Livelihoods inevitably suffer where migratory labor unrelated to a particular conflict is cut off from reaching sources of employment and income. Because of the Sudanese civil war, workers from southern Kordofan in Sudan could no longer migrate to their jobs in other regions. Bangladeshi and Filipino guest workers removed from Iraq were unintended victims of the Persian Gulf War, as were households dependent on their remittances. Bomi County, Liberia. As the photo might indicate, these food growing efforts face very significant constraints, including little land, insufficient natural water or other important inputs, and land that has only been cleared and thus without advantages that can arise from continued cultivation.
Crops inevitably suffer in war zones.
Annual crops may not be sown, tended, or harvested, and longer-term agricultural investments may be lost, particularly where perennial crops are destroyed. But wage and trade losses usually far exceed those of agriculture as rural households are cut off from urban markets and networks that ordinarily provide them with diversified livelihoods and buffers against scarcity. Poorer households also suffer because conflict encourages a kind of predator merchant class that benefits from the suffering of most others. As often stated, not everyone in situations of conflict or famine is food short, and some always profit. Profiteers deliberately take advantage of others, but the contexts allowing their prosperity are an inevitable part of the ways wars are waged.