Wello Famine Case Study.

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WELLO FAMINE CASE STUDY

The dictionary defines a famine as: an economic condition where in there is severe shortage of food which also leads to starvation. But there is much more to a famine than its dictionary meaning. True it is an economic condition, but whether this condition is caused by social or political factors or simply because of bad weather, whether this condition is the cause of problems or the effect of many other problems is an argument that has been going on since ages.

Over the past few decades, the continent of Africa has come to be recognized with “famines”.

In the past three decades the African country to have been most severely affected by famines is Ethiopia. 

There have been three famines in Ethiopia in the past three decades: -

  • 1974-75
  • 1984-85
  • 1999-00

Of these the famine in 1984 was considered to be the most disastrous.

 

The most affected area in these famines was the North Wello Zone of Amhara Region where a least 15 million people have been affected because the belg {secondary} rains failed completely in 1984 and then again in 1999.

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Initially, when the famine in 1974 and then again in 1984 happened, the plain excuse given was bad weather. The reasons included failure of the meher {primary rains} as well as belg {secondary rains} in the same year. In 1999, the reason given by the government was that the second belg failure resulted in farmers planting teff and pulses instead of the regular cereal crops which accounted for 40% of the annual cereal crop production in the hope of the meher rains. Their late erratic and inconsistent arrival damaged both the farmer’s hopes as well as the crops.

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