page_title: Famine
section_title: State-sponsored famines
hierarchical_section_title: Famine / Causes / State-sponsored famines
caption_attribution_description: English: Starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933. In Famine in the Soviet Ukraine, 1932–1933: a memorial exhibition, Widener Library, Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Library: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1986. Procyk, Oksana. Heretz, Leonid. Mace, James E. (James Earnest). ISBN: 0674294262. Page 35. Initially published in Muss Russland Hungern? [Must Russia Starve?], published by Wilhelm Braumüller, Wien [Vienna] 1935. Italiano: Contadini denutriti nelle strade di Kharkiv, 1933. In Famine in the Soviet Ukraine 1932-1933: A memorial exhibition. Українська: Жертви голоду. Харків, 1933 р. Фото з Колекції Кардинала Теодора Інніцира (Архів Віденської Дієцезії) Фото зробив інж. А. Вінербергер Фотодокументи надані проф. Василем Марочком (Інститут історії України НАН України). Центральний державний кінофотофоноархів України імені Г. С. Пшеничного. Oд. обл. 5121Български: Жертви на глада по улиците на Харкив, 1933. Снимка от Famine in the Soviet Ukraine, 1932-1933: a memorial exhibition, Widener Library, Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Library: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1986. Procyk, Oksana. Heretz, Leonid. Mace, James E. (James Earnest). ISBN: 0674294262. Стр. 35. Публикувана първоначално в Muss Russland Hungern? [Must Russia Starve?], публикувана от Wilhelm Braumüller, Wien [Vienna] 1935. Deutsch: Die Opfer des Hungers. Fußgänger und Leichen verhungerter Bauern auf einer Straße in Charkiw, 1933 (Bild: Gareth Jones). Foto aus der Sammlung von Kardinal Theodore Innitsyra (Archiv der Diözese Wien). Basil Marochko (Institut für Geschichte der Ukraine).
context_page_description: A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, inflation, crop failure, population imbalance, 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. In the 19th and 20th century, it was generally Southeast and South Asia, as well as Eastern and Central Europe that suffered the most deaths from famine. The numbers dying from famine began to fall sharply from the 2000s.
  Some countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to have extreme cases of famine. Since 2010, Africa has been the most affected continent in the world. As of 2017, the United Nations has warned over 20 million are at risk in South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen. The distribution of food has been affected by conflict. Most programmes now direct their aid towards Africa.
context_section_description: In certain cases, such as the Great Leap Forward in China (which produced the largest famine in absolute numbers), North Korea in the mid-1990s, or Zimbabwe in the early-2000s, famine can occur because of government policy.
  In 1932, under the rule of the USSR, Ukraine experienced one of its largest famines when between 2.4 and 7.5 million peasants died as a result of a state sponsored famine. It was termed the Holodomor, suggesting that it was a deliberate campaign of repression designed to eliminate resistance to collectivization. Forced grain quotas imposed upon the rural peasants and a brutal reign of terror contributed to the widespread famine. The Soviet government continued to deny the problem and it did not provide aid to the victims nor did it accept foreign aid. Several contemporary scholars dispute the notion that the famine was deliberately inflicted by the Soviet government.
  In 1958 in China, Mao Zedong's Communist Government launched the Great Leap Forward campaign, aimed at rapidly industrializing the country. The government forcibly took control of agriculture. Barely enough grain was left for the peasants, and starvation occurred in many rural areas. Exportation of grain continued despite the famine and the government attempted to conceal it. While the famine is attributed to unintended consequences, it is believed that the government refused to acknowledge the problem, thereby further contributing to the deaths. In many instances, peasants were persecuted. Between 20 and 45 million people perished in this famine, making it one of the deadliest famines to date.
  Malawi ended its famine by subsidizing farmers despite the strictures imposed by the World Bank. During the 1973 Wollo Famine in Ethiopia, food was shipped out of Wollo to the capital city of Addis Ababa, where it could command higher prices. In the late-1970s and early-1980s, residents of the dictatorships of Ethiopia and Sudan suffered massive famines, but the democracy of Botswana avoided them, despite also suffering a severe drop in national food production. In Somalia, famine occurred because of a failed state.
  The famine in Yemen was a direct result of the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and the blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia and its allies, including the United States. According to the UN, 130 children under 5 years of age were dying from starvation and starvation related diseases every day by the end of 2017, with 50,000 dead for the year. As of October 2018, half the population is at risk of famine.
  According to Amartya Sen (1999), "there has never been a famine in a functioning multiparty democracy". Hasell and Roser have demonstrated that while there have been a few minor exceptions, famines rarely occur in democratic systems but are strongly correlated with autocratic and colonial systems.
caption: The government's forced collectivization of agriculture was one of the main causes of the Soviet famine of 1932–1933.
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