Famine, Food Security, and the Green Revolution

Famine refers to a widespread scarcity of food severe enough to cause acute malnutrition and excess mortality across a population, and it is now formally classified using the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which declares Famine, or IPC Phase 5, only when specific thresholds are met: at least 20 percent of households face an extreme food gap, at least 30 percent of children suffer acute malnutrition, and mortality reaches two deaths per 10,000 people per day. Twentieth-century history offers stark case studies: the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961, tied to the policies of the Great Leap Forward, is estimated to have killed between 15 and 55 million people depending on the methodology used; the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1852 killed roughly one million people and drove mass emigration, caused by the potato blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans compounded by British colonial food-export policy; and the Ethiopian famine of 1983-1985, driven by drought and civil war, killed an estimated 400,000 to one million people and prompted the global Live Aid fundraising response.