Jeffrey Gettleman wrote about the food crisis for The New York Times, noting that “this is what happens, economists say, when the global food crisis meets local chaos.” With rising commodity prices, rising food costs and civil war tied to an extremely dry climate, people living in the Horn of Africa were dying at a shocking rate. While there is food being produced in the area, it is almost all being exported – leaving the local population to starve. Ethiopia, for example, is Africa’s second biggest producer of maize. But where is it all going? If food is being produced in Africa, why are so many people starving?
According to data and reports, about 70 to 80 per cent of food produced in the Horn of Africa is exported out of Africa. The opposite is true in Canada, who only exports about 7 to 10 per cent of food produced. So while we reap the benefits of this exported food, here in North America, those who live in the countries from which we receive the food, suffer.
Between rising food costs, conflict, rising fuel costs and, of course, drought more and more people have been displaced.
With Somalia and the Horn of Africa on the brink of famine, a larger look at how drought and food scarcity—two of the factors defining famine—show that much of Africa faced the same perils in the year leading up to the current crisis.
The Horn of Africa is not the only region with limited quantities of freshwater available, but issues of access are compounded by the violence and conflict brewing in the region as well as and an underdeveloped infrastructure.
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?viz=MAP&q=select+col2+from+3440080+&h=false&lat=0.8893160963233157&lng=24.685156249999984&z=3&t=3&l=col2
The crisis in the region is more clearly illustrated by access to food. In 2007, the amount of calories available per capita per day in Ethiopia was 1979.68, one of the lowest rates in all of Africa. The year’s drought further reduced yields, livestock and crops died and dried up and the percentage of the country’s food exports remained high.
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?viz=MAP&q=select+col0+from+3444381+&h=false&lat=5.7908968128719565&lng=19.338111249999997&z=3&t=3&l=col0&y=2&tmplt=2
