121-101 Famine in the Modern World

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Objectives:

Students completing this subject should:

• comprehend geographical and social variations in the availability of food in the modern world;

• understand relations between population, environmental change and food supply;

• comprehend the manner in which food supply failures (famine and malnutrition) are socially created;

• understand how food relief and aid are designed on the basis of a particular theory of famine;

• have developed skills of empirical and theoretical evaluation of theories of food supply and famine.

Content:

Food supply, nutrition and famines. Population and food supply; population growth; food-systems and nutrition; agricultural systems and the green revolution; the Malthusian argument; environmental change and degradation; climatic fluctuations; soil degradation; salinity and desertification; physical impact of the green revolution. Political economy of food supply and food failure; differential access to food within societies and between societies; advanced agriculture and the implications of agribusiness and the global food trade. Aid and other solutions to the world food problem.

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