A Severe Famine Threatens to Kill Millions in Africa

An area twice the size of the United States lives in fear of starving to death.

What could easily be the worst famine of the twentieth century is devastating 24 African countries—an area at least twice the size of the United States. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 150 million people will be affected this year, some in areas that have seldom seen famine before.

Thousands are starving already in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and in parts of the arid Sahel. Drought has not lifted in the Sahel—the vast region adjoining the Sahara Desert—since 1973, when as many as 300,000 people died. Ethiopia, one of the most populous African nations, has needed repeated disaster relief over the last decade. And drought has extended into normally fertile counries, such as Ghana and Kenya.

If hunger is chronic in the Sahel, it is relatively new to southern Africa. Zimbabwe, ordinarily a grain exporter, was forced to ask international donors for help to feed two million people. Even prosperous South Africa is importing grain. Rainfall has been far below normal for two years. When rain finally came to parts of southern Mozambique early this year, a tropical storm caused floods and wiped out crops. The famine is compounded in Mozambique by South African-backed rebels who drive farmers from their land and hijack food trucks.

War or civil unrest has disrupted food distribution in at least seven famine-stricken countries, most notably Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, and Chad. Many security-conscious African governments spend heavily on arms. Ethiopia spends 11 percent of its gross national product on the military.

Given the extent of the crisis, U.S. hunger organizations are puzzled by the lack of American interest. “It’s almost as though you have to get deaths occurring on a massive scale to get attention,” laments Arthur Simon, head of Bread for the World.

“You have a few million people close to starvation,” says World Vision’s Dean Hirsch. “But they’re scattered. Unless we start massive feeding centers, we’re not going to see masses of starving people. We’re going to have what you might call ‘quiet’ starvation.”

Experts disagree on whether 15 years of low rainfall in the Sahel represent a temporary cycle or an emerging climatic pattern. Even the rate of desertification—the process whereby arable land becomes desert—is unclear. A 1983 report of United Nations food donors stated that the Sahara has advanced almost 200 kilometers to the south during the current drought.

More predictable than the weather, and more troubling, are the long-term trends that make Africa increasingly susceptible to famine. Twenty years ago Africa raised all its own food. Now, even in good years, it is heavily dependent on food imports. Africa’s population represents only about 15 percent of the developing world, yet in recent years it has required more than half of the world’s food aid. The fundamental problem is that agricultural production has grown at only 1.5 percent a year, while the population is growing at the fastest rate in the world—between 2 percent and 4 percent. If the trend continues, famine will be constant by the end of the century.

Government policies are partially to blame for the widespread famine. Mozambique, for instance, emphasized big state farms over traditional small-holder agriculture after it gained independence from Portugal. But it had neither the heavy machinery nor the skilled workers to run the farms efficiently. Big state farms are the exception, but nearly all African nations have central marketing boards that buy and sell all agricultural commodities. Their usual policy has been to dictate low prices to farmers. Low food prices, critics claim, subsidize workers in the fast-growing urban areas at the expense of farmers. Farmers, producing for little or no profit, have been discouraged from making investments that would increase their yields. They also are unable to buy the consumer goods urban workers might produce. A stagnating economy results in which farmers grow only enough to feed themselves.

The world economy also has its effect on the ability of African nations to feed their people. A global recession has meant poor prices for the minerals and agricultural commodities that African nations export, making money scarce. Virtually every nation in sub-Saharan Africa faces a massive debt. Food imports alone eat up 27 percent of the earnings from exports. Often agricultural investments have been cut.

Even when food aid reaches drought-stricken countries, it is difficult to transport it to those who need it. The worst-hit famine areas are far from any road. R. Zoubeidi of the United Nations Disaster Relief Organization says food piled up at Ethiopian docks this year because the government did not have enough trucks to transport it.

The lack of good transportation also retards the development of agriculture. Some farmers are unable to transport their crops to buyers. Tanzanians have seen food rot in one area while 100 miles away people are starving. More typically, farmers simply do not plant what they cannot transport to market.

The effects of the weather might be the most difficult problem to overcome. While much of Africa would rebound with a good season of rain, the Sahel apparently requires massive, coordinated intervention. “As always, solutions require money,” writes Eric Eckholm in Down to Earth, “but they also require difficult political, cultural, and bureaucratic reforms.” So far, aid to the Sahel region has been uncoordinated, and no comprehensive plan to turn back the desert exists.

