Causes of Hunger and Famine in the Sub-Saharan Africa Food security is where all people in a country or a region can access sufficient food that can meet their dietary requirements for a healthy life (Seo, 2014: 160). In the sub-Saharan Africa, there exist food shortage. The available food is not sufficient to people, and the majority of the population cannot access enough food. As it has been identified, hunger and famine are chronic problems in the region (Bain, 2013: 6; Von Grebmer, 2015: 32).
Several factors are associated with the occurrence of these issues as discussed below. I) Poverty Poverty indicates the lack of economic power and ability to raise money to buy food. In the sub-Saharan region, almost half of the population below two dollars in a day. According to World Bank data, by 2012, 47% of the people in this region lived below $ 1.90 a day (Arndt, McKay, and Tarp, 2016: 32). This implies that people in this area have limited money to acquire sufficient food. Adequate nutrition provisions require enough resource allocation.
With the little income received by the households in this region, people cannot afford to purchase adequate food (Prakash and Stigler, 2012: 2). Also, the little income does not allow people to practice sustainable agriculture. In the region, people are not able to purchase the necessary farm inputs that could enable them to produce enough food. In most cases, the economic performance of the states in the region is poor. The governments rely on international donors and foreign governments for financial support (Bloom and Chan, 2015: 27).
This form of revenue generation is in most cases insufficient in purchasing enough food for the entire population in the states. The people in this region is consistently on the rise, a situation that puts stress on the current economy (Vanlauwe et al., 2015: 15101). The rates of unemployment for the youths remain high, and many households cannot afford food. These reasons increase poverty levels in the region which enhance hunger and famine. II) Poor Agricultural Practices The farming practices carried out in this region are poor and cannot supply enough for the growing population (Fan and Rosegrant, 2016: 54).
People in the area practice subsistence farming which is aimed at the production of food for their family consumption. There are increased environmental problems such as soil erosion, desertification, and drought. The soils are characterized by infertility and insufficient water. These reasons make the productivity of the land to decrease. The subsistence farmers do not produce enough to feed themselves resulting in hunger and famine (Buhaug et al., 2015: 125015). Also, lack of technology in farming in this region results in reduced production.
Farmers in the area do not have the necessary inputs such as fertilizers and water harvesting skills (Burney, Naylor, and Postel, 2013: 12515). For this reason, the crops are grown usually produce little harvests, and when the rains fail, the plants die. Also, many farmers in the region overstock livestock. This depletes the vegetation leading to acute soil erosion. The soils become bare and unproductive therefore unable to support agriculture. This has resulted in the nations in the sub-Saharan region to depend on food importation.
However, due to poverty levels in the region, people cannot afford to buy adequate food. III) Poor Governance Many countries in the region are characterized by political instabilities. There is the occasional eruption of civil and political wars (Knox et al., 2012: 034032). This political instability results to the destruction of farms and people flee resulting in loss of farming time. Also, government policies put in place in the sub-Saharan regions do not alleviate poverty. There is an unequal distribution of economic resources of the national governments.
Some parts of the area have been marginalized, and hunger is dominance in such zones. Furthermore, the governments in the region do not allocate adequate resources to the agricultural sector.
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