Famine
A famine is a widespread
scarcity of food that may
apply to any faunal
species. This
phenomenon is usually
accompanied by regional
malnutrition, starvation,
epidemic, and increased
mortality. In many
regions of the world, as
of 2009, there is an ongoing famine among a considerable fraction
of the human population.
Causes Of Famine
Food shortages in a population are caused either by a lack of food
or by difficulties in food distribution; it may be worsened by
natural climate fluctuations and by extreme political conditions
such as tyrannical government or warfare. Many famines are
caused by imbalance of food production compared to the large
populations of countries whose population exceeds the regional
carrying capacity. Historically, famines have occurred from
agricultural problems such as drought, crop failure, or pestilence.
Changing weather patterns, the ineffectiveness of medieval
governments in dealing with crises, wars, and epidemic diseases.
The failure of a harvest or the change in conditions, such as
drought, can create a situation whereby large numbers of people
live where the carrying capacity of the land has temporarily
dropped radically. Famine is often associated with subsistence
agriculture, that is, where most farming is aimed at producing
enough food energy to survive. Disasters, whether natural or man-
made, have been associated with conditions of famine ever since
humankind 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 foodstuffs. War, in
particular, was associated with famine, particularly in those times
and places where warfare included attacks on land, by burning or
salting fields or on those who tilled the soil.
Risk Of Future Famine
Approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously
degraded. These agricultural technologies temporarily increased
crop yields, but there are signs as early as 1995 that not only are
these technologies reaching their peak of assistance, but they may
now be contributing to the decline of arable land (e.g. persistence
of pesticides leading to soil contamination and decline of area
available for farming). Developed nations have shared these
technologies with developing nations with a famine problem, but
there are ethical limits to pushing such technologies on lesser-
developed countries. This is often attributed to an association of
inorganic fertilizers and pesticides with a lack of sustainability. In
any case, these technological advances might not be influential in
those famines, which are the result of war.
Effects Of Famine
The demographic
impacts of famine
are sharp.
Mortality is
concentrated
among children
and the elderly. A
consistent
demographic fact
is that in all
recorded famines,
male mortality
exceeds female,
even in those
populations (such as northern India and Pakistan) where there is a
normal times male longevity advantage. Reasons for this may
include greater female resilience under the pressure of malnutrition,
and the fact that women are more skilled at gathering and
processing wild foods and other fall-back famine foods. Famine is
also accompanied by lower fertility. Famines therefore leave the
reproductive core of a population—adult women—lesser affected
compared to other population categories, and post-famine periods
are often characterized a "rebound" with increased births. Even
though the theories of Thomas Malthus would predict that famines
reduce the size of the population commensurate with available food
resources, in fact even the most severe famines have rarely dented
population growth for more than a few years. One of the most
obvious effects of the famine was emigration. Although the famine
itself probably resulted in about 1 million deaths, the resultant
emigration caused the population to drop by a further 3 million.
About 1 million of these are estimated to have emigrated in the
immediate famine period, with the depression that followed
continuing the decline until the second half of the 20th century.
Famines Of India
Owing to its almost entire dependence upon the monsoon rains,
India is vulnerable to crop failures, which upon occasion deepen
into famine. There were 14 famines in India between 11th and 17th
century (Bhatia, 1985). For example,
during the 1022–1033 Great famines
in India entire provinces were
depopulated. Famine in Deccan killed
at least 2 million people in 1702-
1704. B.M. Bhatia believes that the
earlier famines were localised, and it
was only after 1860, during the
British rule, that famine came to
signify general shortage of
foodgrains in the country. There were
approximately 25 major famines
spread through states such as Tamil
Nadu in the south, and Bihar and
Bengal in the east during the latter
half of the 19th century. Romesh Dutt argued as early as 1900, and
present-day scholars such as Amartya Sen agree, that some historic
famines were a product of both uneven rainfall and British
economic and administrative policies, which since 1857 had led to
the seizure and conversion of local farmland to foreign-owned
plantations, restrictions on internal trade, heavy taxation of Indian
citizens to support British expeditions in Afghanistan (see The
Second Anglo-Afghan War), inflationary measures that increased
the price of food, and substantial exports of staple crops from India
to Britain. (Dutt, 1900 and 1902; Srivastava, 1968; Sen, 1982;
Bhatia, 1985.) The first, the Bengal famine of 1770, is estimated to
have taken around 10 million lives — one-third of Bengal's
population at the time. Other notable famines include the Great
Famine of 1876–78, in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people
died and the Indian famine of 1899–1900, in which 1.25 to 10
million people died. The famines continued until independence in
1947, with the Bengal Famine of 1943–44— even though there
were no crop failures —killing 1.5 million to 3 million Bengalis
during World War II.
Chronology:
650: Famine throughout India
1022,1033: Great famines, entire provinces were depopulated
1344-1345: Great famine
1396-1407: The Durga Devi famine
1630-1631: there was a famine in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
1630-1632: Deccan famine in India kills 2 million
1661: famine, when not a drop of rain fell for two years
1702-1704: 2 million died of famine in Deccan
1770: territory ruled by the British East India Company
experienced the first Bengal famine of 1770. An estimated 10
million people died.
