Why do droughts cause famine in Africa and slightly higher food prices elsewhere?

[Aphex_Twin]

I know that Africa is a predominantly agricultural country, so farmers are not doing very well because of the food surplus.

Shaihulud, can you explain the mechanics of this phenomenon?

 

[Verbose]

I know that Africa is a predominantly agricultural country, so farmers are not doing very well because of the food surplus. Theres a saying that Water always seek its own level, i can't think that food would become just the teeniest bit above what everybody can afford. Somebody must be selling the food, eating the food and making money from the food.

This is where crap for politics and infrastructure kicks in.

You've got a segment of the really poor contries population in subsistance farming — people farm to feed themselves — and if the crops fail these people are in trouble.
Theoretically their governments should be able to hand this, especially considering that there's quite a bit of international willingness to help.
In practice they often get stranded paddleless up a big brown river... The money for food, for trucks, for petrol for the trucks etc. ends up... elsewhere.

The kind of market where food gets brought in requires customers. Subsistance farmers aren't quite customers yet. Too poor for starters. They're also not producing in order to sell, just to eat.

The situation where agricultural dumping kills African producers occurs when there's a market for these products, i.e. people engaged in activities other than agriculture. But with dirt cheap, subsidised (tax payer money) western products everywhere...

And believe it or not, most Africans don't starve after all.

War zones are a special problem too.

 

[Verbose]

So am i to believe it that we are drowning Africa under a sea of goodwill? i somehow don't see that happening. At least if that is the case, they should not be starving at all!

What goodwill? Mostly this is about dumping overproduction at cut rate prices to recoup some of the investment costs (saving some western taxpayer €€€/$$$).

And as said, those who starve do so because they're making a precarious living to start with, in contries where the money for aid sent often ends up lining the pockets of someone considerably less in need.

"We're sending aid and money to Africa" is pretty meaningless as a statement.

What part? Which group? Under what conditions? It's a big continent.

 

[classical_hero]

The main problem is the government subsidies to argiculture in first world countries. This needs to stop so that some sort of balance can be achieved in the world commodity markets for agricultural products.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I believe the ability to pay for the food has a lot to do with it.

That would be a major factor in it.

Also, Wisconsin has been in a drought for the past 4-5 years, and production has barely tapered off. I think it's sick how much water they use to irrigate with, but it does help the crops survive. However, this year was by far the worst (drought wise, barely any rain at all), but production is still up there.

 

[amadeus]

Is that a serious question?

Absolutely; what would compel you to think otherwise?

 

[luiz]

So am i to believe it that we are drowning Africa under a sea of goodwill? i somehow don't see that happening. At least if that is the case, they should not be starving at all!

Indeed, the notion that charity is bad for the economy is a fallacy (unless we assume that people who receive charity become lazy, what is a possibility, but nobody is discussing this here).

People argue that by giving food the west is ruining the african producers, thus generating famines, but this is false. If wer give them food, there are two options:

1- We give them enough food to prevent all famines, so even if local producers are ruined there is no hunger. And since the locals won't have to buy food, they will use the extra money on other stuff and thus stimulate other sectors of the economy.

2-We give some food, but not enough to satisfy all need. This means that africans will still have to buy from locals (or import). Nevertheless, by giving them some food this means they will save some money that will be used for more food or other stuff, but the end result is still that africans will still be better off.

The whole problem is what TLC pointed out, there are no functioning markets, no working institutions, no nothing.

Indeed charity won't solve this problems at all, this is up to africans themselves. But charity won't make things worse either, in fact it can be very good for extreme situations.

 

[betazed]

It is true that charity is not the entire solution. The west cannot feed Africa/Africans indefinitely. However, charity is part of the solution. Development growth is a recursive process consisting of a virtuous cycle where your current efforts leaves you with resources which is more than what you require to survive currently. The savings is channeled to future endeavors which create even more resources (and since your consumption is constant - at least theoretically you have even more savings and so on).

The problem is to get the cycle started. If you start with zero then there is nothing that you can do irrespective of how honest you are and how enterprising/responsible you are. So when one points to corruption and irresponsibility and wars as the reason for Africa's dire straits they are only looking at half the picture at best (and in some cases at a completely wrong picture).

So the goal of western nations should be charity that get the cycles started; which is of course an immensely difficult task. But many people are trying and there are notable successes at least at the micro level. This years Nobel peace prize is essentially an acknowledgement of exactly that effort in Bangladesh.

So there was food before colonization then?

if there wasn't enough food then how come there were humans there? There surely wasn't any US of A feeding them then.

That said Africa always had structural handicaps that made sure that economic progress (as understood in the sense during the last millennium) was difficult. Lack of long rivers that reach into heartlands, a vicious strain of malaria, unusable coasts, fickle climate etc. if there were no colonization it is reasonable to say that Africa would still be lagging than the rest of the world. But there in lies the point. Since it lagged behind the west, they got colonized. Once that happened, any reasonable history book should show that colonization only made a bad situation much worse.

 

[JerichoHill]

Because the way the UN and Big Plan groups do aid is stupid.

You can't come up with a big plan and expect it to work. Case in point, malaria nets.

The UN thought it would be smart to give them away. People used em to fish.

A small group came in with the same idea, but made people pay like, 1 cent per net, and taught them on their use. Those villages used the nets, saw malaria go down, children went to school alot more, and there were more healthy men and women working.

A very good book on this whole subject of Africa is called "White Man's Burden" I read it after reading Jeffrey Sach's "End of Poverty" and saw how bad Sach's plan is.

Conclusion: The way we give aid is fricked up

 

[Narz]

Absolutely; what would compel you to think otherwise?

Well if there was no food before colonization there would be no people to colonize. Tribal people (specifically nomads) suffer less from famine and natural disaster than overpopulated people dependent on aid.

 

[amadeus]

You're taking "no food" too literally, I'm talking about plentiful food.

I'd also like to know how the Europeans managed to supposedly destroy the bountiful harvests of the former African empires.