When news of the Darfur famine in the '80s broke in the West, relief experts predicted that, without massive food aid, millions of people would starve to death. Food aid on this scale did not arrive, but millions did not starve to death. Analyzing the famine from the perspective of the rural people in the region who suffered it, Alex de Waal uncovers a number of new and important insights into the dynamics of famine and famine relief. The author argues that deaths during the famine were not due to starvation, but instead were caused by disease, which ensued in the aftermath of the social disruption caused by the famine. In addition, the priority for rural people during the crisis was not to try to save every possible life, but to preserve their way of life for the future. Consequently, he concludes, the huge international relief effort was largely irrelevant to their survival. De Waal's findings have profound implications, not just for famine relief, but for our very conception of 'famine' itself. Already a classic in the field, this revised edition Famine that Kills provides critical background and lessons of past intervention for a region that finds itself in another moment of humanitarian crisis.

This book deals with the important subject of famine demography. Drawing together case studies of famines in the historical past and more recent times it tries to answer questions such as: To what extent did famines control human population growth in the past? Who dies most in famines? What are the principal causes of famine mortality? When do people die in famines? And what factors influence the volume of famine mortality? The implications of famines for human fertility and migration are also investigated.

This innovative title traces the history of food in Ireland from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. The authors explore the evolution of Irish diets over the centuries, in the process putting the role of the potato and the history of the famines into their proper perspectives.

The international community has committed to ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030. But can we overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of meeting this target? The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017 offers some answers. This year's edition focuses specifically on the dramatic effects that ongoing conflicts are having on levels of food insecurity and malnutrition across the world, and sets out a path to help build peace and food security for all. Thanks to the collaboration of five key UN agencies, with WHO and UNICEF joining IFAD and WFP as partners under FAO's lead, this report is a first step towards a comprehensive global analysis of the links between food security and nutrition.

En la edicion de El Estado de la Inseguridad Alimentaria en el Mundo de este ano se hace balance de los progresos realizados hacia la consecucion del primer Objetivo de Desarrollo del Milenio (ODM 1) y el objetivo de la Cumbre Mundial sobre la Alimentacion establecidos por la comunidad internacional en relacion con el hambre y se reflexiona sobre lo que debe hacerse todavia, mientras se prepara la transicion a la nueva agenda para el desarrollo sostenible despues de 2015. En el informe se examinan los progresos hechos desde 1990 en todos los paises y regiones, asi como en el mundo en su conjunto. Los progresos hacia la meta del ODM 1, sin embargo, se evaluan no solo mediante la medicion de la subalimentacion, o el hambre, sino tambien mediante un segundo indicador, a saber, la prevalencia de la insuficiencia ponderal entre los ninos menores de cinco anos. Se comparan los avances realizados en distintas regiones y a lo largo del tiempo en relacion con los dos indicadores, a fin de arrojar luz sobre la complejidad de la seguridad alimentaria. Pese a los progresos generales, queda mucho trabajo por hacer para conseguir erradicar el hambre y lograr la seguridad alimentaria en todas sus dimensiones. En el informe del ano 2015 no solo se facilitan estimaciones de los progresos ya realizados, sino que tambien se senalan los problemas restantes y se proporciona orientacion sobre las politicas en las que deberia hacerse hincapie en el futuro. Asimismo se senalan los principales factores que han determinado el exito hasta la fecha en la consecucion de los objetivos relativos a la seguridad alimentaria y la nutricion. La lista de factores -el crecimiento economico, el crecimiento de la productividad agricola, los mercados (incluido el comercio internacional) y la proteccion social- no es en absoluto exhaustiva. En el informe se muestra tambien que las crisis prolongadas, causadas por conflictos o por catastrofes naturales, tienen efectos nocivos sobre los progresos en la reduccion del hambre.

