Measurement methods
A tension that has existed in all attempts to define a famine is between definitions of famine as an event and definitions as a process. In the first case, famine is defined (roughly) as the event of many people dying of starvation within a locality or region. In the second, famine is described as a chronology beginning with a disruption or disruptions that gradually leads to widespread death. However, these general definitions have little utility for those implementing food relief as "region", "widespread", etc. are undefined.
One of the earliest methods of measurement was the Indian Famine Codes developed by the colonial British in the 1880s. The Famine Codes defined three levels of food insecurity: near-scarcity, scarcity, and famine. "Scarcity" was defined as three successive years of crop failure, crop yields of one-third or one-half normal, and large populations in distress. "Famine" further included a rise in food prices above 140% of "normal", the movement of people in search of food, and widespread mortality. The Punjab Food Code stated, "Imminence of death is the sole criterion for declaration of famine." Inherent in the Famine Codes was the assumption that famine was an event, and not a process.
The basic premise of the Famine Codes formed the basis of numerous subsequent early warning systems. One of the most efficacious is the Turkana District Early Warning System in northern Kenya in which indicators include rainfall levels, market prices of cereals, status of livestock, rangeland conditions and trends, and enrollment on food-for-work projects. The system identifies three levels of crisis: alarm, alert and emergency, each of which is linked to a planned response to mitigate the crisis and try to prevent a worsening of the situation.
International organizations responding to recent food crises created ad hoc measurements. In 2002, the World Food Programme created a number of "pre-famine indicators" for Ethiopia and combined it with measurements of nutrition levels to create recommendations. The Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU) devised a system for Somalia with four levels: Non-alert (near normal), Alert (requires close attention), Livelihood Crisis (basic social structures under threat) and Humanitarian Emergency (threat of widespread mortality requiring immediate humanitarian assistance).
Combined intensity and magnitude scales
In an influential paper published in 2004, Paul Howe and Stephen Devereux, both of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, set forth a measurement of famine with scales for both "intensity" and "magnitude", incorporating many of the developments of recent decades. The intensity scale is:
| Level | Phrase | Lives | Livelihood |
|---|
| 0 | Food secure | Crude Mortality Rate (CMR) < 0.2/10,000/day; and/or Wasting < 2.3% | Cohesive social system; food prices stable; Coping strategies not utilized |
| 1 | Food insecure | 0.2 ≤ CMR < 0.5/10,000/day; and/or 2.3% ≤ Wasting < 10% | Cohesive social system; Food prices unstable; Seasonal shortages; Reversible coping strategies taken |
| 2 | Food crisis | 0.5 ≤ CMR < 1/10,000/day; 10% ≤ Wasting < 20%; and/or prevalence of oedema | Social system stressed but largely cohesive; Dramatic rise in food and basic items prices; Adaptive mechanisms begin to fail; Increase in irreversible coping strategies |
| 3 | Famine | 1 ≤ CMR < 5/10,000/day; 20% ≤ Wasting < 40%; and/or prevalence of oedema | Clear signs of social breakdown; markets begin to collapse; coping strategies exhausted and survival strategies (migration in search of help, abandonment of weaker members of the community) adopted; affected population identifies food scarcity as the major societal problem |
| 4 | Severe famine | 5 ≤ CMR <15/10,000/day; Wasting ≥ 40%; and/or prevalence of oedema | Widespread social breakdown; markets close; survival strategies widespread; affected population identifies food scarcity as the major societal problem |
| 5 | Extreme famine | CMR ≥ 15/10,000/day | Complete social breakdown; widespread mortality; affected population identifies food scarcity as the major societal problem |
On the magnitude scale:
| Category | Phrase | Mortality range |
|---|
| A | Minor famine | 0-999 |
| B | Moderate famine | 1,000-9,999 |
| C | Major famine | 10,000-99,999 |
| D | Great famine | 100,000-999,999 |
| E | Catastrophic famine | 1,000,000 and over |
Using this framework, each famine would receive a Magnitude designation, but locations within the affected region would be classified at varying Intensities. The 1998 southern Sudan famine would be a C: Major Famine, with an intensity of 5: Extreme famine in Ajiep village ranging to 3: Famine in Rumbek town. In comparison, the 2000 Ethiopian famine in Gode district would be classified as a B: Moderate famine, and would thus should demand proportionally less of the limited resources available for famine relief.
