Famine

Scarcity, starvation, dearth, and destitution are all synonyms for the word famine which is an extreme scarcity of food. In a famine there is a shortage of food and other essential necessities that one needs to survive and live a normal life. During a famine many people die of hunger and disease caused by the famine or starvation. Not only can there be diseases developed as an effect of famine and malnutrition but famine itself can be caused by outbreaks of diseases, especially AIDS/HIV. In this paper I will discuss famine as a whole and causes, effects, dangers, and other factors surrounding the topic of Famine: a natural disaster.

A famine is a social and economic crisis usually increased by extensive malnutrition, starvation, epidemic and increased mortality. Historically, famines happened because of drought, crop failure and other causes brought on by ourselves that are represented through war and politics. War destroys houses and buildings. Buildings which contain the offices of many people who become unemployed and cannot support their families. The governments which don’t have much money to begin with are forced to send out troops, which takes money that they often don’t have. The government does not have enough money to support the population and with fields, houses, and business’ being burned and brought to the ground there is no income for the people and nothing for the governments to export to gain a federal income. People begin to starve, young children dieing, and there seems to be no hope. But in my personal opinion I think much more could be done to prevent the factors that end up causing the famines. This is just one scenario I could think of, but I am sure there are things similar to this that contribute to famine through war and ways that war affects poorer countries and seemingly instantaneously bring about the process into famine.

Even from biblical times you see in the bible implications of starvation caused by war. During the wars attacks of land take place, fields were burned, and farmers were killed. Later on famine and starvation were present, for example, in the book of Exodus where Joseph is warned of the years where there will be plenty and the years of starvation.

Also present in my paper from the many common causes of famine is the political and governmental greed and the greed of people that causes famines from not planning and thinking ahead and taking into consideration the consequences of their actions and the problems it would bring to their nation. A prime example of this is the largest famine (proportional to the affected population) was the Irish Potato Famine, beginning happened because of the Irish’s greed. See, the English could afford to pay more for food so in what may have been a seemingly win-win situation the Irish began to export their food to England.

During the twentieth century, an estimated seventy million people across the world have died due to famine. Today famine strikes Sub-Saharan African countries the hardest, but now with wars, international struggle, and economic failure. Famine continues to affect the world leaving behind millions suffering wherever it goes.

The descent into famine is slow and it is possible to be detected early. But famine is like a brutal villain that is cloaked in uncertainty, the police and profilers investigate the villain and can predict or notice when the particular villain is going to strike again. Although they know the villain is coming, this early detection may not always be best and although the profilers gave the police the info seldom is action taken. This is often what happens when dealing with famine and the information received by early detection. This is the problem that early famine response systems like United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) face each day.

Famine not only occurs because of the usual factors and causes. But continues because nothing is done or at least nothing effective is done to break the process. Because most of these famine struck countries are developing countries and do not possess the means to prevent famine. To support this point the usual way famine-prone areas become less famine-prone is through economic development which provides the particular country with money to support its inhabitants. After this people can get food supplies and children and the elderly can be provided with proper health care. This also helps the situation because disease is often a cause of famine. With people healthier and less people dieing the population goes up and people are able to support themselves. With water many farmers can get back to their jobs and provide for their families this is important because in developing countries farming is a very common profession for the poorer sections of the populations.