En El estado de la inseguridad alimentaria en el mundo 2014 se presentan estimaciones actualizadas de la subalimentacion y los progresos realizados hacia las metas relativas al hambre fijadas en los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio (ODM) y en la Cumbre Mundial sobre la Alimentacion (CMA). Haciendo balance de la situacion actual en cuanto a la reduccion del hambre y la malnutricion se observa que se ha seguido avanzando en la reduccion del hambre a escala mundial y en muchos paises, si bien en otros es preciso redoblar los esfuerzos. En el informe de 2014 tambien figuran nuevas observaciones sobre el conjunto de indicadores de la seguridad alimentaria incorporados en 2013 y se analizan con mas detenimiento las dimensiones de la seguridad alimentaria: disponibilidad, acceso, estabilidad y utilizacion. Midiendo la seguridad alimentaria en estas dimensiones diversas, el conjunto de indicadores puede ofrecer una imagen detallada de las dificultades de un pais en materia de seguridad alimentaria y nutricion, lo cual contribuye al diseno de intervenciones selectivas en este ambito. Un compromiso politico constante al mas alto nivel es requisito previo para la erradicacion del hambre. El compromiso supone reservar a la seguridad alimentaria y la nutricion el primer lugar del programa politico y crear un entorno propicio para mejorar la seguridad alimentaria y la nutricion. En el informe de este ano se examinan las distintas experiencias de siete paises y se hace especial hincapie en entornos favorables a la seguridad alimentaria y la nutricion que giren en torno a compromisos y capacidades en cuatro dimensiones: politicas, programas y marcos juridicos; movilizacion de recursos humanos y financieros; mecanismos de coordinacion y asociaciones; y adopcion de decisiones basada en hechos comprobados.

Managing climate variability and change remains a key development and food security issue in Bangladesh. Despite significant investments, floods, droughts, and cyclones during the last two decades continue to cause extensive economic damage and impair livelihoods. Climate change will pose additional risks to ongoing efforts to reduce poverty. This book examines the implications of climate change on food security in Bangladesh and identifies adaptation measures in the agriculture sector using a comprehensive integrated framework. First, the most recent science available is used to characterize current climate and hydrology and its potential changes. Second, country-specific survey and biophysical data is used to derive more realistic and accurate agricultural impact functions and simulations. A range of climate risks (i.e. warmer temperatures, higher carbon dioxide concentrations, changing characteristics of floods, droughts and potential sea level rise) is considered to gain a more complete picture of potential agriculture impacts. Third, while estimating changes in production is important, economic responses may to some degree buffer against the physical losses predicted, and an assessment is made of these. Food security is dependent not only on production, but also future food requirements, income levels and commodity prices. Finally, adaptation possibilities are identified for the sector. This book is the first to combine these multiple disciplines and analytical procedures to comprehensively address these impacts. The framework will serve as a useful guide to design policy intervention strategies and investments in adaptation measures.

"Food and Population in a Northeast Thai Village is a remarkably thorough baseline study of the interrelationship between demographic change, land and agricultural production in what must be one of the most intensively studied village communities in Asia, Ban Don Daeng, which lies a few kilometres from the North-East Thai regional urban centre of Khon Kaen." --Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (30:01, March 1999)

Contemporary depictions of famine and disaster are dominated by female images. "The Feminization of Famine" examines these representations, exploring, in particular, the literature arising from the Irish "Great Famine" of the 1840s and the Bengali famine of the 1940s. Kelleher illuminates recurring motifs: the prevalence of mother and child images, the scrutiny of women's starved bodies, and the reliance on the female figure to express the largely "inexpressible" reality of famine. Questioning what gives these particularly feminine images their affective power and analyzing the responses they generate, this historical critique reveals striking parallels between these two "great" famines and current representations of similar natural disasters and catastrophes.
Kelleher begins with a critical reading of the novels and short stories written about the Irish famine over the last 150 years, from the novels of William Carleton and Anthony Trollope to the writings of Liam O'Flaherty and John Banville. She then moves on to unveil a lesser-known body of literature--works written by women. This literature is read in the context of a rich variety of other sources, including eye-witness accounts, memoirs, journalistic accounts, and famine historiography. Concluding with a reading of the twentieth-century accounts of the famine in Bengal, this book reveals how gendered representations have played a crucial role in defining notions of famine.

This work, produced by the Task Force on African Famine of the American Anthropological Association, is the first of a multi-part project dealing with the long-term and ongoing food crisis in Africa primarily at the level of local production - the microperspective. It offers a series of anthropological and ecological views on the cause of the current problem and on coping strategies used by both indigenous people and developmental planners.;The three sections of this volume review current explanations for food problems in Africa, focusing mainly on production and consumption at the household level, they offer a number of perspectives on the environmental, historical, political, and economic contexts for food stress, and include a series of case studies showing the ways in which Africans have responded to the threat of drought and hunger. This work should be of interest to all persons concerned with this ultimately global dilemma, particularly those involved in planning and relief efforts.

'I've read a great deal about the Famine but I haven't read anything that captures the horrors in so vivid a style, and with such understanding and sympathy. She also writes so eloquently about the landscape and the people. Her descriptions make you feel as if you are there ... I could go on. It is so evocative, so moving (Margaret Ward).

The years 2002-2003 marked the seventieth anniversary of the man-made famine inflicted on Ukraine and surrounding areas by Stalin's Soviet leadership. The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute commemorated the anniversary with a symposium in October 2003 titled "The Ukrainian Terror-Famine of 1932-1933: Revisiting the Issues and the Scholarship Twenty Years after the HURI Famine Project." This volume contains some of the papers presented at the symposium (previously published in Harvard Ukrainian Studies volume 25, no. 3/4), including Sergei Maksudov's large-scale demographic study drawing on available documents of the era; Niccolo Pianciola's description of the denomadization famine in Kazakhstan from 1931 to 1933; and Gijs Kessler's study of events in the Urals region from the same period. Also included in this volume are Andrea Graziosi's remarks on the present state of Famine scholarship and how it addresses the question of genocide, Hennadii Boriak's assessment of the current state of source material, and an essay by George Grabowicz on the legacy of the Famine in Ukraine today.

Global food production has more than doubled over the past 40 years, growing faster than population, and will likely keep pace in the 21st century. Yet today one-eighth of the world's people lack secure access to the food they need to live active and healthy lives. This volume describes how together innovative technologies and sound policies can help close the global food gap--the gap between demand for and supply of food.

Although markets will continue to supply sufficient food to those with money to spend, getting food to the poor will require that government policies and investments supplement the operation of markets in three critical areas: protecting the natural resources on which agriculture depends; focusing the benefits of agricultural research, including biotechnology, on the needs of small farmers in developing countries; and ensuring that access to food, resources, and income-generating opportunities is equitable and secure.

Contributors to this book show how soil degradation, biotechnology, and other resources and technologies might affect the future supply of food, as well as how poverty, conflict, and gender roles might affect demand. They also consider the roles that institutions must play in meeting the challenge of global hunger. Finally, they outline the policy priorities required to achieve a food-secure world in the 21st century.

Contributors: Bruce Alberts, Nicole Ballenger, Donald Duvick, Craig Gundersen, Eileen Kennedy, Rattan Lal, Alex F. McCalla, Susan R. McCouch, Ellen Messer, Rajul Pandya-Lorch, Per Pinstrup-Andersen, G. Edward Schuh, and Keith Wiebe.

Earlier this year, President Obama declared one of his top priorities to be "making sure that people are able to get enough to eat." The United States spends about five billion dollars on food aid and related programs each year, but still, both domestically and internationally, millions of people are hungry. In 2006, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations counted 850 million hungry people worldwide, but as food prices soared, an additional 100 million or more who were vulnerable succumbed to food insecurity.

If hunger were simply a matter of food production, no one would go without. There is more than enough food produced annually to provide every living person with a healthy diet, yet so many suffer from food shortages, unsafe water, and malnutrition every year. That's because hunger is a complex political, economic, and ecological phenomenon. The interplay of these forces produces a geography of hunger that Thomas J. Bassett and Alex Winter-Nelson illuminate in this empowering book. "The Atlas of World Hunger" uses a conceptual framework informed by geography and agricultural economics to present a hunger index that combines food availability, household access, and nutritional outcomes into a single tool--one that delivers a fuller understanding of the scope of global hunger, its underlying mechanisms, and the ways in which the goals for ending hunger can be achieved. The first depiction of the geography of hunger worldwide, the" Atlas" will be an important resource for teachers, students, and anyone else interested in understanding the geography and causes of hunger. This knowledge, the authors argue, is a critical first step toward eliminating unnecessary suffering in a world of plenty.