Causes Of Famine

Famine and Human Agency

As the majority of people already know, famine is an extreme shortage or widespread scarcity of food in a particular region caused by a number of different factors. Causes of this disastrous phenomenon included issues such as crop failure, over populated areas or population imbalance and even government politics. In places where there is famine present, people do not have enough food available to eat which results in weight loss in adults and stunted growth in children. If a famine continues for a long period of time it can cause malnutrition, an outbreak of infectious diseases, starvation and begins to increase the mortality. Tragically we tend to see the young die first and often the diseases will kill more people

Human Agency refers to the capability of people to act on their own independently given a certain situation. To make their own choices and decisions, put together their thoughts and actions in order to express their individual power.

Famine is a result of a wide range of causes from crop failure, drought, floods, locust which is a species of deadly short horned grasshoppers, huge displacement due to war, a progressively increasing financial speculation, new government policies and of course Global warming. However, there are a number of aspects which result in taking a country from food insecurity to famine. According to the UN, it is only considered a famine when specific measures of hunger, malnutrition and mortality are attained. These measures include a minimum of 20 per cent of families and households in a given region facing extreme food shortages, severe malnutrition rates of over 30 per cent

The Great Famine also known as "The Great Hunger" lasted from 1845 and 1849 was considered the single greatest disaster which massively effected Ireland. This famine was caused by the potato blight which was fungus that was unintentionally carried over from North America initially to Europe and eventually made its way to Ireland during the summer months of 1845. Many people believed that this was just a once off event due to it being highly unlikely and unusual for crops to fail in the lovely rich land which the Irish soil usually provides. However, what many people didn't expect was that the potato crops would not grow for the next four years causing the biggest disaster ever recorded in Irish history. This famine resulted in the death and emigration of millions of people to distant countries. What makes this even more tragic is that many who attempted to emigrate to these far away countries often didn't survive the long journey due to initial malnutrition and the common diseases that were spread on these ships. The potato was the only staple and affordable food in the Irish diet at the time. The only other type of food in Ireland at the time such as meat and grains were exported by the government making it inaccessible to the natives. Over one million people died from starvation and diseases. Another one million