What happens during a famine

Six surprising facts about one of humanity's worst nightmares

The Book:

Famine: A Short History
By Cormac Ó Gráda
Princeton University Press
2009

The Talk:

In his book Famine: A Short History, Cormac Ó Gráda gives a global overview of the history of famine—it’s causes, its consequences, and its lessons for future prevention.

Historically, famines have been caused by back-to-back crop failures within a region due to drought, flood, or diseased crops. War is another frequent cause. The current near-famine in the Horn of Africa includes most of these factors: a five-year drought combined with devastating floods, as well as regional war and high global food prices due to the war in Ukraine.

El Niño weather patterns have also been associated with famines. “The extreme weather produced by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) of 1876-77 gave rise to the most deadly famines of the nineteenth century,” writes Ó Gráda. (We are currently in an El Niño cycle right now.)

Famines have occurred throughout history. (The earliest recorded famines occurred in the 3rd Millennium BCE, basically as far back as records go.) However, they are less common today than they were in the past, particularly in developed countries, due to better communications, transportation technology, and integrated markets that allow food to move around much faster than in the premodern era.

The famine pattern

When famines do happen, they follow a human pattern. The poor suffer the most. People migrate to other regions. Government rationing leads to black markets. And people search for scapegoats to blame.

But Ó Gráda’s book also describes some interesting, perhaps counter-intuitive, effects of famine:

1. During a famine, most people don’t die from starvation.

Famine is not just famine, it’s also disease. Ó Gráda calls it the “symbotic relationship between famine and disease.” Where famines occur, disease follows. As a result, it’s often difficult to untangle those who died from lack of food and those who died from disease. It’s likely that most famine mortality is due to disease rather than literal starvation.

2. The food riots come early.

Food riots usually appear when famine has not yet arrived. “When starvation sets in,” writes Ó Gráda, “anger and frustration against the authorities give way to apathy and indifference.” Psychological despair combines with a physical loss of energy. Thus, the images of languor and inactivity we see in photographs of famine-stricken regions.

3. Prostitution rises, but sexual activity declines.

Along with theft and slavery, prostitution rises during a famine. An eyewitness observer of a famine in 1943-44 Bengal describes women and young boys selling themselves “in hordes.”

But at the same time, there’s a sharp decline in sexual activity overall, as human bodies shift toward energy conservation. Women stop mensurating; male testosterone levels, tied to nutrition, fall. Libido goes dormant. Independent of overall sexual activity, fertility and marriage rates also decline and these effects last longer than the famine itself.

4. More men die than women.

Famines are no equalizer. The poorest suffer the worst in a famine. Ó Gráda’s book includes photos of skeleton-like figures collapsed in an urban street, while healthy strangers pass them by. It’s one of the most extreme cases of a “devil take the hindmost” situation.

And yet there’s one notable exception: More men die during famines than women. And the most likely explanation is physiological; females store more body fat and less muscle than males. This is true for other mammals as well, and the same divergence in survival during scarcity is found in other mammals.

5. Families disintegrate.

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of famine is what it does to families. Spouses abandon each other or mutual agree to part. Parents abandon children (or even sell them for food). When resources are scarce, the very old and very young are valued less.

There are recorded accounts of generosity and charity during famines, but these are rare. The hard truth is that humans change psychologically during famine. “Famine lays bare sentiments and instincts that are, fortunately, hidden and even unimaginable to most of us today,” writes Ó Gráda.

6. It’s horrifying but also limited.

Reading the accounts of famine in this book, it’s clear that famine is one of the worst events humans can experience. It breaks social order and human feeling; it opens a pandora’s box of secondary horrors; it blankets entire cities in despair.

At the same time, the book also shows that famines have occurred throughout history, typically last only a couple years, and remain localized. Humans recover, and over the long term, famines have been only a minor check on economic and population growth.

Could a famine happen in America?

Famine in an advanced economy is hard to imagine because it hasn’t happened in modern times outside of war. The closest example might be the Great Depression, when Americans stood in soup lines and bread lines and hunger was common. But even this never led to famine.

In isolated regions (and during wars), it’s much harder to move information and resources—this increases the risks of local famines. But Ó Gráda argues that famines are preventable when there are good communication systems, strong transportation , integrated markets, responsive governments, and peace and stability.

All of these reasons make an American famine unlikely. America produces most of its own food, and it has several agricultural regions. It’s also a central player in international trade, which would likely allow it to import food from other world regions, at least enough to stave off famine, even if food shortages or high food prices exist. Novel food production and food preservation techniques may also provide options pre-industrial societies never had.

Famine’s future

Yet the wildcard scenario that some scientists worry about is a multiple breadbasket failure, in which several global agricultural regions experience crop failure at the same time. Two scientific studies came out this summer on this topic:

• Risks of synchronized low yields are underestimated in climate and crop model projections

• Potential for surprising heat and drought events in wheat-producing regions of USA and China

Both research teams argue that we are underestimating the chances of simultaneous harvest failures occurring around the world at the same time, and that these risks are continuing to rise.

We are now living beyond the historical bounds of civilization, and the world will continue to change, not just for a year or two, but for decades to come. Risks of drought, floods, disease, and conflict—all drivers of famine—are expected to rise in coming years, not just in one region but simultaneously around the globe.

History can give us an idea of what famines entail—disease, crime, migration, and despair—but all these previous events were localized and relatively brief. What comes next may be on a different scale altogether.

---

Related:

The horses of war are running again

Climate change is my family's life now

Horn of Africa suffering from worst drought in 40 years (DW)

Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET)