As international organizations are already predicting a “cruel hunger” throughout the world by mid-2023, the United Nations predicts more than 300,000 people in Somalia will be in famine by December this year, while many other countries in the African continent will be hit by severe food shortage. Main reasons behind this upcoming food crisis in Somali and other African nations would be draught and attack of locust, which may also hit Asian nations. It may be mentioned here that, in 2020 Somalia declared a national emergency as a locust infestation spread across east Africa, exacerbating the region’s fragile food security situation.
It may be mentioned here that, more than a quarter of a million people died of hunger in Somalia in 2011 – half of them children younger than five. The situation in Somalia in the coming months could be a great deal worse, despite global commitments to never let the 2011 famine happen again.
The United Nations predicts more than 300,000 people in Somalia will be in famine by December.
Somalia is home to 16 million people and has a rich history reaching back to before the Roman Empire. Somali people were producing beautiful rock art in the third millennium BC, trading with Ancient Egypt and establishing important mosques in Mogadishu from the 7th and 13th Centuries onwards. More recently, however, the people of Somalia have endured wars, locust plagues, flash flooding, pandemics and, now, extreme drought. Today, crisis on top of crisis means 7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance – two million more than just three months ago.
Despite historic levels of drought and hunger, Somali civil society continues to find ways to support people at risk of starvation. But additional help is needed. To date, the international community has largely failed the Somali population.
There is a well-established and globally recognized system of categorizing how close to famine people are. “Famine” is the worst of five levels.
For an area to be declared in a “famine”, there must be hard evidence of very high levels of child malnutrition (over 30 percent), very high levels of death (for every 10,000 people, more than two people dying every day), and extreme levels of hunger (more than one in five households going without food).
In 2022, no-one should suffer from a lack of food, let alone extreme starvation: the world is producing more food than ever before. And in 2011, humanitarian aid agencies and civil society organizations launched the Charter to End Extreme Hunger at the UN in New York, clearly outlining five steps to take to avoid famine.
Since then, it has been endorsed by the UN, world leaders, and dozens of humanitarian organizations.
So, why is this happening again? The past four rainy seasons in Somalia have failed to materialize and the fifth is very likely to underperform as well. Crops can’t grow to their full potential, if at all in some areas. The camel, goat and cattle herds of Somali pastoralists don’t have enough vegetation to eat nor enough accessible water to drink – already, millions of livestock have perished in the current drought. Climate change underpins this continued lack of rainfall. Somalia is ranked second-most vulnerable (after Niger) to the adverse impacts of climate change, which will likely cause Somalia to experience more drought, affecting more land area, with fewer regular rainy seasons.
The extreme difficulties of prolonged drought are hard for anyone to cope with, especially if there is little to no safety net to catch people during hard times. Indeed, food prices are higher now than during the 2011 famine.
Somalia does have a nascent social safety net called Baxnaano. It aims to build a bridge beyond the humanitarian approach, addressing immediate food security and nutrition issues, while also laying the foundations for a stronger workforce. But it is still at the pilot stage.
Can the world skip anticipated famine?
The answer is affirmative. In order to ensure food security and avoid possible famine, every country in the world, including Bangladesh should immediately undertake the following steps:
Massive program to ensure country’s agricultural production is not hit by locust,
In addition of growing crops in the agro-fields, there also should be immediate steps of growing alternative food, vegetable, fruit etcetera within all the hull-tract areas and highway roadsides and river banks,
We should not solely depend on rice. Instead there should be special attention to producing corn and wheat, while there also should be focus on increasing the production of potato,
The government needs to implement projects which can quickly process potatoes and transform it into packed food items, which can be stored without the support of cold storage at least for 12-24 months. We also need to focus on establishing plants to produce packed food with shelve life o 12-24 months from wheat, maize and other items. Similarly, facilities for sun-drying fish and meat with packing options with preservatives to increase it shelve lives between 12-24 months is important.
Above all, the government needs to use the mass-media in making people aware of the upcoming global food crisis. Instead of spreading fear, there should be constructive ways to build confidence within people to cope the challenge of this food crisis. This is most important step, which needs to be implemented immediately.