What can be done about such complex problems? The first essential, most experts agree, is to limit damage from the current famine. Congress has allocated an extra $150 million in emergency food aid this year. However, Lorette Picciano-Hanson, of Bread for the World, argues that much more money could be used, especially for trucks and gasoline to distribute the food.

Beyond the immediate crisis, the long-term dimensions of the problem must be addressed. “We are putting relatively little into agricultural education, water development, training,” says Hirsch, of World Vision. “I don’t think we’re going to see a disaster on a par with the 1973 Sahel crisis this year, in terms of the number of deaths.… I do see a worse disaster coming—a dependency on developed countries.”

However, the FAO’s experience in Asia is grounds for encouragement. India, for example, was on the brink of starvation 20 years ago. It is now self-sufficient in food. There is hope for Africa. It possesses more than one-half of the unused arable land in the world. It would require a substantial commitment of resources to make it productive. Tsetse flies and river blindness, which have driven farmers off vast tracts of good land, can only be wiped out by intensive long-term government programs. Irrigation and drainage systems could transform vast Nile swamps in the Sudan into productive farmland, but the cost would be immense.

No end to the immediate famine is in sight. Preliminary FAO reports indicate that good rains in West Africa and the Sahel might relieve that crisis later this year. But in much of eastern and southern Africa the situation promises to become worse. Kenya, for instance, will probably harvest only 10 percent of its normal crop this year.

“I would like nothing better than to eliminate emergency food aid, because it would mean that we had been successful in stimulating agricultural development,” says Hunter Farnham, of the U.S. Agency for International Development. “But I’m not sure my grandchildren will see that.”

North American Scene

The long court battle over Maine’s attempt to regulate church-affiliated schools is over. The deadline for appealing a federal judge’s ruling in favor of the Maine Association of Christian Schools passed in June. Maine’s deputy attorney general, Rufus Brown, said the state did not file an appeal because the judge refused to address constitutional questions related to the case. The ruling instead focused on an interpretation of state education law.

A judge has temporarily barred New York City from enforcing a policy designed to protect homosexuals from job discrimination by agencies holding city contracts. The judge’s action extended city social-service contracts with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and the Salvation Army, pending a court hearing. The city moved to cancel $4 million in contracts with the Salvation Army earlier this year because the group refused to agree to a city requirement prohibiting employment discrimination against practicing homosexuals (CT, May 18, 1984, p. 79).

The Louisiana House of Representatives voted down an attempt to repeal a law that requires the teaching of creation science alongside evolution in the state’s public schools. The vote allows a federal court test case to move ahead in deciding the law’s constitutionality. Supporters of the law argue that academic freedom is furthered by teaching both views of origins.

Former President Jimmy Carter says he asked Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping to allow Western missionaries to return to China, during private negotiations in 1978 and 1979. Carter also has revealed that he asked the Chinese leader to permit religious freedom and the distribution of Bibles. Deng promised to honor the last two requests. However, Carter said the Chinese leader would not allow the return of missionaries.

A federal appeals court has struck down much of Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act. The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a provision that called for higher medical insurance rates for policies that cover abortion. It also threw out a section regarding abortion procedures likely to result in the delivery of a viable fetus and a section compelling physicians to provide women with information designed to discourage abortions. However, the court upheld parts of the law that require women under 18 to obtain parental consent for abortions and require abortion facilities to file public reports disclosing ownership.

The U.S. Senate has voted to extend for three years a program designed to lower the number of pregnancies among teenagers. The extended program will offer grants totalling about $15 million each year. The money goes to organizations that do research, offer health-care services, and develop educational and counseling programs that discourage premarital sex (CT, March 19, 1982, p. 41). The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging participation in the program by churches and religious organizations.

The number of abortions performed in the United States has leveled off for the first time since the procedure was legalized in 1973. After eight years of increases, abortions dropped slightly in 1982 after a peak figure in 1981. According to a research group affiliated with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 1,573,900 abortions were performed in 1982.

