African Famines/Data resources

gerry87

I've got a project to do and one part of it is to list African Famines since 1900 and estimate death rates as a result of famine, whether they're becoming more/less frequent and if they are killing more/less people.

I'm not asking for answers, but does anyone know any good resources to find data on famines or African populations since the 1900? Or would anyone have any advice on a better way to go about this?

Thanks,
Gerry

edit: how annoying http://www.acap.upenn.edu/CensusData_frameset.htm looks exactly what i'm looking for, but its working!

Capt'n Midnight

The situation in India is very interesting to compare. Before independence it had the empire to call upon in it's hour of need and it's a country that didn't suddenly get rich on independence. An easier method might be to see if food was being exported at the time from the famine area. This would indicate that lack of food was NOT the problem and the famine was created by military/political/economic forces = artificial. There was a lot of food exported here during the famine too you know.

Anyone remember which south eastern African country rejected an American offer of GMO crops in response to a "famine" , the reason for the rejection was that if farmers used the seed they would no longer be able to sell to the EU and would have a permemant drop in income, resulting in worst problems long term.

Google for more stuff by Amartya Sen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

http://www.swan.ac.uk/history/teaching/teaching%20resources/An%20Gorta%20Mor/Researchfolder/Secondbookreviews/beckybook%20review2.htm

When we think of those who are affected by famine, we often find ourselves thinking of the food that we have, and the extent to which we waste it. We see newsreels of people suffering from starvation due to a lack of food. Yet we have plenty of food, and as I have already hinted at, we waste a large amount of this. If we took the waste of the Western World and gave it to those who are starving then there would be no famines. This is the Crux of Sen’s argument. Instead of accepting the traditional cause of famine, as a lack of food, or in economic terms Food Avaliability Decline (FAD), Sen argues that famine is caused by power of the individual to command food, or exchange entitlement. He argues that there is always enough food to feed the worlds population, but there are many factors that prevent some people from receiving an adequate share of this.

http://www.finance.commerce.ubc.ca/~bhatta/BookReview/arrow_on_sen's_poverty_and_famine.html

In brief, he argues that famine results from the working of the economic system in allocating the ability of people to acquire goods. Famine cannot be explained by a simple relation between food supply and population. Sen illustrates this argument by detailed studies of four famines: the great Bengal famine of 1943-1944, in which perhaps three million people died (mostly by lowered resistance to disease); the famine in several provinces of Ethiopia between 1972 and 1974; the highly publicized drought and famine in the Sahel between 1968 and 1973; and the famine in Bangladesh in 1974 (the same region as the 1943-1944 famine, but under a different political regime).

Most striking are the statistics on the two Bengal famines, the first of which Sen analyzes in the greatest detail. The 1943 crop of rice and other foods was somewhat low, especially in relation to the extraordinarily large harvest of 1942, but it was distinctly higher than the crop of 1941, which was not a famine year. Sen finds that the per capita availability of food supply was 9 percent higher in 1943 than in 1941 and only about 10 percent less than the average of the five preceding years.

Therefore, he concludes, famine cannot be accounted for simply by lack of available food.

Citing the Bengal Famine and other examples from the world, Amartya Sen argues that famines do not occur in functioning democracies.

gerry87

Thats some really good info there. I hadn't a clue where to start on this project, that Sen work is great, exactly what i needed. Thanks!