Famine scales are the ways in which degrees of food security are measured, from situations in which an entire population has adequate food to full-scale famine. The word "famine" has highly emotive and political connotations and there has been extensive discussion among international relief agencies offering food aid as to its exact definition. For example, in 1998, although a full-scale famine had developed in southern Sudan, a disproportionate amount of donor food resources went to the Kosovo War. This ambiguity about whether or not a famine is occurring, and the lack of commonly agreed upon criteria by which to differentiate food insecurity has prompted renewed interest in offering precise definitions. As different levels of food insecurity demand different types of response, there have been various methods of famine measurement proposed to help agencies determine the appropriate response. Food security is a term used in development and humanitarian aid. ... A famine is a phenomenon in which a large percentage of the population of a region or country are undernourished and death by starvation becomes increasingly common. ... The World Food Programme (WFP) is an agency of the United Nations which distributes food commodities to support development projects, to long-term refugees and displaced persons and as emergency food assistance in situations of natural and man-made disasters. ... 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Southern Sudan is a region of Sudan. ... The term Kosovo War or Kosovo Conflict is often used to describe two sequential and at times parallel armed conflicts (a civil war followed by an international war) in the southern Serbian province called Kosovo (officially Kosovo and Metohia), part of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. ...

Measurement methods

A tension that has existed in all attempts to define a famine is between definitions of famine as an event and definitions as a process. In the first case, famine is defined (roughly) as the event of many people dying of starvation within a locality or region. In the second, famine is described as a chronology beginning with a disruption or disruptions that gradually leads to widespread death. However, these general definitions have little utility for those implementing food relief as "region", "widespread", etc are undefined.

One of the earliest methods of measurement was the Indian Famine Codes developed by the colonial British in the 1880s. The Famine Codes defined three levels of food insecurity: near-scarcity, scarcity, and famine. "Scarcity" was defined as three successive years of crop failure, crop yields of one-third or one-half normal, and large populations in distress. "Famine" further included a rise in food prices above 140% of "normal", the movement of people in search of food, and widespread mortality. The Punjab Food Code stated, "Imminence of death is the sole criterion for declaration of famine." Inherent in the Famine Codes was the assumption that famine was an event, and not a process. // Events and Trends Technology Development and commercial production of electric lighting Development and commercial production of gasoline-powered automobile by Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Maybach First commercial production and sales of phonographs and phonograph recordings. ...

The basic premise of the Famine Codes formed the basis of numerous subsequent early warning systems. One of the most efficacious is the Turkana District Early Warning System in northern Kenya in which indicators include: rainfall levels, market prices of cereals, status of livestock, rangeland conditions and trends, and enrollment on food-for-work projects. The system identifies three levels of crisis: alarm, alert and emergency, each of which is linked to a pre-planned response to mitigate the crisis and try to prevent a worsening of the situation. In meteorology, precipitation is any kind of water that falls from the sky as part of the weather. ... Market price is an economic concept with commonplace familiarity; it is the price that a good or service is offered at, or will fetch, in the marketplace; it is of interest mainly in the study of microeconomics. ... Cereal crops are mostly grasses cultivated for their edible seeds (actually a fruit called a caryopsis). ... Sheep are commonly bred as livestock. ... Rangeland refers to a large, mostly unimproved section of land that is predominantly used for livestock grazing. ...

International organizations responding to recent food crises created ad-hoc measurements. In 2002, the World Food Programme created a number of "pre-famine indicators" for Ethiopia and combined it with measurements of nutrition levels to create recommendations. The Food Security Assesment Unit (FSAU) devised a system for Somalia with four levels: Non-alert (near normal), Alert (requires close attention), Livelihood Crisis (basic social structures under threat) and Humanitarian Emergency (threat of widespread mortality requiring immediate humanitarian assistance). 2002 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The World Food Programme (WFP) is an agency of the United Nations which distributes food commodities to support development projects, to long-term refugees and displaced persons and as emergency food assistance in situations of natural and man-made disasters. ... Nutrition is the study of the relationship between diet and states of health and disease. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with development aid. ...

Livelihoods strategies

The FSAU system is one of several recent systems that draws a distinction between "saving lives" and "saving livelihoods". Older models concentrated simply on the mortality of famine victims. However, relief agencies gradually realized that the means by which families and individuals supported themselves were threatened first.

Previously famines had been perceived as a threat to individuals, even large numbers of individuals. