Lori Wright, age 14, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. for her question:
WHAT CAUSES FAMINE?
Famine is a prolonged food shortage that causes widespread hunger and death. Nearly all famines result from crop failures. The chief causes of crop failure include drought or prolonged lack of rain, too much rainfall and flooding and plant diseases and pests.
Many other factors may also help create a famine.
Throughout history, famine seems to strike at least one area of the world every few years. Most of the developing nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America have barely enough food for their people. Millions in these countries go hungry.
When food production or imports drop for any reason, famine may strike and thousands or even millions of people may die.
Drought ranks as the chief cause of famine. Certain regions of China, India and Russia have always been those hardest hit by famine. All three have large areas, near deserts where rainfall is light and variable. In a dry year, crops in these areas fail and famine may strike.
In areas where there is too much rainfall, the rivers often swell and overflow their banks. Farmlands are then flooded and crops are lost.
Plant diseases and pests have also been known to wipe out entire food supplies.
Such natural disasters as cyclones, earthquakes, early frosts and tidal waves may affect a large area destroying enough crops to crest a famine.
War may result in famine if many farmers leave their fields and join the armed forces. In some cases, an army has deliberately created a famine to starve an enemy into surrender. The army destroys stored food and growing crops and sets up a blockade to cut off the enemy's food supply.
The chief effects of famine include crime and other social disorders as well as death and disease. Death and disease are the main and most immediate effects of famine. People who lack sufficient food lose weight and grow extremely weak. Many famine victims become so feeble that they die from some simple ailment. The weakened condition of a starvation victim is called marasmus. Old people and young children are the first to die.
Children who have some food but do not receive enough protein develop a conditon called kwashiorkor (CQ). One of its symptoms is edema or puffy swelling of the face, forearms, and ankles. Changes in the color and texture of the hair and skin also may occur.
Young famine victims who do not die from kwashiorkor or starvation may grow up with severe mental and physical handicaps.
Famines also increase the possibility of epidemics. Cholera, typhus and other diseases take many lives because people weakened by hunger do not recover easily.
Large numbers of the victims have fled from their homes and live in crowded refugee camps where disease spreads quickly. People frequently must drink impure water, which can carry disease.