Famine

Famine means lack of enough food to feed all people living in an area. The most terrible famines of the twentieth century are the Ethiopian famine (1983-85) and North Korean famine (1990s). The major causes of famine are unequal distribution of food, drought, flooding, increasing population or wars. These are explained below:

Unequal Distribution of Food:

The achievements in science have enabled human beings to produce better food in terms of quality and quantity. Today the agricultural practices produce more than enough food that can be supplied to everyone on the Earth. But due to political and administrative problems, food is not equally distributed to different regions of the world. The result is that there is always surplus food in countries like America, UK and Canada etc. and at the same time people have nothing to eat in countries like Ethiopia and Somalia.

Drought:

A drought is a period of time when there is not enough water to support agricultural and human needs. Drought is usually due to a long period of below-normal rainfall. Droughts decrease or even stop the yields and it results in famine.

Flooding:

It occurs due to more than normal rainfall or due to weak water distribution system. Rivers and canals overflow their banks and destroy the soil quality of agricultural lands. It becomes impossible to grow crops immediately after flooding. In this way, flooding may be reason for short term famine.

Increasing population:

In spite of the global increase in food production, millions of human beings are hungry. In the over-populated regions of the world, large populations overuse natural resources to grow maximum food in order to meet the problems of food shortage. It leads to dry and infertile lands and depletion of resources. In such situations, crops can no longer be grown and famines result.

Wars

Famines may also be due to the problems created by humans e.g. wars and wrong economic policies.

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