Editing Famine (section)

====Recent years====
[[File:Maradi aidecentre Niger9aug2005 2.jpg|thumb|left|Laure Souley holds her three-year-old daughter and an infant son at a MSF aide center during the 2005 famine, Maradi Niger]]
Since the start of the 21st century, more effective early warning and humanitarian response actions have reduced the number of deaths by famine markedly. That said, many African countries are not self-sufficient in food production, relying on income from [[cash crop]]s to import food. [[Agriculture]] in Africa is susceptible to [[climate|climatic]] fluctuations, especially [[drought]]s which can reduce the amount of food produced locally. Other agricultural problems include [[Soil fertility|soil infertility]], [[land degradation]] and [[erosion]], swarms of [[desert locust]]s, which can destroy whole crops, and livestock diseases. [[Desertification]] is increasingly problematic: the [[Sahara]] reportedly spreads up to {{convert|30|mi|km|0|order=flip}} per year.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0801/p01s02-woaf.html |title=Hunger is spreading in Africa |journal=Christian Science Monitor |date=1 August 2005 |access-date=1 February 2016 |archive-date=23 November 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101123114118/http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0801/p01s02-woaf.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The most serious famines have been caused by a combination of drought, misguided economic policies, and conflict. The 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia, for example, was the outcome of all these three factors, made worse by the Communist government's censorship of the emerging crisis. In Capitalist Sudan at the same date, drought and economic crisis combined with denials of any food shortage by the then-government of President [[Gaafar Nimeiry]], to create a crisis that killed perhaps 250,000 people—and helped bring about a popular uprising that overthrew Nimeiry.

Numerous factors make the [[food security]] situation in Africa tenuous, including political instability, armed conflict and [[civil war]], [[political corruption|corruption]] and mismanagement in handling food supplies, and trade policies that harm African agriculture. An example of a famine created by human rights abuses is the [[1998 Sudan famine]]. [[AIDS]] is also having long-term economic effects on agriculture by reducing the available workforce, and is creating new vulnerabilities to famine by overburdening poor households. On the other hand, in the modern history of Africa on quite a few occasions famines acted as a major source of acute political instability.<ref>See, for example, [[Andrey Korotayev]] and [[Daria Khaltourina]] ''[https://www.academia.edu/27503953/Introduction_to_Social_Macrodynamics_Secular_Cycles_and_Millennial_Trends_in_Africa Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends in Africa]''. Moscow: 2006. {{ISBN|5-484-00560-4}}. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200216214439/https://www.academia.edu/27503953/Introduction_to_Social_Macrodynamics_Secular_Cycles_and_Millennial_Trends_in_Africa |date=16 February 2020 }}</ref> In Africa, if current trends of [[population growth]] and [[soil retrogression and degradation|soil degradation]] continue, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to [[United Nations University]] (UNU)'s Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.<ref name="news.mongabay.com">{{cite web |title=Africa may be able to feed only 25% of its population by 2025 |url=http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1214-unu.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111127175559/http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1214-unu.html |archive-date=27 November 2011 |work=Mongabay}}</ref>
[[File:Sahel Map-Africa rough.png|thumb|right|Famine-affected areas in the western [[Sahel]] belt during the [[2012 Sahel drought|2012 drought]].]]

Famines in the early 21st century in Africa include the [[2005–06 Niger food crisis]], the [[2010 Sahel famine]] and the [[2011 East Africa drought]], where two consecutive missed rainy seasons precipitated the one of the worst [[2011 East Africa drought|droughts in East Africa]] in 60 years.<ref>{{cite news|title=One year on, thousands flee Somalia every month, but successes too|newspaper=Unhcr|url=http://www.unhcr.org/4fce08ac6.html|access-date=5 June 2012|archive-date=5 June 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120605224414/http://www.unhcr.org/4fce08ac6.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Twdisyihoa">{{cite web|title=The worst drought in 60 years in Horn Africa |url=http://www.africa-eu-partnership.org/node/2158 |publisher=Africa and Europe in Partnership |access-date=2 August 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111102172007/http://www.africa-eu-partnership.org/node/2158 |archive-date=2 November 2011}}</ref> An estimated 50,000 to 150,000 people are reported to have died during the period.<ref>[https://world.time.com/2012/01/18/fatal-failure-did-aid-agencies-let-up-to-100000-somalis-die-in-2011/ "Fatal Failure: Did Aid Agencies Let Up To 100,000 Somalis Die in 2011?"] . ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''. 18 January 2012.</ref><ref name="Mafhscbafro">{{cite news |last=Warah |first=Rasna |title=Manufacturing a famine: How Somalia crisis became a fund-raising opportunity |url=https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/How+Somalia+crisis++became+a+fund+raising+opportunity+/-/2558/1246690/-/oe8n10/-/index.html |access-date=16 March 2013 |newspaper=The East African |date=2 October 2011 |archive-date=24 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121024171549/http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/How+Somalia+crisis++became+a+fund+raising+opportunity+/-/2558/1246690/-/oe8n10/-/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2012, the [[2012 Sahel drought|Sahel drought]] put more than 10 million people in the western Sahel at risk of famine (according to a [[Methodist Relief & Development Fund (MRDF)]] aid expert), due to a month-long heat wave.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/12566 |title=Methodists make appeal for famine threatened West Africa |publisher=Ekklesia |date=6 July 2010 |access-date=1 February 2016 |archive-date=7 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120307152019/http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/12566 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="http://www.poverties.org Famine in Africa">{{cite web|title=Famine in Africa, A Failure of the World System?|url=http://www.poverties.org/famine-in-africa.html|website=Poverties|publisher=poverties.org|access-date=26 April 2016|archive-date=25 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160525174621/http://www.poverties.org/famine-in-africa.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Today, famine is most widespread in [[Sub-Saharan Africa]], but with exhaustion of food resources, overdrafting of [[groundwater]], wars, internal struggles, and economic failure, famine continues to be a worldwide problem with hundreds of millions of people suffering.<ref>{{cite journal |author=The Christian Science Monitor |url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0724/p01s01-wogi.html |title=Rising food prices curb aid to global poor |date=24 July 2007 |journal=The Christian Science Monitor |access-date=14 September 2007 |archive-date=23 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191023091853/https://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0724/p01s01-wogi.html |url-status=live }}</ref> These famines cause widespread malnutrition and impoverishment. The [[1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia|famine in Ethiopia]] in the 1980s had an immense death toll, although Asian famines of the 20th century have also produced extensive death tolls. Modern African famines are characterized by widespread destitution and malnutrition, with heightened mortality confined to young children.