CHAPTER I
The Third Horseman
Famyn schal a-Ryse thorugh flodes and thorugh foule wedres.
âWilliam Langland, Piers Ploughman
And lo a black horse . . . and he that sat on him had a pair of scales in his hand . . . a quart of wheat for a dayâs wages.
âBook of Revelation 6:5
IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD, famines no longer capture the headlines like they used to. Billboard images of African infants with distended bellies are less ubiquitous, and the focus of international philanthropy has shifted from disaster relief to more structural issues, particularly those of third world debt relief, economic development, and democratic accountability. Totalitarian famines of the kind associated with Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, and their latter-day imitators are on the wane. Even in Africa, the most vulnerable of the seven continents, the famines of the past decade or so have been, by historical standards, âsmallâ famines. In 2002, despite warnings from the United Nations World Food Programme and nongovernmental relief agencies of a disaster that could affect millions, the excess mortality during a much-publicized crisis in Malawi was probably in the hundreds rather than the thousands. As for the 2005 famine in Niger, which also attracted global attention, experts now argue that it does not qualify as a famine by standard criteria. Mortality there was high in 2005, but apparently no higher than normal in that impoverished country.1
Writing about famine today is, one hopes, part of the process of making it less likely in future. The following chapters describe its symptoms, and how they have changed over time; more important, they explain why famines happened in the past, and whyâsince this is one of the themes of this bookâthey are less frequent today than in the past and, given the right conditions, less likely in the future. Research into the history of famine has borrowed from many disciplines and subdisciplines, including medical history, demography, meteorology, economic and social history, economics, anthropology, and plant pathology. This book is informed by all of them.
So is it almost time to declare famine âhistoryâ? No, if the continuing increase in the number of malnourished people is our guide; yes, perhaps, if we focus instead on malnourished peopleâs declining share of the world population and the characteristics of famine in the recent past. And if yes, has this been due to economic progress in famine-prone countries? Or should the credit go to the globalization of relief and better governance where famines were once commonplace? How have the characteristics and incidences of famine changed over time? Are most or all modern famines âman-madeâ? Can the history of past famines help guard against future ones? This book is in part an answer to such questions.
Famines have always been one of the greatest catastrophes that could engulf a people. Although many observers in the past deemed them âinevitableâ or ânatural,â throughout history the poor and the landless have protested and resisted at the approach of famines, which they considered to be caused by humans. The conviction that a more caring elite had the power and a less rapacious trading class had the resources to mitigateâif not eradicateâdisaster was usually present. This, after all, is the message of Lukeâs parable about Dives and Lazarus.2 It is hardly surprising, then, that famines have attracted both the attention of academics and policymakers as well as the indignation of critical observers and philanthropists. In todayâs developed world the conviction that famines are an easily prevented anachronism, and therefore a blot on global humanity, is widespread and gaining ground. That makes them a continuing focus for activism and an effective vehicle for raising consciousness about world poverty.
Economist and demographer Robert Malthus was one of those who regarded famine as natural. In 1798, he famously referred to famine as âthe last, the most dreadful resource of nature,â3 and indeed other natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and even volcanic eruptions tend to be more local and short-lived in their impact. The impact of famines is also more difficult to measure. We measure the energy expended in earthquakes on the Richter scale, volcanic eruptions by a Volcanic Explosivity Index, and weather by rain precipitation, temperature, humidity, and wind speed, but how can we measure famine? Excess mortality is an obvious possibility, but besides being often difficult to measure, it is as much a function of the policy response to famine as of the conditions that caused the crisis. The Indian Famine Codes, introduced in the wake of a series of major famines in the 1870s, defined famine by its early warning signals. These signalsârising grain prices, increased migration, and increased crimeâdictated the introduction of measures to save life.
A recent study in this spirit defines the transition from food crisis to famine by rises in the daily death rate above one per ten thousand population, the proportion of âwastedâ children (that is, children weighing two standard deviations or less below the average) above 20 percent, and the prevalence of kwashiorkor, an extreme form of malnutrition mainly affecting young children.4 By the same token, âsevere famineâ means a daily death rate of above five per ten thousand, a proportion of wasted children above 40 percent, and again, the prevalence of kwashiorkor. The first two of these measures could not have been implemented in India a century ago, but the swollen bellies and reddened hair associated with kwashiorkor are age-old signs of crisis.5 In what follows, famine refers to a shortage of food or purchasing power that leads directly to excess mortality from starvation or hunger-induced diseases.
The etymology and meaning of words signifying famine vary by language. The Roman orator Cicero (106â43 BC) distinguished between praesens caritas (present dearness or dearth) and futura fames (future famine) or deinde inopia (thereafter want of means), and Roman sources employed several synonyms for both (e.g., difficultas annonae, frumenti inopia, and summa caritas).6 In Italian the word for famine, carestia, is derived from caritas, and signifies dearness. This suggests one measure of a famineâs intensity since, usually, the greater the increase in the price of basic foodstuffs and the longer it lasts, the more serious the famine. In medieval and early modern England, dearth signified dearness, but meant famine. For economist Adam Smith, however, dearth and famine were distinct, whereas by John Stuart Millâs day âthere is only dearth, where there formerly would have been famine.â7 Famine, in turn, is derived from the Latin fames. In German, Hungersnot connotes hunger associated with a general scarcity of food. The most common terms for famine in the Irish language are gorta (starvation) and, referring to the infamous 1840s, an drochshaol (the bad times). In pharaonic Egypt, the standard word for famine (hkr) derived from âbeing hungry,â but that signifying plague (i:dt) also connoted famine, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between famine and disease.
Many individual famines are remembered by specific names that only sometimes hint at their horrors. Examples include
la famine de lâavenement (the famine of the Accession of Louis XIV) in France in 1662,
bliain an ĂĄir (âthe year of the slaughterâ) in Ireland in 1740â41, the
Chalisa (referring to a calendar date) and
Doji Bara (âskulls famineâ) in India in 1783â84 and 1790â91, the
Tenmei and
Tempo (Japanese era names) in Japan in 1782â87 and 1833â37, the
Madhlatule (âeat what you can, and say nothingâ) famine in southern Africa in the 1800s,
Black â47 in Ireland in 1847, the
Mtunya (âthe scrambleâ) in Kenya in
1917â20,
Holodomor (âdeath by hungerâ) in the Ukraine in 1932â33,
Chhiyattarer Manvantar (the Great Famine of the Bengal year 1176) and
Panchasher Manvantar (âthe famine of fifty,â a reference to the Bengal year 1350) in Bengal in 1770 and 1943â44,
manori (etymology unclear) in Burundi in 1943â44, and
náșĄn ÄĂłi t Dáșu (âfamine of the t Dáșu Yearâ) in Vietnam in 1945.
In any language, however, the term famine is an emotive one that needs to be used with caution. On the one hand, preemptive action requires agreement on famineâs early warning signs; the very declaration of a famine acknowledges the need for public action, and may thus prevent a major mortality crisis. On the other hand, the overuse of the term by relief agencies and others may lead to cynicism and donor fatigue.
In the recent past, definitions of famine have included events and processes that would not qualify as famine in the catastrophic, historical sense. Some scholars have argued for a broader definition that would embrace a range extending from endemic malnutrition to excess mortality and its associated diseases. In...