Chinese Famine (1907)

The Chinese Famine of 1907 is the second-worst famine in recorded history, with an estimated death toll of around 25 million people; this exceeds the lowest estimates for the death toll of the later Great Chinese Famine, meaning that the 1907 famine could actually be the worst in history. Because of population figures it is exceptionally unlikely that a famine from early history could have resulted in a greater number of deaths than a famine occurring later.

The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) had actually seen significant gains to China's food production capacity, in response to explosive population growth. The population had for centuries been spreading out from the densely populated urban areas to the open opportunities of the frontier, and the challenges of settling new regions led to innovative agricultural practices like terrace farming, and improved irrigation and grain storage. Reforms aimed at modernizing the country had characterized the self-strengthening movement of the last third of the 19th century. New crops had also increased the country's food production: new strains of rice with higher yields and shorter growing periods were used across the country, and New World crops like corn, sweet potatoes, and peanuts were introduced by European trade. The advantage of the New World crops is that they didn't compete with existing Asian staples: they could be planted in places where nothing else could grow, such as on hillside slopes or in dry soil. Despite these advances, the age was characterized by social unrest; some factions resisted the imperialism and modernization of the Qing leadership (leading to the Boxer Rebellion), while others thought the imperial court was too slow to reform.

The famine began as a result of excessive rains during the growing season of 1906, which led to crop [Page 70][Page 71]failures across the Anhui, Honan, and Kiang-Su provinces. A January 1907 Reuters report lists these rains as the worst in the region in the previous 40 years. Over 40,000 square miles of land were flooded by the persistent rains. By the start of the year, already an estimated four million people—out of roughly 500 million Chinese, at a time when the world's total population was about 1.6 billion—were facing starvation, and tens of thousands who had run out of available food in their home towns had taken to wandering the countryside, whether to beg, forage, or look for work. The combination of famine and long-running social unrest led to food riots across the country, particularly in Canton and the lower Yangtze River area in March, and in Chekiang in June, prompting military intervention.

The American Red Cross was one of the principal organizations responding to the famine at first, raising money in the West and distributing food and other supplies throughout China. The large foreigner community in China, which included missionaries, diplomats, and businessmen, worked with local Chinese to create the Central China Famine Relief Committee in order to create jobs for the poor, distribute crop seed and other farming supplies, and hand out food to the needy. Building on lessons learned from earlier famines in India, the committee dealt with the famine in ways that might seem strange now, such as offering jobs at such unfairly low wages that only those who were desperately impoverished would apply for them.

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