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Subject:      IPS: African Famine

/* Written 12:06 am  Dec  5, 1992 by newsdesk@igc.apc.org in igc:ips.englibrary
*/
/* ---------- "AFRICA: FAMINE, SYMPTOM OF ECONOMIC" ---------- */
Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Reference: Africa, southern
Title: AFRICA: FAMINE, SYMPTOM OF ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL FAILURE


an inter press service feature

by obinna anyadike

harare, dec 2 (ips) -- the most dramatic media images of africa
again this year have been the victims of famine. excruciatingly
wizzened figures from the horn of africa to mozambique share a
common suffering and despair.

but famine is not a sudden occurence or a quick death. it is
a slow, grinding process. having exhausted all local coping
mechanisms -- from selling their livestock and tools to
consuming stores of grain -- its enfeebled victims finally die.
the cause is usually disease and exposure rather than hunger.

famine is the final affirmation of food system collapse.

more than 20 countries in sub-saharan africa are currently
facing exceptional food emergencies -- 10 in southern africa as
a consequence of drought. more than 40 million people are
confronted by the threat of famine.

although over the last two decades food production in africa
has actually risen, matching rates in the rest of the world, it
has failed to keep pace with population increase. while food
availability per head falls at roughly one percent annualy since
the 1970s, dependence on food imports and aid swells.

the reasons behind the crisis are complex, a product of both
internal and external factors. playing a significant role has
been the general economic slump facing african countries during
the 1980s where export earnings retention may have fallen by
over 50 percent, impoverishing both state and citizens.

burgeoning income disparities, the urban bias of government
policies, sluggish agricultural production, a three percent
annual population increase which could necessitate doubling of
food imports over the 1990s, and the impact of structural
adjustment programmes on government subsidy spending have
affected both the availability and affordability of food.

but it is drought and particularly conflict which can tip an
already precarious food security situation towards disaster.
what links the starving in ethiopia's ogaden, somalia,
mozambique, southern sudan and northern kenya is the effect of
wars compounding years of poor rains.

uprooted by insecurity, unable to farm effectively, with
infrastructure destroyed, the displaced and refugees who are
usually the poorest members of society are the most
famine-prone. migration is a final desperate act. (more/ips)


africa: famine (2)

africa has witnessed several mass movements of the hungry and
threatened in the last decade. on this continent there are 12
million displaced people and six million refugees. their social
ties to land and community broken, the majority exist on
hand-outs in squalid camps.

but as with a drought, a sudden outbreak of fighting does
not translate into a famine. what famine demonstrates is the
final turn in a long-running process of environmental
degredation and disadvantage for africa's peasantry.

as a study on africa's food crisis by rebecca huss-ashmore of
the university of pennsylvania, united states, points out: ''for
many africans, and for those western experts with a sense of
history, the sahelian famine of the 1970s was neither the
beginning nor end of the problem.

''like the current crisis, it was merely one event in a long
sequence of ecological and economic difficulties''.

there may not be a generic famine theory. but analysts are
increasingly accepting that the phenomenon is linked to the lack
of economic power of africa's peasantry over the production and
acquisition of food.

the u.n. food and agricultural organisation defines food
security as ''ensuring that all people at all times have both
physical and economic access to the basic food they need''.

but africa's small-scale farmers -- who should be the
backbone of agricultural production -- are charecterised by
marginalisation, given little support by government. low
productivity on poor soils encourages the able-bodied to shift
to the cities, accentuating the cycle of rural impoverishment.

with the best land going to cash crop production, faced with
unfavourable markets in both pricing policies and agricultural
inputs, there is a growing tendency for peasant farmers to drop
out of the formal economy and produce for the household.

ekeing out a living in typically ecologically fragile areas,
when disaster strikes they are the most vulnerable. if the
crisis overwhelms local kinship safety nets, those affected are
forced to buy time by selling their possessions in a depressed
market as the price of food spirals. if they survive, they are
more susceptible next time around.

famine is mainly a rural problem which can be highly
localised. at the beginning of this year before relief aid began
arriving in somalia and starvation was already hitting
communities in the central region, the markets were full of food
in the capital mogadishu.

there is little doubt that famine will hit the headlines
again next year. it is the lodestar of africa's deeper economic
and political structural failure. (end/ips/oa/ar/92)
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