Ethiopia: Food Deficiency and Food Insecurity

The location and geography of the country has caused the people to experience famine after famine, leaving many to die from starvation. A famine is in definition, “A great shortage or an extreme scarcity of food over an extended period of time” (Webster). There are several different types of famine that occur in different types of the world. The type that Ethiopia generally goes through is called a Ravallion. During a Ravallion famine, there are unusually large amounts of causalities with extreme shortages of food in certain parts of the population. There are many things that cause famine, whether it’s draught, plague, or civil disrupt. Right now, Ethiopia is experiencing a draught that has killed almost all of their crops. Because of the famines that Ethiopia experiences most every year, there is usually an increase in the amount of people malnourished. This year, 11to 14 million people are expected to go hungry leaving many to starve to death. Ethiopia has experienced many draughts like these, the worst however, being in 1983. This draught lasted two years and the draught alone killed over 400,000 people in one year, this doesn’t include the deaths that were due to starvation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983%E2%80%931985_famine_in_Ethiopia).

Food insecurity is when a person does not have access to an abundance of food, and when the little food they do have, is not nutritious (Ruane). One of the big steps in lowering the food insecurity rate, is making the public more aware of the issue. If we started showing the world more facts about this issue, more would be done to lower the problem. If we stated the fact that one of every six people suffer from food insecurity in the United States alone (Coleman), maybe it would spark people to become more active and do more to help. The one of every six people fact is just in the United States. This issue strikes at home, not just in underdeveloped countries in Africa like we think. It is startling to know that food insecurity occurs in every community across the United States

Ethiopia is a country that creates image of starving. In 1980, many countries of east Africa had drought, and political unrest so people displaced from their shelter to camping, In addition when people moves to other place from their village or town, due to civil war, it is hard to produce crops or grain for food. Therefore those all causes refuges who lives in camps specifically in Ethiopia in 1980. During that time Ethiopia asked aid for the United Nations so the united nation were showing to the world about Ethiopian famine so that it could get assistance from the world. European countries and America assisted to Ethiopia to receive food, medicine, and other material. While Ethiopian economic is growing fast in the world by 10.3 per year

Food insecurity is the condition in which people live in hunger or fear of starvation (around a billion people live in this condition). The regions that have the most food insecurity are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

population, however, one in nine are food insecure. Food security, defined by the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security is “the condition in which all people, at all times, have physical, economic and social access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs for an active and healthy life.” Developing countries are most at risk of food insecurity with Sub-Saharan Africa having the highest prevalence of hunger.

Hunger is one of the many problems families face in rural poverty, as shown in this quote: “Under the volatile circumstances in which it operated, the RCC could not disclose in its food requests and famine reports to the Americans that its own government was part of the famine problem in the mid-1970s” (Kissi 115). This quote confirms Ethiopia's history of poverty and hardship. It explains how the government has made a negative impact on the way people live their lives in rural Ethiopia. It is important to note that RCC stands for "Regional Cooperation Center" and deals with social and ecological problems in countries around the world. A study on rural poverty in Ethiopia says, "Clearly the general trend in these regions depicts prevalence of disharmony between the natural resource base and the population to be sustained" (Ezra 64). This quote is from a study done about poverty in Africa and Ethiopia. It explains that there has been "disharmony between the natural resource base" which means that resources in that area has begun to diminish and now fails to adequately provide for the increasing population in Ethiopia. This shortage of resources leads to decreased sale, which in turn leads to hunger and poverty. Due to the fact that Ethiopia is lacking necessary goods to make economic progress, it cannot provide for its people dying in

Food will always be one of the most important things in your life. Every living thing on the face of the earth needs nutrition to survive, grow, and reproduce. Unfortunately, about 795 million people in the world do not have enough to eat. This number represents about 1 in 9 people on the planet and is much higher in developing countries where 13% of the population is malnourished. Malnutrition or malnourishment is a condition that results from a diet in which there are not enough nutrients or there are so many that the diet causes health problems. A malnourished persons body has difficulty doing normal things like growing and fighting illnesses. Two billion people in the world suffer from various forms of malnutrition. The most basic kind is called protein energy malnutrition. This includes low height and weight and a lack of nutrients that help the body to function properly. Another common group is overweight, obesity, and diet related diseases like diabetes and heart disease. When people refer to world hunger, they are talking about undernutrition. One of the places most affected by this is Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa, the area of the African continent that lies south of the Sahara Desert, has the highest level of food insecurity in the world.

Both Somalia and Ethiopia are located within the far north-eastern part of Africa. Famine problems within this part of the country dates back to the late 1900’s. During the early 1990’s, more than 300,000

Farmers have already had coping mechanisms, as droughts periodically occur in Ethiopia. It is these coping mechanisms that were undermined by the Ethiopian government’s counter-insurgency strategies that led to disastrous mass starvation.

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world and is frequently suffer from famines and droughts. The total population of Ethiopia is about 89.9 million and 42.5 million people in Ethiopia unable to access to safe water (Water.org, 2015). In rural Ethiopia, people have to walk up to 6 hours to gather water from shallow, unsafe water pit which they share with livestock (Water.org, 2015). In the past 20 years, people in Ethiopia suffered from recurring droughts which mainly caused by the climate change. Ethiopia has experienced 5 major droughts since 1980 accompanied by many small areas droughts as well

In my opinion, the issue of food insecurity in Chad has grown far to great to be ignored. With the rapid influx of refugees, natural hazards, water scarcity, climate change and the continually growing population, food shortages will only get worse.

The first policy recommendation to solve the food insecurity problem in Côte d’Ivoire is to send educational professionals to help households be more productive with the resources they have. The goal will be to teach families to make the best use of food and crops already available in their region. Another point is teaching the Ivoirians about the local insects, such as roundworm, could play a role in the lifespan of their crops or how best to utilize the insects. These educators must also promote and teach sustainable agriculture and community-based resource management in order for Côte d’Ivoire to become prosperous again. These professionals should remain in Côte d’Ivoire for one full growing cycle, from planting seeds through harvesting the crop, to ensure lasting effects through the coordination of the Ivorian farmers.

In our current economic crisis, many people have had to make tough choices and have ended up unable to provide food for themselves and the ones they love. In Florida, we are faced with an alarming number of people who are hungry without a secure source of food for themselves and their families.

One of the main causes of hunger in the country is due to the drought (period of dry weather). Many parts of this country have been affected from lack of rain for four straight

These deficiencies are the result of malnourishment can have detrimental effects on one’s health. Children are the most likely to suffer from malnutrition and it causes “nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year.” These nutritional and health problems that occur because of food inequality are only set to worsen because of the rising worry of food insecurity due to environmental problems.