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Definition: famine from Philip's Encyclopedia

Extreme prolonged shortage of food, produced by both natural and man-made causes. If it persists, famine results in widespread starvation and death. Famine is often associated with drought, or alterations in weather patterns, which leads to crop failure and the destruction of livestock. However, warfare and complex political situations resulting in the mismanagement of food resources are equally likely causes.


Famine

From Encyclopedia of Environment and Society
IN THE PAST, famines have been defined as discrete events, where a large proportion of a population dies of starvation and disease caused by undernourishment. In recent decades, famines have been increasingly understood as more complex, open-ended processes that can have multiple outcomes. Famine can occur during events of chronic food insecurity, which represents a state of continuously inadequate access to food. One of the worst famines in history, the Bubonic Plagues in 1345–48, claimed more than 40 million lives in Europe. While estimates are often vague, evidence suggests that at the end of the 19th century, somewhere between 30 and 60 million people died in famines in India and China. In the 20th century, more than 70 million people died in famines worldwide. Most deaths occurred in China and the Soviet Union. During the 20th century, famines shifted from Europe and Asia to sub-Saharan Africa, where large famines occurred in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa in the mid–1970s and…
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Full text Article Famine

From International Encyclopedia of Human Geography
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Glossary Coping Strategies The strategies and tactics that people employ to minimize the stress associated with livelihood crises. Famine A food emergency resulting in major excess mortality and widespread severe, acute malnutrition. Famine Crimes…
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Full text Article Famine

From Gale Encyclopedia of Public Health
A famine is an extreme and widespread scarcity of food that affects the general population of a large area, such as a particular country or geographic region. It is typically accompanied or followed by starvation, epidemics of contagious disease, political instability, and increased mortality. …
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Full text Article Famine

From The Oxford Companion to International Relations
A famine is a sudden and localized increase in human death caused physically by inadequate consumption of food. Famines tend to come and go quickly. In this regard, they differ from chronic undernutrition, a condition that affects many more people on a continuous basis. The Food and Agriculture…
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Full text Article famine.

From The Oxford Companion to British History
may be defined as the occurrence of serious food shortages resulting in significant rises in the death rate. Mortality during famines was rarely caused solely by starvation but from related diseases like dysentery, typhoid, and typhus. Hence deaths from food shortages might occur some time after…
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Full text Article famine

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Extreme and protracted shortage of food, resulting in widespread hunger and a substantial increase in the death rate. General famines affect all classes or groups in the region of food shortage; class famines affect some classes or groups much more severely than others; regional famines affect only…
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Full text Article famine

From The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization
Catastrophic breakdowns in the production and distribution of essential foodstuffs, resulting in exceptionally high mortality from attendant epidemic *diseases , were rare in the ancient world. The typical natural and man-made causes of famine were omnipresent: crop failure caused by the unreliable…
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From Environmental History and Global Change: A Dictionary of Environmental History
Caused by food shortages due to natural disasters, population pressure, human agency, such as war, or a combination of these. Part of the normal experience of most people in the past and still a major problem today. Famines could be local, regional or wider in scale. They often caused influxes of…
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From Collins Dictionary of Sociology
widespread food shortages leading to starvation and a high death rate within a given population. During a famine people die not only of hunger but from a variety of diseases to which they become increasingly vulnerable. Sen (1981) has argued that starvation arises from the condition of people not…
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Full text Article famine

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Severe shortage of food affecting a large number of people. A report made by the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), published in October 1999, showed that although the number of people in the developing world without sufficient food declined by 40 million during the first…
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Full text Article famine

From The Oxford Companion to Food
Helvella gigas
occurs when food runs out, causing hunger, malnutrition, and ultimately death. It is an extreme, rather than endemic condition. Were it endemic the victims would either die or make other arrangements regarding their food supply. Of course, some groups live at a lower nutritional level than others, …
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