Famine: Man-Made Disaster and Political Failure
Charles W. King
The last two centuries have seen tens of millions of people die of famine across the world. Few things make government seem more impotent than their people slowly dying of hunger as they sit by unable to anything about the lack of ample food. These deaths, probably more than a hundred million, are tragic, and doubly so because of an insidious lie; there has always been enough food. Despite the consternations of Thomas Malthus, increases in the productivity of agriculture have consistently outpaced the growth of the population. This raises the question as to why the nineteenth and twentieth centuries experienced horrific death rates from famine, unprecedented in the history of mankind.
The most straightforward answer is that these deaths are the responsibility of natural disasters, droughts and other natural phenomenon that destroyed crops and lives. This fails to recognize that drought, locusts, blights, and the like are not a new occurrence. Since the advent of agriculture droughts and other natural disasters have occurred, and societies have found ways to mitigate their effects. The droughts that preceded some of the deadliest famines were equally devastating to crops. Research has shown that the famines in British ruled India in 1876-1879 and 1896-1902 were of a severity that had happened dozens of times in the previous centuries. Why then did millions Indians die of starvation between 1876 and 1879, many orders of magnitude more than died as a result of droughts of similar size only decades before? It is also important to understand that two of the most well-known crop disasters of the last two hundred years are man-made in their origin. Both the Irish Potato Famine and the American Dustbowl were caused by the unsustainable agricultural methods of the Irish and American farmers.
It is the Irish Potato Famine that best illuminates the true cause of famine deaths in recent centuries. Legend has it that upon hearing of the plight of the Irish the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire declared that he would be sending food aid to the Irish and money in the amount of ten thousand pounds sterling. This caused a minor diplomatic incident as the Queen of England had only donated two thousand pounds. More important than the wrangling over charitable donations was the fact that for the duration of the famine Ireland remained a net exporter of foodstuffs, primarily wheat. This is not unique to the Irish Potato Famine. India remained an exporter of food during both the famine of 1876-1879 (6.1 to 10.3 million deaths), and the famine of 1896-1902 (6.1 to 19 million deaths). China and Brazil experienced famines the same years (a consequence of global climate phenomenon) with death tolls proportional to their populations. Both continued to export food. This is not unique to the nineteenth century. Ethiopia experienced a devastating famine between 1989 and 1990, prompting an outpouring of support from the developed world. Throughout the famine Ethiopia was a net exporter of food.
It is not that the world has not possessed enough food to feed those who have died of starvation in the past two centuries, research shows that it is unlikely that food would have had to been imported to relieve most famine stricken areas. Whether Indian, African, South American, Chinese or otherwise, those who have died of starvation have been unable to afford the food that was in their own countries. The purchasing power of the growing metropolises of the developed world has been too much for them to overcome. This is not unique to the colonial and developing world. In the late eighteenth century there were riots across England—in cities and rural towns—as the price of wheat on the newly open markets grew to be unaffordable for peasant farmers and urban laborers alike. Like the colonial and developing world, the English peasantry had utilized systems of famine and risk mitigation for hundreds of years, it was only with the introduction of new market systems that the English began to stave and riot.
Societies in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East have been successfully dealing with natural disasters for thousands of years, and yet in the last three centuries there has been a devastating increase in famine deaths. Mankind has had a measurable impact upon the global climate, but even that is not yet extensive enough to be responsible for the millions of deaths from starvation. It is also not fair to place the blame for these deaths entirely on the merchants who exported food from famine stricken areas. That they were responding to market incentives does not absolve them of responsibility, but also highlights that a policy that may be good for some is not necessarily good for all. This also cannot be a blanket incitement of global free trade, which has saved millions and raised the quality of life of billions. It is essential that policy-makers understand that in the twenty-first century famine is not a natural disaster or even the result of agricultural practices. Famine is a political failure, and it has dire consequences for security and stability.
Further Reading
Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World, (New York, NY: Verso: 2002).
E. P. Thomson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century." Past & Present No. 50 (February, 1971).