Thinking the African Food Crisis - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 771

There are four sections to the chapter. The first examines empirically the dimensions
of the current Sahelian food crisis in the context of the wider landscape of African, and
indeedglobal,hunger.hesecondreviewstheoreticalandconceptualscholarship—in
largeparttriggeredbytheAfricanfaminesofthe1970sand1980s—addressingthecau-
sation and dynamics of famine and starvation. The third section provides a detailed case
study of the continuing crisis of food insecurity and agrarian stagnation by returning to,
andupdating,avillagestudyI conductedbetween1976and1978inKatsina,northern
Nigeria.Finally,I relectuponhowtheSahelandtheWestAfricansavannashavepro-
vided a sort of crucible within which theories and practices of food security have been
forged, and indeed how these regions remain an important laboratory for the manufac-
ture of contemporary thinking about dryland development in a region now confronting
the grave challenges of global climate change.
Sahel Reduxe
There are close to one billion people in the world who go to bed hungry each night.1
Inhistoricalterms,itisofcoursequitetruethattheproportionoftheglobalpopula-
tionwhoareundernourishedhasfallensincethelate1960s—accordingtotheUnited
NationsWorldFoodProgram,hungerprevalencefellfrom33percentin1969-1971to
16percentin2011(FAO2011).FAO'slatest2012report,armedwithanewcomputa-
tionalmethodology,claimsthatundernourishmentsince1990hasfallenevenfurther
thanwaspreviouslybelieved(FAO2012).Inpractice,adisproportionatelylargeshare
of this impressive decline is accounted for by the explosive performance of the East Asia
growth machine and its remarkable success in reducing poverty and improving well-
being.Mostoftheprogressinreducinghungerinanycasewasachievedpriorto2007.In
short,thestarkfactremainsthat15percentoftheworld'spopulationremainsmalnour-
ished;theigureforsub-SaharanAfricais26percent.Low-incomestates,infact,have
seen an overall setback in terms of the number of hungry people, from 827 million in
1990-1992to906millionin2010.Indeed,thecompletepictureofhungerintheGlobal
South is incomplete because there is as yet no full accounting of the recent price hikes
and economic recession in many parts of the globe.
Historically speaking, hunger has proven to be exceptionally durable. The world,
as the Economist (February18,2012,62)recentlyputit,hasnotbeenterriblygoodat
ightinghunger.Sincethe1960s,theglobalhungerheadcounthasremainedlargely
unmoved,atroughly0.9billion.Tocompoundthissenseoffailure,anotherbillionare
undernourished in the sense of micronutrient deficiency, and a further billion are mal-
nourished because they eat too much and are obese. A report by Save the Children titled
A Life Free from Hunger (2012)claimsthatmalnutritionaloneaccountsfor2.6million
deathseachyear—one-thirdoftheglobaltotal.Oneinfouroftheworld'schildrenare
stunted, and global progress on reducing malnutrition has been pitifully slow for the
lasttwentyyears,fallingatanaveragerateofonly0.65percentagepointsperyearsince