Jasmin Ivankovic 

Professor A. Ozkul

English 250 

23 June, 2017

An Uncomfortable Reality: A Documented Essay On Famines 

    Imagine that you are forced to flee from your home with just the clothes you have on and what you can carry in your hands. You are leaving behind your town–or what is left of it–your personal belongings, and life as you know it. You have to watch as those around you die of starvation. And, it won’t be long now before you find yourself starving. Constantly on the move, you cannot stop to imagine sleeping in a cozy bed or eating your next meal (Mercy Corps). This is just one example of a famine situation, and it is not unlike the reality which besieged syrian refugees. This essay first hopes to put the issue of scarcity, or severe food shortage, into perspective, and then turns to talking about solutions, practices that can improve famine situations. I shall close by discussing ethical theories which might guide activism for famine relief. 

What are famines? What are the causes?  How does one help? Our approach for answering these questions involves documenting various perspectives on famines, hoping to reveal their many-faceted causes, grasping for a bigger picture. To begin, I shall turn to the book Homo Deus, as it offers us some insight into the historical significance of famines:

[. . .] For thousands of years, [famines have] been humanity’s worst enemy. Until recently most humans lived on the very edge of the biological poverty line, below which people succumb to malnutrition and hunger. A small mistake or a bit of bad luck could easily be a death sentence for an entire family or village. If heavy rains destroyed your wheat crop, or robbers carried off your goat herd, you and your loved ones may well have starved to death. Misfortune or stupidity on the collective level resulted in mass famines.  (Harari 9)

     Our main focus here is on mass famines that resulted from collective failures, or from human issues and ideologies rather than solely due to natural disasters. And, more specifically, this essay is concerned with modern famine situations and our reaction to them. Therefore, our perception of the facts matters in determining good methods for famine response and prevention. First, let’s consider how to distinguish between mass starvation and famine:

The United Nations officially declares a famine based on three criteria: as least 20 percent of the households in an area must face extreme food shortages and a limited ability to cope; the acute malnutrition rate must exceed 30 percent; and the death rate must exceed two persons per day per 10,000 people in the population. (Paarlberg 41)

     Since Africa is the most affected continent, it will be our focus for now. Let us briefly consider the case of the recurring famines in Ethiopia. For the Ethiopian famines, the most obvious cause we can point to is drought. We can say that drought caused their economy to collapse. Farming is, after all, how nations feed their people; by losing the farms, there was no food supply—and people died. However, that is only part of the story.

One article from the Huffington Post argued that this recurring famine crisis in Ethiopia makes a good case for democracy because Ethiopia’s autocracy caused their mass famines.“Why does autocracy lead to famine? The most fundamental reason is that autocrats often don’t care enough about the population to prevent famine. Autocrats maintain power through force, not popular approval” (Haylemariam). That is to say: Ethiopia’s social structure is more responsible for people dying of starvation than their misfortunate droughts. Furthermore, social structure (or lack thereof) is what makes Africa’s famine situation seemingly unprecedented to us living in the first world. Nora O’Neil states this cause more generally in the quote below: 

But harsh circumstances cause famines only when social and economic structures are too fragile to absorb such natural shocks. Californians know that desert climates need not lead to famines. Minnesotans know that a ferocious winter need not be reflected in countless annual deaths from cold. Yet both regions would have catastrophic annual mortality if they lacked appropriate social and economic structures. Many natural catastrophes produce human catastrophes only when social structures are inadequate. (O’Neil 30)

Turning to a more general perspective, another factor to take into consideration when researching the cause of famines is overpopulation. The world’s population is constantly increasing at faster rates; you might ask then, what happens when there are too many mouths to feed? Similar to a theory proposed by Thomas Malthus in 1798, who said that the world’s population will exceed its food supply, causing scarcity, some people today still believe that we should be worried. However, Malthus was obviously wrong that this would become a global crisis; we all know that overeating is a serious issue today in America. But we should still talk about the rest of the world.

Although Asia is known for being over populated, they’re doing just fine thanks to their green revolution which occurred in the ’60s and ’70s. This was a biological science breakthrough. All across Asia, farmers began farming with seeds developed by plant breeds, making better wheat and rice that has more grain, and their food supply increased proportionally (Paarlberg 6). 

African countries, on the other hand, have missed these kinds of farming revolutions, making their farms yield less food, wasting more and more land. This is yet another thing one can attribute to causing starvation in African countries, where “[. . .] harvests have been falling and dependence on imported grain had been growing” (O’Neil 29). 

