Famine Essay

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).

Later, bad weather conditions led to the great famine

terms of crop failures, from 1931­1932, there was a terrible famine across the Soviet Union.

In Mexico, around forty five percent of its one hundred and eighteen million people face food shortages or hunger. In south America, nearly ten million Peruvians suffer from hunger; that is nearly one-third of the population. In many countries around the world, it is the rural poor who suffer most. Hunger and disease, is usually in close combination and often precipitated by natural disasters or war, have plagued humankind throughout history. People need nutrition to be strong and to be able to go to school or work, but without any healthy food that cannot happen. Their bodies cannot process the activities or material they are shown due to lack of nutrients that you get from healthy sustenance. therefore, they are not able to get a good paying job or education for later in their future. World hunger is a problem that must be addressed as seen through illness,

Richard Robbins explores and analyzes the creation and the upkeep of hunger in his book “Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. Each day, over a billion people in the world lack basic food needs. Common misunderstandings about world hunger are that it is the result of insufficient food production, famine is the common reason for hunger and that hunger is caused by overpopulation. Robbins argues against that theory and says that famines is not the leading cause of hunger and hunger is not due to overpopulation or insufficient food production. “Food production is not determined by the global need for food; it is determined on how many people have the means for it” (page 176). The documentary “The End of Poverty” reinforces Robbins belief that food is a commodity.

Natural disasters, poverty, and war all cause famines. Hurricane Matthew in the Caribbean, the war in Iraq, and drought in East Africa are all examples of how hunger devastates

Hunger: a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat. About 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to live a healthy life. When we think of hunger, most of us tend to think of third world countries or places on the other side of the world. Although there is a lot of hunger in those places, there is also a lot of hunger in our country and in our own town.

Worldwide hunger affects almost one billion people throughout the world. (“Nutrition”) Malnutrition that is caused by hunger is the main killer of people who

Poverty has a large issue around the world. 1 billion children alone worldwide are living in poverty. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each year due to poverty. Nearly half of the world’s population – 3 billion lives less than 2.50 dollars a day. 640 million lives without adequate shelter, 420 million have no access to clean water and 270 million have no access to health services. Whether you live the wealthiest countries or the poorest ones, poverty will still exist.

Famine as defined by dictionaries and famine analysts is a virulent manifestation of intense starvation causing substantial loss of life. During 1980s, several writers challenged this view of famine as a discrete event that is triggered by food shortage and resulting in a mass death rate by starvation. These writers argued instead that famine should be perceived as an intensification of normal processes rather than an aberrant event. Mass starvation is only one possible outcome of the famine process; others include fertility decline, economic destitution, community breakdown, distress migration and exposure to new disease vectors. For example, in pre-colonial Tanzania, two kinds of famine were recognised; ordinary food shortage and famine that kill, the ultimate horror of mass starvation. While people in Sudan categorised famines according to their severity; minor famines causes hunger, severe famines cause destitution, and catastrophic famines result death.

Great Famine- Period of mass starvation, disease and emigration: 1315-22 occurred in almost all of Northern Europe.

The Irish Potato Famine was the worst tragedy in the history of Ireland. The outcome of the famine would result in hundreds of thousands dead, an failure of the economy in Ireland, and millions of emigrants forced to leave their home and country just to try to survive. The famine would effect countries other than Ireland as well. Some of these countries included England, America, Canada, and Australia.

The Irish Potato Famine was a period of starvation, disease and emigration, and was known as one of the biggest tragedies from 1845 to 1847. Many people depended on potato crops to survive; however [comma] the potato crops acquired blight, a disease that caused the potatoes to rot while still in the ground. No good crops could be grown for two years [comma] causing Irish tenant farmers unable to pay rent and was forced off their land causing over 21,000 people to die of starvation. The Irish Potato Famine caused many people to leave Ireland to seek work overseas in areas such as England and America. The Irish Potato Famine had a big impact on the history and the economy of Ireland.

Unfortunately, it was estimated that roughly 1.2 billion people in 1993 lived in extreme or absolute poverty, that which Robert McNamara regards “‘a condition of life so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable standard of human dignity’” (Singer 219, 220). These estimates can be projected at nearly 2 billion today. A large majority of the people living in absolute poverty resides in underdeveloped countries. Among the nearly 4.4 billion people in these countries, “3/5 lives in societies lacking basic sanitation; 1/3 go without safe drinking water; 1/4 lack adequate housing; 1/5 are undernourished, and 1.3 billion live on less than $1 a day” (Speth 1).