famine

Severe shortage of food affecting a large number of people. A report made by the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), published in October 1999, showed that although the number of people in the developing world without sufficient food declined by 40 million during the first half of the 1990s, there were still, in 1999, 790 million hungry people in poor countries and 34 million in richer ones. The food availability deficit (FAD) theory explains famines as being caused by insufficient food supplies. A more recent theory is that famines arise when one group in a society loses its opportunity to exchange its labour or possessions for food.

Most Western famine-relief agencies, such as the International Red Cross, set out to supply food or to increase its local production, rather than becoming involved in local politics. The FAD theory was challenged in the 1980s. Crop failures do not inevitably lead to famine; nor is it always the case that adequate food supplies are not available nearby. In 1990, for example, the Ethiopian air force bombed grain depots in a rebel-held area.

In sub-Saharan Africa, a third of the population remained undernourished in 1999. India and China were reported by the UN to have the largest amount of ill-fed people: 204 million and 164 million people respectively. However, from 1979 to 1997, India reduced the proportion of those undernourished from 38% to 22%, and China from 30% to 13%. Rates of undernourishment are highest in North Korea, Mongolia, and Central Africa, at nearly 50% of the population.