A famine is an extreme type of hunger emergency. When a famine occurs, a food shortage is causing starvation and death to anyone in the area daily. Before learning how to survive a famine, we first must understand what a famine is and how it can happen.
The best thing you can do to survive a famine is prepare! It is never too early to start collecting and storing food for emergencies. Since this process can get expensive quickly, start slowly building your supplies over time.
Storing food for survival is an excellent option in the short term. But when you want to be prepared for a long-term crisis, you will need to create a garden and grow the food yourself. Depending on the type of crisis or cause of the famine, you may need to house your garden indoors.
While hunting and fishing may not be the best options for surviving a famine, knowing how to do it and what you need could be something you cross paths with.
Protecting your supplies is one of the most crucial factors to surviving a famine. When your neighborhood is starving and desperate, even your best friends have the potential of coming after what you have.
We covered the most important things you need to worry about when food is scarce and how to prepare for it. But the more you think about it, the more your list of items required will continue to grow. In the section below, we will look at some of the other things you should consider for surviving a famine.
Famine is when lack of access to food has become so severe that people are dying as a consequence of not having enough to eat – usually children and the elderly first.
The most common circumstances that lead to famine are crop failure, drought and prolonged armed conflict. However, it is not the drought or conflict themselves that cause famine; it is the lack of an adequate response to the drought or conflict that causes famine.
Top image: Ifra can't produce enough breastmilk because she has not had any food herself. Her eight-month old baby is now at risk of malnutrition. Ashley Hamer /ActionAid
Many studies have shown that an early response is significantly more effective than a later emergency intervention: it saves lives, minimises the devastating long-term consequences and costs less to deliver.
If help doesn’t come through any time soon, we might die of hunger.”
For people who are currently at risk, early action and preparedness is needed to build their ability to cope now and reduce the need for emergency aid in the future.
Once famine has been declared it is too late ; thousands of people will already have been seriously and irreversibly affected and people will already be dying. It is therefore essential to recognise the warning signs early and for governments and the international community to respond immediately, and effectively, so that the situation never reaches the devastating scale of a famine.
First and foremost, make sure to select foods that have a long shelf life. Once your water supply is ready, this should be your next priority when it comes to preparing for a famine in the US.
Save up at least a gallon of water per person per day. Make sure that your supplies would last for at least three days so you’re prepared for the immediate effects of the disaster.
Your kit should include at least a first aid kit, your family’s special medication and other over the counter drugs, some matches, flint and steel, shelter or a tent, and maybe some blankets.
Water should be your number one priority when you start stockpiling for any kind of disaster. During a famine, this valuable resource may also be hard to find. Additionally, depending on the calamity that caused the famine, most water sources may also be contaminated.
In case a short-term food shortage does turn into a long-term famine, it is best to be prepared and know that you have the ability to grow your own food.
The United States may be one of the most powerful countries in the world today, but this does not mean that they are immune to Mother Nature’s wrath.
Governments and private organizations will most likely hand out food supply aids to the affected. Equip yourself with a radio so you’re updated on when these might come out. More importantly, keep your ears sharp about emergency medical aid should it be needed by members of your family.
Mousseau notes the shift in food aid in recent years from program food aid to relief food aid has come about because of a few factors: There has been a reduction of surpluses in developed countries, especially in Europe.
As Barrett and Maxwell also summarized, food aid started off in the 1950s with the US and together with Canada accounted for over 90% of global food aid until the 1970s when the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) became a major player.
Food aid is hard to summarize succinctly due to many related issues, but in general it is about providing food and related assistance to tackle hunger, either in emergency situations , or to help with deeper , longer term hunger alleviation and achieve food security (where people do not have to live in hunger or in fear of starvation).
Yet, it is still important because of the prevalence of world hunger and the increase in food emergencies in the past decade . The decline of food aid, as well as the way in which it is delivered and used, are therefore of importance.
The shift from the export of surpluses to more purchases from within southern countries has been strongly promoted by a number of NGOs and researchers over the last twenty years.… Overall, in 2004, 1.6 out of a total of 7.5 million tons of food aid was obtained through local or triangular purchases in developing countries. The EU officially adopted this policy standpoint in 1996 and adapted its food aid programs accordingly through a progressive increase in the share of cash assistance for triangular and local purchases and more attention for non-food interventions. As a result, a major share of EU food aid—90 percent in 2004—is now procured in developing countries (this figure is only approximately 1 percent for the US).
Program Food Aid. Is a form of in-kind aid whereby food is grown in the donor country for distribution or sale abroad. This is typically a government to government transfer. Rather than being free food as such, recipient countries typically purchase the food with money borrowed at lower than market interest rates.
International food aid is largely driven by donors and international institutions (typically influenced by the interests of the donors). In 1967, the Food Aid Convention (FAC) provided a set of policies for the donor countries, and is monitored by the Consultative Sub-Committee on Surplus Disposal (CSSD).
To make a dripping sandwich, you collect any drippings leftover from cooking a chunk of meat. Then, you leave them in a container overnight to congeal. In the morning, you spread the drippings on a thin slice of bread, add a little salt, and eat it.
During a famine, soups weren’t complicated or fancy. People sautéed the stinging nettles in lard, drippings, or oil, and then added water, or broth. If they had extra vegetables or small pieces of leftover meat, they threw them in the kettle. A little salt and pepper finished this humble meal .
In the morning, you spread the drippings on a thin slice of bread, add a little salt, and eat it. It isn’t fancy, but it is filling. With fat, protein, and carbohydrates, it had everything needed to help keep you alive.
To prepare for a famine, many people have planted trees with edible leaves, such as the Moringa. Other options include:
To help stretch this protein, you can turn the bugs into flour. Then you can mix it with regular flour, water, oil, and salt and bake it into a protein packed flat bread.
These helped stretch the available food and ensure that nothing went to waste. Both are necessary to survive a famine.
Necessity really is the mother of invention. When famine strikes, and people are hungry, they start looking for unusual sources of food.
Already in 2017, World Food Programme has provided food distributions and digital cash cards to nearly a million people in Somalia, and is in the process of raising $1.5 billion to combat food insecurity in Nigeria.
Their primary target areas are Nutrition & Health, Water & Sanitation, and Food Security & Livelihoods. They also have an Emergency Response branch, which evaluates crises in order to best serve the affected communities. Currently, they have a program focused specifically on the impending famine in Somalia, as well as a broader campaign targeting famine in South Sudan, Yemen, and Nigeria.
On April 12, WFP announced its plans for emergency operations in Yemen: To provide food assistance to nearly seven million people classified as severely food insecure; secure nutrition support to prevent or treat malnutrition among 2.2 million children; and assist breastfeeding and pregnant mothers with specialized nutritious foods. You can click here to see and share their appeal for food access, and here to read their joint statement with the United Nations Childrens’ Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization on famine in South Sudan.
A famine has been declared in South Sudan for months now — the first time such an event has been announced anywhere in the world in the past six years. Nearly 100,000 people face starvation.
This is a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. But there are many organizations working to help the people affected by famine receive the nutrients they deserve. Here are a few of the organizations working to fight this crisis: