poverty can be alleviated by providing a well balanced aid and budgetary investment into physical infrastructure and allowing public intervention to correct market failures until markets are stronger. It is argued that production and market failures are often linked: a poor harvest is associated with a surge in market dependence by self-provisioning smallholders, which causes market food prices to accelerate beyond the reach of the poor. (Wheeler, Devereux and Guenther, 2009).
An emergent response to famine from governments of the affected is essential. Focus should be on guaranteed social protection such as social assistance to the poor households to access food throughout the year and insurance. This will ensure that support is triggered automatically in times of crisis. Pandemic illnesses to be dealt with by widely distributing hygiene kits in vulnerable areas, with a special focus on promoting information, education, and communication. Furthermore, LDCs to delink from SAP policies as according to Noorbakhsh and Paloni (1997) “SAPs seem to have failed to generate an appropriate supply response which could underpin lasting export expansion and diversification.” This entails that food should be sourced locally as much as possible to protect farming communities from unfair competition from international markets while monitoring the food need of the farming communities themselves.
It can therefore be concluded that famine prevention policies should support indigenous capacity to withstand a variety of stresses.