Ethiopia's Dependence on Rain Water and the Derg

Environmental factors are a factor that affect living and nonliving organisms and have participated in Ethiopia’s problem in food deficiency and food insecurity. A large environmental factor that can affect food deficiency and food insecurity is natural hazards and disasters. These can include droughts and floods which can upset agricultural production. For example, grain production and stocks are very low and droughts have hit harvests in grain-producing areas around the world. A more specific example for Ethiopia is that because of Ethiopia’s seasonal rainfall from mid-June to mid-September, soil erosion and

Ethiopia is a country found in the mid-east of Africa. It is surrounded by several countries including Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Eritrea. High amounts of rainfall in Ethiopia has resulted in the death and homelessness of thousands of people. Around 100 people have lost their lives in the past month in Ethiopia due to flash floods and landslides caused by their high rainfall, at least 20,000 have become homeless because of the same reason and even more have lost valuable cattle and crops. Ethiopia has a population of over 75 million and it has been rapidly increasing in the last 2 decades resulting in the construction of more and more buildings causing land for farming and cattle to be used up. The majority of

In response to the recent failure of the international community to prevent the famine crisis in the Horn of Africa since July 2011, Suzanne Dvorak the chief executive of Save the Children wrote that, “We need to provide help now. But we cannot forget that these children are wasting away in a disaster that we could - and should - have prevented” she added, “The UN estimates that every $1 spent in prevention saves $7 in emergency spending.” (Dvorak, 2011).

The location and geography of the country has caused the people to experience famine after famine, leaving many to die from starvation. A famine is in definition, “A great shortage or an extreme scarcity of food over an extended period of time” (Webster). There are several different types of famine that occur in different types of the world. The type that Ethiopia generally goes through is called a Ravallion. During a Ravallion famine, there are unusually large amounts of causalities with extreme shortages of food in certain parts of the population. There are many things that cause famine, whether it’s draught, plague, or civil disrupt. Right now, Ethiopia is experiencing a draught that has killed almost all of their crops. Because of the famines that Ethiopia experiences most every year, there is usually an increase in the amount of people malnourished. This year, 11to 14 million people are expected to go hungry leaving many to starve to death. Ethiopia has experienced many draughts like these, the worst however, being in 1983. This draught lasted two years and the draught alone killed over 400,000 people in one year, this doesn’t include the deaths that were due to starvation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983%E2%80%931985_famine_in_Ethiopia).

The famine has been attributed to a major drought that struck East Africa in late 1983, as well as political instability in the country. While the drought was a major factor in the severity of the famine, the famine was already occurring on a major scale due to government policies that had been implemented to curb rebel uprisings and control agriculture development. In the 20 years leading up to the famine in Ethiopia, war between the established government and various rebel factions was commonplace with government forces often attacking civilian villages and agricultural land as retaliation

The improvised diets of grass, corn husks, were able to be processed by adults, but- “it could not be digested by the tender stomachs of children (pg.113). The doctors could do nothing because there was no food for the hospital to give. For Doctor Kim the knowledge that the hospital was incapable of helping was inexcusable. She transferred units three times, but pediatrics was the worst. “They would look at me with accusing eyes. Even four-year olds knew they were dying, and that I wasn’t doing anything to help them (pg. 114).” The generations of children who survived the famine were forever changed because of the lack of nutrition received during their formative years- while their heads and torsos grew normally their limbs were left behind as the body directed what little nutrients they had were sent to more vital areas (pg. 264). As a teacher, Mi-ran like Dr. Kim, was forced to watch as the institutions that should have protected children failed. She watched as the students she loved dwindled from fifty to fifteen. She was able to eat comparatively well. “What she didn’t realize is that her indifference was an acquired survival skill. In order to get through much of the 1990s alive, one had to suppress any impulse to share

In the midst of drought, the destruction of social and economic infrastructure, asset stripping, ‘clan-cleansing’ and the disruption of food supplies caused a famine in which an estimated 250,000 died. Those who suffered most came from the politically marginalised and poorly armed riverine and inter-riverine agro-pastoral

The total number of those who lost their homes due to poverty in Ireland during the famine did not even compare to the amount of lives lost in those dreadful years. Deaths due to malnutrition and disease were immense. The exact total of deaths is still unknown to this day (Kinealy 167). “The number [ . . . ] has been calculated as lying between half a million and one and a half million” (Kinealy 168).

William Kamkwanmba lives in Malawi, Africa, where most people grow their own food without the help of electricity or running water. Life is quite difficult here, as only two percent of the Malawians can afford electricity. When William was 14 years old, his life became more difficult due to a drought affecting most family’s ability to grow enough food. “Within five months all Malawians began to starve to death. My family ate one meal per day, at night”, William recalled.

Hunger is one of the many problems families face in rural poverty, as shown in this quote: “Under the volatile circumstances in which it operated, the RCC could not disclose in its food requests and famine reports to the Americans that its own government was part of the famine problem in the mid-1970s” (Kissi 115). This quote confirms Ethiopia's history of poverty and hardship. It explains how the government has made a negative impact on the way people live their lives in rural Ethiopia. It is important to note that RCC stands for "Regional Cooperation Center" and deals with social and ecological problems in countries around the world. A study on rural poverty in Ethiopia says, "Clearly the general trend in these regions depicts prevalence of disharmony between the natural resource base and the population to be sustained" (Ezra 64). This quote is from a study done about poverty in Africa and Ethiopia. It explains that there has been "disharmony between the natural resource base" which means that resources in that area has begun to diminish and now fails to adequately provide for the increasing population in Ethiopia. This shortage of resources leads to decreased sale, which in turn leads to hunger and poverty. Due to the fact that Ethiopia is lacking necessary goods to make economic progress, it cannot provide for its people dying in

Drought and famine can make it hard to grow produce and cater livestock, which in turn results in no income, as the selling of produce and live stock is what provides a source of income.

In the 1990s, approximately 800 000 people died due to the famine. Since then, there has been little proof that grain production had recovered. Little has changed on the policies in place, the diplomatic environment, which has brought the government to again almost deliberately triggering another phase of famine.

The most fundamental symptom of famine is hunger. Hunger is all consuming; it destroys through organ shutdown, it eats the flesh of the living leaving a walking skeleton, it allows disease to ravage the body and when prolonged, it alters the human psyche to an unrecognisable point (Mukerjee J. S., 2011, p. 195; Mukerjee M. , 2010). When

“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” -Haile Selassie The name "Ethiopia" derives from the Greek word ethio, meaning "burned" and pia, meaning "face": the land of burned-faced peoples or in some points also means “something divided”. Ethiopia also known as (Abyssinia) is the tenth largest country in Africa, covering 439,580 square miles almost twice the size of Texas. Addis Ababa is the third-highest capital city in the world. The country boasts a massive population as one of the densest landlocked countries in the world with roughly

What do you think of when you hear the word “famine”? Do you think of natural disasters, of unpredictable tragedy, of innocent lives lost? Tragedy and death are inherent to the concept of starvation on a large scale, but the nature of some famines may have as much to do with politics as it does with the environment. What I expected to uncover as I began my research on the 1994-98 famine in North Korea was food shortages on a massive scale as a result of terrible growing conditions, extreme climates, unpredictable and unpreventable circumstances, for the most part. Admittedly, my knowledge of famine was limited to what I knew of the countryside of pre-communist China, where the most sustenance provided by the land the bare minimum was, and