A relatively sudden flare-up of mass death by starvation, usually relatively localized, and usually associated with a sharp rise in food prices, the sale of household goods, begging, the consumption of wild foods, and out-migration. P. Walker (1989) describes famine as a ‘socio-economic process which causes the accelerated destitution of the most vulnerable, marginal and least-powerful groups in a community, to a point where they can no longer, as a group, maintain a sustainable livelihood’. See Woo-Cumings (2002) ADB Institute Research Paper 31 on famine in North Korea.

A. Sen (1982) sees famine as distinguishable from chronic hunger and deprivation, in that speedy intervention can prevent it. Sen developed the concept of entitlement, identifying declining wages, unemployment, rising food prices, and poor food-distribution systems, as causes of starvation. Lin and Dennis (2000) Econ. J. 110, 1 endorse Sen’s approach, adding a decline in food availability as a further factor. Pluemper and Neumayer (2007) http://ssrn.com/abstract=920852 suggest that it can be politically rational for a government to remain inactive in the face of severe famine threat. Howe and Devereux (2004) Disasters 28, 4 note that definitions of famine (including this one) tend to be vague, and propose new famine scales based on magnitude and/or intensity.

www.fews.net The famine early warning systems network.