In his book, Starved For Science, Robert Paarlberg says African farms are resisting advancements in science technology on their farms, copying a trend popular in Europe, where they resist genetically modified seeds, artificial fertilizer, insecticide, and other farming technologies. (In America, these are called “organic farms”.) Paarlberg says that African farmers are being instructed to produce cash crops and not use more advanced methods of farming. Although science technology could help plants grow in conditions of drought and improve their overall yields, they refuse to adopt newer methods of farming. Paarlberg suggests that by adopting better farming practices, African farmers could resolve and prevent many famine crises in the long run. And, he reminds us that 70% of sub-Saharan Africa depends on farming. This sounds borderline malthusian and ideological. 

However, our focus is not on endemic hunger or poverty; It’s on mass famines. I want to reiterate from the introduction what one can imagine a deadly famine situation to look like. What one soldier saw in 17th century france is not so different from what is going on in certain parts of the world today:

An infinite number of poor souls, weak from hunger and wretchedness and dying from want, because, having no work or occupation, they lack the money to buy bread. Seeking to prolong their lives a little and somewhat to appease their hunger, these poor folk eat such unclean things as cats and the flesh of horses flayed and cast onto dung heaps. [Others consume] the blood that flows when cows and oxen are slaughtered, and the offal that cooks throw into the streets. Other poor wretches eat nettles and weeds, or roots and herbs which they boil in water. (Blanning, 52)

The above situation happened in Madaya, Syria in 2016. According to one CNN article, they were also boiling grass to stay alive. And, people were dying because the price of food skyrocketed with inflation. But the article argues that their starvation was caused deliberately for profit. Furthermore, the ongoing civil war is hugely to blame for causing this situation as well as the displacement of the syrian people. Said displacement has been called the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. Considering just how gruesome the situation is, does it not behoove us to help these poor souls? Up to this point, we have seen how complex famine situations can be. But the issue takes on even more complexity when third parties try to help; in doing so, they are crossing national, cultural, and ethical boundaries. 

There are immediate ways to send support. Flying over care packages and setting up refugee camps around Syria, like the American Non-profit charity, Mercy Corps, does, is just one example. For every famine situation, sending care packages may seem like a no-brainer; while this may work and save those dying from starvation, in some cases, the recipients of our support run into long-term planning issues. In his book, Food Politics, Robert Paarlberg tells us what happens when care packages are the main solution to a recurring famine crisis: they become dependent on our support (46). 

Although other solutions for African famine situations, like providing seeds and equipment, which improve yields in African countries exist, you encounter more stumbling blocks there. You find cultural and political barriers. Whether we aim for a short-term or long-term solution, we are still crossing some boundaries. By “crossing boundaries”, I mean we are either: unsafely going into countries which have been destabilized, getting mixed up in foreign affairs, or simply finding social/cultural dissonance. However, these things should not discourage us from helping. 

 In her book, Justice Across Boundaries, Nora O’Neil, a rigorous philosophical thinker, considers our activism important above all else. “We could list the facts of world hunger, poverty and famine endlessly. But facts alone do not tell us what to do. What surely matters is action, which action we advocate depends partly on our perception of the facts, and this perception depends on the ethical outlook we adopt” (30). Let’s now consider ethical theories taken from an American perspective. 

O’Neil’s offers us three ethical outlooks which can be used to assess our action. We can warrant action by measuring the happiness, health, and wellbeing of people living in affected regions; or warrant taking action to preserve our human rights, suggesting everyone has a right not to die of unnatural causes; or warrant taking action because you are fulfilling a human obligation to help those in need. 

Ultimately, we can conclude that famines are tragic, horrible things that have not changed much since ancient times. We have talked about Africa’s famine crisis, and its many assumed causes. We have discussed the complexity in pinpointing a cause to a given famine situation. And, we have found more complexity when looking to improve famine situations. But this complexity should not stop us from saving those dying of starvation and famine around the world. We know for a fact: it is all the more imperative we take action on all fronts.

Works Cited

“Amnesty International.” Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2017

Blanning, T. C. W. The Pursuit of Glory: Europe, 1648-1815. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus. Place of Publication Not Identified: Vintage, 2017. Print.

Haylemariam, Dawit Ayele. “The Cause of Ethiopia’s Recurrent Famine Is Not Drought, It Is Authoritarianism.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Aug. 2015. Web. 14 July 2017.

Melvin, Don. “Syria Report: Famine in Madaya ‘the Tip of an Iceberg’.” CNN. Cable News Network, 09 Jan. 2016. Web. 14 July 2017.

O’Neill, Onora. Justice across Boundaries: Whose Obligations? Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2016. Print.

“Population and Natural Resources Module: Conceptual Framework.” Malthusian Theory of Population. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2017.