While each organization working in famine-related areas has its own operational interpretation of specific indicators, the Howe-Devereaux framework has been widely adopted as a common framework by which famine warning and famine relief may be discussed worldwide, in particular in the use of the intensity scale. This has led organizations such as the World Food Programme to refrain from referring to the 2005 Niger food crisis as a famine, as indicators had not deteriorated into a Level 3: Famine.
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every inhabited continent in the world has experienced a period of famine throughout history. During the 19th and 20th century, Southeast and South Asia, as well as Eastern and Central Europe, suffered the greatest number of fatalities. Deaths caused by famine declined sharply beginning in the 1970s, with numbers falling further since 2000. Since 2010, Africa has been the most affected continent in the world by famine.
In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In the field of hunger relief, the term hunger is used in a sense that goes beyond the common desire for food that all humans experience, also known as an appetite. The most extreme form of hunger, when malnutrition is widespread, and when people have started dying of starvation through lack of access to sufficient, nutritious food, leads to a declaration of famine.
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death. The term inanition refers to the symptoms and effects of starvation. Starvation may also be used as a means of torture or execution.
The 2005–2006 Niger food crisis was a severe but localized food security crisis in the regions of northern Maradi, Tahoua, Tillabéri, and Zinder of Niger from 2005 to 2006. It was caused by an early end to the 2004 rains, desert locust damage to some pasture lands, high food prices, and chronic poverty. In the affected area, 2.4 million of 3.6 million people are considered highly vulnerable to food insecurity. An international assessment stated that, of these, over 800,000 face extreme food insecurity and another 800,000 in moderately insecure food situations are in need of aid.
Famine had been a recurrent feature of life in the South Asian subcontinent countries of India and Bangladesh, most notoriously under British rule. Famines in India resulted in more than 30 million deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Famines in British India were severe enough to have a substantial impact on the long-term population growth of the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
FEWS NET, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, is a website of information and analysis on food insecurity created in 1985 by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the US Department of State, after famines in East and West Africa. In 2008, Molly E. Brown argued that during its twenty years of activity, FEWS NET had been extremely successful. She said that it was widely viewed as "the most effective program in existence for providing information to governments about impending food crises".
The North Korean Famine, also known as the Arduous March or the March of Suffering, was a period of mass starvation together with a general economic crisis from 1994 to 1998 in North Korea. During this time there was an increase in defection from North Korea which peaked towards the end of the famine period.
The timeline of major famines in India during British rule covers major famines on the Indian subcontinent from 1765 to 1947. The famines included here occurred both in the princely states, British India and Indian territories independent of British rule such as the Maratha Empire.
The Indian Famine Codes, developed by the colonial British in the 1880s, were one of the earliest famine scales.
Food security is defined, according to the World Food Summit of 1996, as existing "when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life". This commonly refers to people having "physical and economic access" to food that meets both their nutritional needs and food preferences. Today, Ethiopia faces high levels of food insecurity, ranking as one of the hungriest countries in the world, with an estimated 5.2 million people needing food assistance in 2010. Ethiopia was ranked 92 in the world in Global Hunger Index 2020.
Occurring between July 2011 and mid-2012, a severe drought affected the entire East African region. Said to be "the worst in 60 years", the drought caused a severe food crisis across Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya that threatened the livelihood of 9.5 million people. Many refugees from southern Somalia fled to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, where crowded, unsanitary conditions together with severe malnutrition led to a large number of deaths. Other countries in East Africa, including Sudan, South Sudan and parts of Uganda, were also affected by a food crisis.
The post conflict South Sudan has huge challenges in delivering health care to the population. The challenges include: crippled health infrastructures, nearly collapsed public health system, and inadequate qualified health professionals. The country is far from achieving the MDGs by end of 2015. The health system needs a major resuscitation, in addition to supporting and developing health training institutions.
Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) is a measurement of the nutritional status of a population that is often used in protracted refugee situations. Along with the Crude Mortality Rate, it is one of the basic indicators for assessing the severity of a humanitarian crisis.
Since 2016, a food insecurity crisis has been ongoing in Yemen which began during the Yemeni Civil War. The UN estimates that the war has caused an estimated 130,000 deaths from indirect causes which include lack of food, health services, and infrastructure as of December 2020. In 2018, Save the Children estimated that 85,000 children have died due to starvation in the three years prior. In May 2020, UNICEF described Yemen as "the largest humanitarian crisis in the world", and estimated that 80% of the population, over 24 million people, were in need of humanitarian assistance. In September 2022, the World Food Programme estimated that 17.4 million Yemenis struggled with food insecurity, and projected that number would increase to 19 million by the end of the year, describing this level of hunger as "unprecedented." The crisis is being compounded by an outbreak of cholera, which resulted in over 3000 deaths between 2015 and mid 2017. While the country is in crisis and multiple regions have been classified as being in IPC Phase 4, an actual classification of famine conditions was averted in 2018 and again in early 2019 due to international relief efforts. In January 2021, two out of 33 regions were classified as IPC 4 while 26 were classified as IPC 3.
In the early months of 2017, parts of South Sudan experienced a famine following several years of instability in the country's food supply caused by war and drought. The famine, largely focused in the northern part of the country, affected an estimated five million people. In May 2017, the famine was officially declared to have weakened to a state of severe food insecurity.
Hunger in Bangladesh is one of the major issues that affects the citizens of Bangladesh. The nation state of Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and home for more than 160 million people. It progresses immensely in the Human Development Index, particularly in the areas of literacy and life expectancy, but economic inequality has increased and about 32% of the population, that is 50 million people, still live in extreme poverty.
Chad currently suffers from widespread food insecurity. A majority of the population of Chad now suffers some form of malnutrition. 87% of its population lives below the poverty line. Because the country is arid, landlocked, and prone to droughts, many Chadians struggle to meet their daily nutritional needs. While international aid into the country has brought some relief, the situation in Chad remains severe due to broader famine in the Sahel region. The World Food Programme has declared a state of emergency in the region since early 2018, stating that, “...adding to the poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition which already affects [the nations of the Sahel] to varying degrees, drought, failed harvests and the high prices of staple foods have hastened the arrival of this year’s ‘lean season’ – the worst since 2014.” Malnutrition is high, especially among women and children, with a significant majority of all children in Chad suffering from some form of stunted growth or adverse health effects as a result. As such, health in Chad is greatly affected by lack of food. Food insecurity is a symptom of broader instability in Chad, which suffers from political, ethnic, and religious instability. These issues have contributed to long-term food insecurity in Chad.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity has intensified in many places – in the second quarter of 2020 there were multiple warnings of famine later in the year. In an early report, the Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) Oxfam-International talks about “economic devastation” while the lead-author of the UNU-WIDER report compared COVID-19 to a “poverty tsunami”. Others talk about “complete destitution”, “unprecedented crisis”, “natural disaster”, “threat of catastrophic global famine”. The decision of WHO on March 11, 2020 to qualify COVID as a pandemic, that is “an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people” also contributed to building this global-scale disaster narrative.
Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims to achieve "zero hunger". It is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015. The official wording is: "End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture". SDG 2 highlights the "complex inter-linkages between food security, nutrition, rural transformation and sustainable agriculture". According to the United Nations, there are around 690 million people who are hungry, which accounts for slightly less than 10 percent of the world population. One in every nine people goes to bed hungry each night, including 20 million people currently at risk of famine in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria.
Beginning with the onset of the Tigray War in November 2020, acute food shortages leading to death and starvation became widespread in northern Ethiopia, and the Tigray, Afar and Amhara Regions in particular. As of August 2022, there are 13 million people facing acute food insecurity, and an estimated 150,000–200,000 had died of starvation by March 2022. In the Tigray Region alone, 89% of people are in need of food aid, with those facing severe hunger reaching up to 47%. In a report published in June 2021, over 350,000 people were already experiencing catastrophic famine conditions. It is the worst famine to happen in East Africa since 2011–2012.
