ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the world food crisis from another angle, as a global wave of famines which killed two to three million people. It shows their evolution and outcomes on national levels in the worst affected countries in Asia and Africa, including state responses between denial and hectic activity. I argue that the connections between international and national markets were loose, but parallel social dynamics in many non-industrialized countries made substantial parts of the rural population vulnerable, including growing social inequality and unequal land ownership in particular. Aside from small peasants, a variety of groups were affected, such as landless workers, sharecroppers, herders and certain types of artisans and providers of services. Some specific ethno-religious groups suffered disproportionally. All of these famines were multicausal, and different sets of factors were involved in each of them, but this was boiled down to one basic recipe by policymakers, focusing on one group, smallholders.
