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 nationstates, but this also exposed previously autarchic communities to potent global forces. During the colonial period in India, catastrophic famines occurred that cost millions of lives, even after the British introduced the Famine Codes in the 1880s to prevent further famines and legitimise their rule (Davis, 2001). In parts of Africa starvation was used as a way of crushing initial resistance to colonisation. The penetration of colonial capitalism into subsistenceoriented 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).