1783-84 Up to 11 million died in the Chalisa famine in the
regions of present-day Uttar Pradesh, Delhi region,
Rajputana, eastern Punjab region and Kashmir.
1788-92: Another 11 million may have died in the Doji bara
famine or Skull famine in Hyderabad State, Southern Maratha
country, Gujarat and Marwar.
1800-1825: 1 million Indians died of famine
1850-1875: 2.5 millions died in Orissa famine of 1866,
Rajputana famine of 1869; due to a generous relief effort,
however, there was no mortality in the Bihar famine of 1873–
74.
1875-1902: 7–8 million Indians died of famine (Great Famine
of 1876–78 5.25 millions)
In 1943, India experienced the second Bengal famine of 1943.
Over 3 million people died.
In 1966, there was a 'near miss' in Bihar. The USA allocated
900,000 tons of grain to fight the famine. A further 'near miss'
food crisis occurred due to drought in Maharashtra in 1970-
1973.
Famine Prevention
The effort to bring modern agricultural techniques found in the
West, such as nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides, to Asia, called the
Green revolution, resulted in decreases in malnutrition similar to
those seen earlier in Western nations. This was possible because of
existing infrastructure and institutions that are in short supply in
Africa, such as a system of roads or public seed companies that
made seeds available. Supporting farmers in areas of food
insecurity, through such measures as free or subsidized fertilizers
and seeds, increases food harvest and reduces food prices.
However, after the government changed policy and subsidies for
fertilizer and seed were introduced, farmers produced record-
breaking corn harvests in 2006 and 2007 as production leaped to
3.4 million in 2007 from 1.2 million in 2005.[2] This lowered food
prices and increased wages for farm workers.
In modern times, governments and non-governmental organizations
that deliver famine relief have limited resources with 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.
Famine Relief
Deficient Micronutrient can be provided through fortifying foods.
Fortifying foods such as peanut butter sachets and Spirulina have
revolutionized emergency feeding in humanitarian emergencies
because they can be eaten directly from the packet, do not require
refrigeration or mixing with scarce clean water, can be stored for
years and ,vitally, can be absorbed by extremely ill children. The
United Nations World Food Conference
of 1974 declared Spirulina as 'the best
food for the future' and its ready harvest
every 24 hours make it a potent tool to
eradicate malnutrition. Additionally,
supplements, such as Vitamin A
capsules or Zinc tablets to cure diarrhea
in children, are used.
There is a growing realization among aid
groups that giving cash or cash vouchers
instead of food is a cheaper, faster, and
more efficient way to deliver help to the
hungry, particularly in areas where food
is available but unaffordable. The UN's
World Food Program, the biggest non-governmental distributor of
food, announced that it will begin distributing cash and vouchers
instead of food in some areas, which Josette Sheeran, the WFP's
executive director, described as a "revolution" in food aid. The aid
agency Concern Worldwide is piloting an method through a mobile
phone operator, Safaricom, which runs a money transfer program
that allows cash to be sent from one part of the country to another.
However, for people in a drought living a long way from and with
limited access to markets, delivering food may be the most
appropriate way to help. Fred Cuny stated "the chances of saving
lives at the outset of a relief operation are greatly reduced when
food is imported. By the time it arrives in the country and gets to
people, many will have died." Foreign aid organizations like the
World Food Program were then able to buy food locally from
surplus areas to distribute in areas with a shortage of food.
The Bengal Famine Of 1943 [A Case Study]
The Bengal famine of 1943 is one amongst the several famines that
occurred in British administered Bengal. It is estimated that around
3 million people died from starvation and malnutrition during the
period. On 16 October 1942 the whole east coast of Bengal and
Orissa was hit by a cyclone. A huge area of rice cultivation up to
forty miles inland was flooded, causing the autumn crop in these
areas to fail. This meant that the peasantry had to eat their surplus,
and the seed that should have been planted in the winter of 1942-3
had been consumed by the time the hot weather began in May
1943. This was exacerbated by exports of food and appropriation of
arable land. The Bengal Government failed to prevent rice exports,
and made little attempt to import surpluses from elsewhere in India,
or to buy up stocks from
speculators to redistribute to
the starving. Overall, as Sen
shows, the authorities failed
to understand that the famine
was not caused by an overall
food shortage, and that the
distribution of food was not
just a matter of railway
capacity, but of providing
free famine relief on a massive scale: "The Raj was, in fact, fairly
right in its estimation of overall food availability, but disastrously
wrong in its theory of Famines". The famine ended when the
government in London agreed to import 1,000,000 tons of grain to
Bengal, reducing food prices. Severe food shortages were worsened
by World War II, with the British administration of India exporting
foods to Allied soldiers. The shortage of rice forced rice prices up,
and wartime inflation compounded the problem. The civil
administration did not intervene to control the price of rice, and so
the price of rice exceeded the means of ordinary people. People
migrated to the cities to find food and employment; finding neither,
they starved. He quotes official records for rice production in
Bengal in the years leading up to 1943 as reported in the table to
the right. The 1943 yield, while low, was not in itself outside the
normal spectrum of recorded variation, and other factors beyond
simple crop failure may thus be invoked as a causal mechanism.
