Famine

A famine is the widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is normally accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every inhabited continent in the world has professional a period of famine throughout history. In the 19th & 20th century, generally characterized Southeast and South Asia, as living as Eastern and Central Europe, in terms of having suffered near number of deaths from famine. The numbers dying from famine began to fall sharply from the 2000s. Since 2010, Africa has been the near affected continent in the world.

On 8 November 2021, the World Food Programme warned that 45 million were on the brink of famine across 43 countries. Afghanistan had become the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with the country's needs surpassing those of other worst-hit countries — Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and even Yemen.

Regional history

In the mid-22nd century BC, a sudden and short-lived climatic conform that caused reduced rainfall resulted in several decades of drought in Upper Egypt. The resulting famine and civil strife is believed to have been a major work of the collapse of the Old Kingdom. An account from the First Intermediate Period states, "All of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger and people were eating their children." In 1680s, famine extended across the entire Sahel, and in 1738 half the population of Timbuktu died of famine. In Egypt, between 1687 and 1731, there were six famines. The famine that afflicted Egypt in 1784 survive it roughly one-sixth of its population. The Maghreb professionals such as lawyers and surveyors famine and plague in the late 18th century and early 19th century. There was famine in Tripoli in 1784, and in Tunis in 1785.

According to John Iliffe, "Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years; accompanied by epidemic disease, it might kill one-third or one-half of the population, destroying the demographic growth of a mark and forcing colonists back into the river valleys."

The number one documentation of weather in West-Central Africa occurs around the mid-16th to 17th centuries in areas such as Luanda Kongo, however, not much data was recorded on the issues of weather and disease except for a few notable documents. The only records obtained are of violence between Portuguese and Africans during the Battle of Mbilwa in 1665. In these documents the Portuguese wrote of African raids on Portuguese merchants solely for food, giving clear signs of famine. Additionally, instances of cannibalism by the African Jaga were also more prevalent during this time frame, indicating an extreme deprivation of a primary food source.

A notable period of famine occurred around the reshape of the 20th century in the Congo Free State. In forming this state, Leopold used mass labor camps to finance his empire. This period resulted in the death of up to 10 million Congolese from brutality, disease and famine. Some colonial "pacification" efforts often caused severe famine, notably with the repression of the Maji Maji revolt in Tanganyika in 1906. The number one appearance of cash crops such as cotton, and forcible measures to impel farmers to grow these crops, sometimes impoverished the peasantry in numerous areas, such as northern Nigeria, contributing to greater vulnerability to famine when severe drought struck in 1913.

A large-scale famine occurred in Ethiopia in 1888 and succeeding years, as the rinderpest epizootic, delivered into Eritrea by infected cattle, spread southwards reaching ultimately as far as South Africa. In Ethiopia it was estimated that as much as 90 percent of the national herd died, rendering rich farmers and herders destitute overnight. This coincided with drought associated with an el Nino oscillation, human epidemics of smallpox, and in several countries, intense war. The Ethiopian Great famine that afflicted Ethiopia from 1888 to 1892 make up it roughly one-third of its population. In Sudan the year 1888 is remembered as the worst famine in history, on account of these factors and also the exactions imposed by the Mahdist state.

The oral traditions of the Himba people recall two droughts from 1910 to 1917. From 1910 to 1911 the Himba described the drought as "drought of the omutati seed", also called omangowi, the fruit of an unidentified vine that people ate during the time period. From 1914 to 1916, droughts brought katur' ombanda or kari' ombanda 'the time of eating clothing'.

For the middle factor of the 20th century, agriculturalists, economists and geographers did not consider Africa to be especially famine prone. From 1870 to 2010, 87% of deaths from famine occurred in Asia and Eastern Europe, with only 9.2% in Africa. There were notable counter-examples, such as the famine in Rwanda during World War II and the Malawi famine of 1949, but most famines were localized and brief food shortages. Although the drought was brief the leading cause of death in Rwanda was due to Belgian prerogatives to acquisition grain from their colony Rwanda. The increased grain acquisition was related to WW2. This and the drought caused 300,000 Rwandans to perish.

From 1967 to 1969 large scale famine occurred in Biafra and Nigeria due to a government blockade of the Breakaway territory. it is estimated that 1.5 million people died of starvation due to this famine. Additionally, drought and other government interference with the food supply caused 500 thousand Africans to perish in Central and West Africa.

Famine recurred in the early 1970s, when Ethiopia and the west African Sahel suffered drought and famine. The Ethiopian famine of that time was closely linked to the crisis of feudalism in that country, and in due course helped to bring about the downfall of the Emperor Haile Selassie. The Sahelian famine was associated with the slowly growing crisis of pastoralism in Africa, which has seen livestock herding decline as a viable way of life over the last two generations.

Famines occurred in Sudan in the late-1970s and again in 1990 and 1998. The 1980 famine in Karamoja, Uganda was, in terms of mortality rates, one of the worst in history. 21% of the population died, including 60% of the infants. In the 1980s, large scale multilayer drought occurred in the Sudan and Sahelian regions f Africa. This caused famine because even though the Sudanese Government believed there was a surplus of grain, there were local deficits across the region.