Thinking the African Food Crisis - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 774

23 percentovertheperiod2000-2012.NobodyseriouslyexpectsthattheMillennium
DevelopmentGoal(MDG)ofhalvingthenumberofhungrypeoplebetween1990and
2015willbemetinAfrica—orindeedglobally.henewUNDP(2012)humandevelop-
ment report on Africa, devoted entirely to food security, paints a stark picture:
Sub-SaharanAfricaisplaguedbyintolerablelevelsofmalnutrition.Letunchanged,
this could result in irreversible mental and physical disabilities in this and future
generations. Chronic malnutrition, measured by the share of preschool children
whoarestunted,isestimatedtohavefallenonly2 percentagepoints(from43 percent
to41%)between1990and2010andisprojectedtofalljust1 percentagepointoverthe
next decade. For children who are underweight, a measure that also captures acute
malnutrition, the picture is similarly grim. For both measures the absolute num-
ber of malnourished children has risen over the past two decades and is expected
tocontinuetoriseto2020.hesituationisparticularlyworrisomeinEastandWest
Africa,hometothreeofeveryfourofthecontinent'smalnourishedchildrenin2010.
All African sub-regions now have a higher prevalence of stunting than do Asia and
SouthAmerica.(19)
More than one-third of all climatological disasters affect sub-Saharan Africa, and agri-
cultural productivity, according to UNDP data, has remained essentially unchanged
since1960.hegenderednatureofthefoodsecurityquestion—thatistosaythestark
differentials between men and women as regards access to land, mortality and morbidity
rates,ornutritionalstatus—isespeciallybleak.UNDP(2012)identiiedthreesourcesof
instability in African food systems: weather variability, food price volatility, and violent
conlict.RecenthikesinfoodpricessparkeddemonstrationsandriotsinBurkinaFaso,
Cameroon,Coted'Ivoire,Guinea,Mozambique,Senegal,andUganda,withthousands
taking to the streets. Studies show a positive long-term correlation between interna-
tionalfoodpricesandantigovernmentprotestsandcivilconlictinlow-incomecoun-
tries.heyalsoidentifythreeemergingthreats—environmentaldegradation,climate
change,anddemographicpressures—thatwillincreasinglydisturbfoodsystemsand
fray the link between food security and human development.
Globally,theincidenceoffamine—andfaminemortalities—hasseeminglydeclined
sincethe1960s,2leadingsome,likeCormacO'Gradain Famine: A Short History (2009),
torefertocontemporaryfoodcrisesas“small-scalefamines.”YetAfricaremainsastrik-
ingoutlier.In2011some10millionpeopleweredrawnintotheclutchesoftheterrible
food crisis in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia.
Tospeakoffamines—writsmallorlarge3—asdiscreteorhermeticallysealedevents
characterizedbymassmortalityandstarvationisopentoquestion.Faminesandfood
crises are social processes, and complex processes at that. There is now a substantial cor-
pusofworkonfoodcrises,muchofitfocusedonAfricaandthesemi-aridzones.One
line of engagement, stimulating a substantial amount of debate, is derived, not unex-
pectedly,fromAmartyaSen's(1980)workonentitlements.SenandhiscollaboratorJean
Drèze,intheirimportantbook Hunger and Public Action (DrèzeandSen1989),address
the poverty-hunger equation primarily in economic terms through forms of command
overfood(seealsoDrèzeandSen1990).Famineandhungeraredeinedbyentitlement