Famine

Famine is a condition characterized by a drastic and widespread shortage of food, often leading to increased associated diseases and increased mortality from hunger, as well as social dislocation and disruption more generally. Whereas famines are commonly associated with death from starvation, famines are best viewed as a continuum, with mass death being the most extreme form. Less severe forms of famine might involve other social crises such as mass migration, dislocation of people from their livelihoods, or society-wide economic recessions. Along this continuum, the pandemic of infectious diseases that typically arise in famine-struck areas is also an important driver of increased morbidity.

Famines may result from environmental, political, and social conditions including climate change, crop failure, market changes, or government or corporate policies regarding the distribution and pricing of food. Whereas famine has commonly been discussed as a sudden event occurring as a result of an environmental crisis, such as drought, or as a result of individuals’ choices, such as deforestation by the poor in search of fuel, famine is better understood as an endpoint in a long gestation of decreasing food access that typically occurs over multiple agricultural seasons.

Famine is closely related to food insecurity, which is uncertain access to a sufficient quantity and quality of food necessary for health and well-being. Famine can thus be defined as a period of extended and extreme food insecurity likely leading to drastic consequences, [Page 512]such as death, deficiency, or disease, for individuals and societies living in famine-affected areas.

Groups of people most vulnerable to famine include landless laborers, fisherpeople, and pastoralists.

Famines hold an important place in history, punctuating affected societies with some of the most tragic events in world history. For example, Ireland's Great Famine in the mid-19th century led to the deaths of more than 1 million and the displacement of nearly 2 million people. More recently, famines in East and southern Africa in the early to mid-2000s are estimated to have affected over 14 million people and contributed to rises in mortality, migration, dislocation, food insecurity, and human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS)-each patterned by gender and mediated by gender inequalities.

Research on famine has historically tended to focus on individual or family factors and choices such as turning forests into farmland or fuel, or on environmental conditions that contribute to famine, such as periods of extended drought. Each of these factors continues to be significant, particularly as droughts are often an antecedent to famine, and climate change promises to increase the prevalence of droughts in at-risk regions. However, although most researchers agree that these foci are important factors in understanding famine, critiques have also shown that these factors are insufficient to explain famine.

Current research has pointed to the driving influences of markets, politics, and regional factors in producing famine. For example, deforestation for fuel, which is often done by the poor, who have no other heating options for food preparation, light, or warmth, was perceived as a main source of environmental degradation creating flooding, erosion, or drought-all contributors to famine conditions. Although these behaviors are still deemed problematic, research has shown that most of the deforestation in the world has not been created by the poor but, rather, is a result of for-profit industry. Famine thus develops over time and is driven by a combination of complex political, ecological, and social conditions within famine-prone regions. Because famine is a process, early detection is possible and necessary, but has proved difficult as a result of the complexity and ambiguity of famine's driving factors and conditions.

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