Famine (Update)

A couple articles I've read lately started me thinking of famine, and whether we could face famine here in the United States. 

Today I saw that Zero Hedge (h/t Weasel Zippers) had posted a couple charts showing that the demand for food is increasing, while the amount of arable land per person is declining. Since the supply of food is directly proportional to the amount of arable land, what we are seeing are classic supply and demand data that indicates demand is increasing while supply is decreasing. This, of course, pushes the intersection (i.e., the price) upward. Food is simply going to get more expensive.

A few days ago, I saw this New York Times article about the Chinese famine of 1958-1962, which, conservatively, killed 36 million. (I'm old enough to remember parents guilting their kids into eating all their food because there were "children starving in China"). Sadly, like the Soviet Famine in the 30's, the Chinese famine was the result of government policies, not a change in weather or spread of disease. The NYT article explains:

In Mao’s China, the coercive power of the state penetrated every corner of national life. The rural population was brought under control by a thorough collectivization of agriculture. The state could then manage grain production, requisitioning and distributing it by decree. Those who tilled the earth were locked in place by a nationwide system of household registration, and food coupons issued to city dwellers supplanted the market. The peasants survived at the pleasure of the state.

The Great Leap Forward that Mao began in 1958 set ambitious goals without the means to meet them. A vicious cycle ensued; exaggerated production reports from below emboldened the higher-ups to set even loftier targets. Newspaper headlines boasted of rice farms yielding 800,000 pounds per acre. When the reported abundance could not actually be delivered, the government accused peasants of hoarding grain. House-to-house searches followed, and any resistance was put down with violence.

Meanwhile, since the Great Leap Forward mandated rapid industrialization, even peasants’ cooking implements were melted down in the hope of making steel in backyard furnaces, and families were forced into large communal kitchens. They were told that they could eat their fill. But when food ran short, no aid came from the state. Local party cadres held the rice ladles, a power they often abused, saving themselves and their families at the expense of others. Famished peasants had nowhere to turn.

. . . The result was starvation on an epic scale. By the end of 1960, China’s total population was 10 million less than in the previous year. Astonishingly, many state granaries held ample grain that was mostly reserved for hard currency-earning exports or donated as foreign aid; these granaries remained locked to the hungry peasants. “Our masses are so good,” one party official said at the time. “They would rather die by the roadside than break into the granary.”

 In Cody Lundin's book, When All Hell Breaks Loose, he mentions that the famine led to infanticide and cannibalism, where "[d]esperate families swapped each other's children to eat, thus avoiding having to eat their kin." (Id. at 213).

However, lest anyone think I'm picking on China, Lundin's book briefly describes great famines recorded throughout history, from all around the world. Cannibalism and infanticide factored into several of them. For instance, Lundin mentions the Great Famine of 1315-1322 in Europe (just decades before the Black Death) where "[b]ad weather [actually, an extended period of cooler, wetter weather] and crop failure caused the death of millions of people by starvation, disease, infanticide, and cannibalism." (Id. at 218).

There is also the Great Potato Famine of Ireland in 1845-1849, caused by the spread of potato blight which destroyed the staple food crop relied upon by the Irish. "The combination of crop disease and politics [i.e., by the British government] caused the death of 1.5 million people by starvation, cannibalism, and disease." (Id. at 218).

The 1930's Dust Bowl of the United States was caused by the worst drought of the 20th Century, resulting in massive dust storm that caused severe health problems (mostly respiratory) and destroyed crops and killed livestock. It is unknown how many people died as a result, but Lundin has a poignant story of his own grandparents' struggle to find enough food to survive. (Id. at 211-12).

The Soviet Famine of 1932-1934 was caused by Stalin's policy of forcing peasants onto collective farms, which resulted in grain production falling by 40%. Total numbers dead from the famine is unknown, but estimated as to 5 to 8 million people. (The actual death toll is much higher--we know that Stalin killed tens of millions of his own people).

Nigeria, in 1967-1969, saw a famine caused by civil war that killed 1 million people, and left another 3.5 million suffering from malnutrition.

In North Korea, 1994-1998, a combination of reduced food subsidies from Russia and China, effects of collective farming, flooding, drought, and government corruption "caused an estimated 2 to 3 million people to die of starvation, disease, and cannibalism." (Id. 213).

And this list by Lundin barely scratches the surface of the famines, both widespread and localized, that have happened in just the past couple of hundred of years. However, it is illustrative that famine can be caused by one or a combination of war, changing weather (i.e., too wet or too dry), disease, or simple government incompetence.

Obviously, I cannot predict when and where a famine could occur. Modern farm production is heavily reliant on petroleum, not only for fuel for running the tractors, harvesters, and other equipment, but also for fertilizer, and gathering and distributing the food to the market. A sudden spike in fuel prices and/or drop in availability, combined with an inept government response (such as imposing price quotas) could result in food shortages in the United States and elsewhere. Because modern farming relies on only a small number of varieties of wheat and other grains, it is easily possible that a crop disease could wipe out significant amount of the crops.We've already seen government sponsored stupidity in pushing ethanol production result in a large number of farms switching to growing corn for ethanol production, instead of food grains. This has pushed up prices for grain and for feed for cattle and other animals.

There is little the common person can do to combat the causes of a famine. All a person can do is to store some extra food away ... and hope and pray it isn't stolen or confiscated.

Update: The Daily Mail has a brief article and series of photos of the American Dust Bowl.

Update (Nov. 21, 2012): Another book review of Tombstone, describing the Chinese Famine in greater detail.