Two United Methodist bishops have granted ministerial appointments to homosexual ministers. This comes despite language adopted in May by the church’s highest lawmaking body specifically barring the appointment of “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” (CT, June 15, 1984, p. 56). Bishop Melvin Wheatley of Denver appointed Julian Rush as associate pastor of Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church in Denver. Bishop Jack Tuell appointed Morris Floyd to a ministry with a social service agency in Minneapolis. The ban on gay clergy does not take effect until January 1.

The U.S. Senate has approved federal funds for a peace academy, ending a 20-year-old congressional debate. “If wars do indeed begin in the minds of men, it is there that we must wage the battle for peace,” said Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Oreg.) in support of the academy. Church support came primarily from mainline denominations and historic peace churches. Christian College Coalition president John Dellenback served on a commission that recommended establishing the nonprofit research and training center (CT, Sep. 3, 1982, p. 70).

The Oregon Court of Appeals has reversed its decision upholding the incorporation of Rajneeshpuram, a town founded by followers of an Indian guru. To incorporate a town, the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh must persuade county officials that the town is needed. The Rajneeshees plan to appeal the decision to the Oregon Supreme Court.

A federal appeals court has ordered the village of Scarsdale, New York, to permit a crèche to be displayed in a public park at Christmas. This reverses an earlier ruling that banned the Nativity scene. The appeals court stated that use of public property for the crèche does not violate the doctrine of the separation of church and state.

World Scene

American church leaders back from the Soviet Union praised the status of religion there. A leader of the 266-member group said they saw “vital religious communities wherever we went.” However, several group members criticized tour leaders for not emphasizing human rights issues in the Soviet Union. The tour was sponsored by the National Council of Churches.

Britain’s best-known Methodist preacher has accused Billy Graham and Luis Palau of using a “totalitarian style of evangelism.” Donald Soper, a past president of the British Methodist Conference, said the evangelists “make use of the Bible as a hammer when they say, ‘the Bible says.’ And of course, the Bible says anything you want it to say.” Graham and Palau conducted a series of crusades in England this summer.

Pope John Paul II and the head of the Syrian Orthodox Church have authorized members of their churches to share three sacraments, including the Eucharist. The announcement was an important step toward healing a 1,500-year-old breach between the Roman Catholic and Syrian Orthodox churches. The leaders pledged to do everything possible to “remove the last obstacles” hindering full communion between their churches.

A district synod of the British Methodist Church has called for a full study of the nature and influence of Freemasonry in England. If approved by the church’s governing body, the study would give British Methodists guidelines on the “advisability of membership” in Masonic orders. Leaders of the denomination say they are increasingly aware of an “element of anxiety” among church members about the workings and secrecy of Freemasonry.

Hindus in India are turning to Christ at the rate of 6,000 per month. Bibles for India president John De Vries says the country “has now become so responsive that we can hardly comprehend the discipleship and church planting that is going on.… It seems to have started somewhere around 1975–77, and is now snowballing.”

A radio satellite linkup beamed five of Luis Palau’s evangelistic messages from London to 50 countries in June. The project was designed to reach as many English-speaking people as possible. Five nights of Palau’s six-week London crusade were carried on the satellite linkup. Some 200 stations broadcast the messages in the United States.

The Polish government is looking for a rabbi to shepherd the country’s dwindling Jewish community. The 6,000 to 7,000 acknowledged Polish Jews have not had a rabbi for at least seven years. Efforts by Polish officials to attract a Polish-speaking rabbi from the United States have been fruitless. A new effort focuses on training a Pole in an American seminary and sending him back to Poland as a rabbi.

Do two frozen embryos have the right to inherit an estate left by the couple that produced them? That’s the question being debated in the Australian state of Victoria. Mario and Elsa Rios produced two embryos in 1981 through artificial fertilization. The embryos were frozen, and the couple later died in a plane crash. The Victoria state government has delayed a decision pending a report from a commission of inquiry.

Members of an Indian religious sect are trying to gain political control of Herringswell, England, a tiny village 100 miles northeast of London. Members of the Medina Rajneesh sect are contesting the village’s seat on a district council and every seat on its proposed new parish council. The sect is headed by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Members of his Pacific Northwest commune gained control of the Antelope, Oregon, town council in 1982.

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