Causes of Famine: Poverty, Politics, and Food Security

Introduction to Famine and Its Complexity

Despite the enormous technological advances of the last 50 years, famine remains a feature of everyday life in many poorer regions, mainly developing or third-world countries. In principle, a famine is an incident in which a large percentage of the population of a region or country goes hungry and death by starvation becomes increasingly widespread (Famine, 2006).

Famine is known to be caused by a variety of factors, including natural disasters such as floods, drought, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes; overpopulated areas that are not capable of feeding their inhabitants; poor health facilities; lack of aid from other countries; and governments that manage their resources poorly (Famine, n.d.).

Major Causes and Contributing Factors

Famine does not simply happen — there is always a cause behind it. Some of these causes are apparent, such as war, drought, or flooding. Rarely, if ever, is there only a single cause of a food emergency. Famines are regularly described as complex emergencies because they have many causes and consequences. One way to analyze these disasters is in terms of a primary cause, such as politics, war, or drought, and secondary or resulting causes, such as migration, which are themselves consequences of the primary causes. Drought, for example, often causes people to move to other areas, which can then create food shortages and conflict in those receiving areas (FitzGibbon and Hennessy, 2003).

The major reasons for famine include poverty, trade barriers, corruption, mismanagement, ethnic rivalries, anarchy, war, and male-dominated societies that deny women access to food. Local land degradation — itself a result of poverty and institutional failure — is also a significant issue. Those who lack the money to practice sound farming are compelled to damage the very resources on which they depend. The problem of famine is multidimensional.

Once a famine has reached the scale of a major calamity, it is too late to mount a rapid and efficient relief operation. Supplies rushed to a country are often held up at ports, unable to be distributed due to inadequate infrastructure. Governmental organizations that distribute relief aid are not structured to react quickly or effectively, and while volunteer agencies respond more rapidly, they are neither designed nor equipped to handle masses of starving people. Information gaps also persist. Even though considerable data exists on crop failures or droughts, analysis of more detailed indicators — such as local price movements or mass population displacement — remains underdeveloped.

Attention must also be paid to governmental sensitivities and the biases of donor countries. Sometimes no action can be taken before a formal request is issued. The governments of affected countries may be unaware of or indifferent to a rural famine. They are often unable to compile the necessary technical case for aid. They may be unwilling to publicize their difficulties to the world, and they may be hostile to Western intervention (Famine, Starvation, 2010).

Famine in Africa

Equally important are the challenges confronting potential solutions. Strategic food reserves are needed in the very countries least able to afford them, making those reserves vulnerable to theft and spoilage. Excessive developmental aid delivered to an area can overwhelm local capacity and create dependency among farmers rather than fostering self-sufficiency. Aid programs are often tied to conditions and priorities that are either unachievable or ineffective in practice (Famine, Starvation, 2010).

Famine has been widespread across Africa in modern times. Many African countries are not self-sufficient in food production. They rely on income from cash crops to import food. Farming in Africa is highly susceptible to climate fluctuations, especially droughts that can sharply reduce locally grown food supplies. Other agricultural challenges include soil infertility, land poverty and erosion, swarms of desert locusts that can destroy entire crops, and livestock diseases. Additional factors destabilizing food security in Africa include political instability, armed conflict and civil war, corruption and mismanagement of food supplies, and trade policies that harm African agriculture. HIV/AIDS also has a long-term economic effect on agriculture because it reduces the number of available agricultural workers (Famine, 2006).

The African continent experienced famines during the 1980s on a scale never previously seen. By 1985, 10 million people had abandoned their homes in search of food and water; twenty countries had been seriously affected by drought; and 35 million lives were at risk (Famine, Starvation, 2010). According to estimates by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), as many as 38 million Africans live in danger of starvation, and many are expected to perish if emergency assistance does not reach them in time (Harsch, 2003).

In Kenya, certain areas are chronically afflicted by famine. The North Eastern Province is one such region, experiencing major food crises for both people and animals every year. The Eastern Province is another region where famine is prevalent on an annual basis. The Coast Province and parts of the Rift Valley are also among the areas known to suffer from famine. The predominant livelihood in these famine-affected areas is farming. In the North Eastern Province, the majority of the population consists of nomadic people who move from place to place in search of pasture and water for their livestock. During dry spells, residents of the North Eastern, Eastern, and Coast provinces, as well as parts of the Rift Valley, are consistently the first to go hungry for days or even months at a time. Inadequate rainfall causes crops to fail, and water from other sources is also problematic, as rivers may be located many miles from people's dwellings (Wang'ang'a, 2010).

Conclusion

Famine is often defined as a severe shortage of food or lack of food access, accompanied by elevated death rates. Deaths during famine are understood to result not only from malnutrition itself, but also from infectious diseases that malnutrition facilitates, and from the social disruptions that food shortages generate. Famine is a genuine public health crisis, and has unfortunately been a recurring feature of human experience for a very long time (Famine, 2010).

It would appear at first glance that famine should be a straightforward problem to resolve, given that many countries possess a surplus of food. However, because of the differing political ideologies that exist around the world, it is often very difficult to persuade governments that their current approaches are not necessarily the most effective ones. As long as fundamental disagreements persist, there will continue to be those who refuse outside assistance. This reality makes it exceedingly difficult to someday eliminate the famine that currently afflicts so many parts of the world.