ABSTRACT

Pre-twentieth-century famines were often triggered by natural disasters that destroyed the subsistence basis of agrarian communities, whose vulnerability was exacerbated by underdevelopment – weak markets, undiversified livelihoods, no food aid system. Since the late nineteenth century, improvements in transport and communications integrated isolated communities into the wider economy, allowing governments and traders to respond promptly to food crises. Another factor that reduced famine vulnerability was the emergence of nation states, but this also exposed previously autarkic communities to potent global forces. During the colonial period in India, catastrophic famines occurred that cost millions of lives, until the British introduced the Famine Codes in the 1880s, to prevent further famines and legitimize their rule (Davis 2001). In parts of Africa, starvation was used as a way of crushing initial resistance to colonization. The penetration of colonial capitalism into subsistence-oriented economies – the commodification of food crops and

expansion of ‘cash crops’ – was blamed for causing the 1970s famine in the West African Sahel (Meillassoux 1974).