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>The Ethiopian Famine
>
>July 28, 2003
>
>Famine is again stalking Ethiopia - this time casting a
>wider shadow. While a million people died in the famine of
>1984 and 1985, today more than 12 million are at risk, half
>of those children under 15. Perhaps the most chilling
>aspect of today's crisis is that the famine persists
>despite generous outside food aid. Donations of wheat,
>soybeans and oil can stave off much of the starvation in
>the short term, but they cannot keep hunger from returning
>year after year.
>
>Drought is the primary reason Ethiopians go hungry, but it
>intertwines with other factors that keep Ethiopians too
>poor and too sick to recover from drought years. The world,
>which thankfully has fully met Ethiopia's appeal for
>emergency food, needs to address these underlying problems.
>While Ethiopia is an extreme case, it is an ominous leading
>indicator of what may soon happen in other African nations.
>
>
>Rural Ethiopians have never fully recovered from the famine
>of 1984, nor the severe droughts that have come after,
>especially in 1999 and 2000. The impact of drought in
>Ethiopia is magnified by the country's deforestation and
>the depletion of soil by farmers who cannot afford to let
>land lie fallow. The effects of dry periods linger long
>after the rains return. Drought reduces harvests and
>deprives livestock of water and pasture, forcing farmers
>and animal herders into a spiral of debt. Washington's
>extravagant subsidies for America's cotton farmers have
>added to the problem by undercutting the export market for
>Ethiopian cotton, one of the country's major products.
>
>Even if the rains are good, each year Ethiopians get
>hungrier. Next year they will have poorer health, fewer
>cows and sheep, a smaller stock of seeds, less money and
>more debt than this year. The long-term issue is poverty -
>famine hits those too destitute to buy food or produce
>their own.
>
>Fighting famine inside Ethiopia means providing not only
>emergency food but also programs to help people emerge from
>the trap of destitution. Rural Ethiopians need more markets
>for their crops and better roads to be able to move their
>products to other parts of the country. They could use
>projects to make water accessible to poor peasants, seed
>banks and programs to increase livestock supplies. And they
>need better health care - the government spends only $1.50
>per person for health care each year, although Ethiopia now
>has more than two million people with the AIDS virus, and
>the infection is exploding.
>
>Some countries in southern Africa are also beginning to
>suffer from hunger that does not go away, and their
>tribulations may turn into persistent famine as droughts
>intensify and AIDS incapacitates more and more workers.
>International donors are much readier to ship grain than to
>attack difficult, long-term development goals. But without
>such help, food aid will become a permanent necessity.
>Famine is not a sudden event but an evolving process, one
>that involves much more than food.
>
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/28/opinion/28MON5.html?ex=1060399431&ei=1&en=f1ec84a4057fc893
>
>
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>Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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