Understanding Famine

The dictionary defines famine as "a drastic wide-reaching food shortage". Now, picture this: hunger and starvation is commonplace, leading to a great number of deaths; man's animal instincts, hidden in times good, suddenly manifest in all its ugliness; all civilized manners and etiquette come to an end; heartless opportunists, exploiters and other antisocial elements take foil advantage of the famine conditions; people migrate to anywhere with anything edible in multitudes. That is a pen illustration of a famine.

In the olden days, people used to think of famine as a punishment from God. Different peoples had their own beliefs and rituals which they thought was the remedy to end the famine. There are historical evidence to prove that some people had even offered human sacrifice to appease the angry go& and end to the famine.

Recently, some countries in Asia, especially India, and some in Africa have experienced the horrors of famine from time to time. The famine of Bengal in the early forties of the last millennium was one of great devastation. To wit, it was the worst famine in the last two hundred years of Indian history. Men and women died of starvation by the thousands everyday. The death and decay caused an epidemic; malaria and cholera became widespread, infecting thousands who were already weak and dying. The roads were filled with human corpses.

More recently, Ethiopia suffered nearly the same fate. Developed and developing countries of the world, luckily, rallied to provide food and financial support to help the country out of its terrible ordeal.

The primary cause of a natural famine can be traced to lack of seasonal rains which ultimately result in the failing of crops. To a great extent, production of rice, wheat, pulses and cereals depends on adequate rainfall. The failure of crops will, of course, result in a great shortage of food supplies for the people.

In the early days of famine, hoarders and black-marketers will try their best to make the most out of this desperate situation. Prices will skyrocket and the common people will be the most aggravated by this antisocial assault. As conditions worsen, people, innocent enough to begin with, will steel their nerves to steal burgle, and even murder to get food or monies to buy food from those unscrupulous opportunists. Other natural disasters, such as cyclones and floods, which destroy crops, will also naturally cause a natural famine.

But there are also famines caused by man. A war torn country usually suffers from an acute shortage of food. Priority in a war is given to soldiers fighting for their country and all sources of food will be 'mobilized' for the soldiers' consumption first. Economic recession may also cause famine, as the situation in Indonesia during the Asian Economic Crisis of the nineties. Yet another cause of famine is overpopulation and undersupply of food.

Famine is an unmitigated disaster, but it is not something that cannot be warded off. Careful pondering will reveal that even those famines caused by natural calamities can be avoided with proper research, planning and cooperation. More than seventy percent of the earth's surface is water, and so, we know there is enough water for irrigating all the fields in the world. All it needs be done is to build proper dams, canals, tube-wells and tap the subterranean sources of water supply. Floods and the ravages caused by floods can be kept at bay. if big rivers are connected by means of link canals and the overflowing water channeled to desert regions where water is much needed. In this age of science and technology, has the time not arrived yet for us to leave our pathetic dependence on the vagaries of a capricious climate?

Finally, as the world steps forward gingerly into the new millennium, I believe an important step to eradicate famine is for a greater cooperation among all nations of the world. There are countries where there is a huge surplus of food grains while other countries are experiencing an acute shortage of food; food is wasted and goes down the drain by the tonnes daily in some countries while at the same time, some countries have people who cannot even scrap together a single square meal a day. The former should not only help the latter but also work towards fairer and equitable distribution of food on a global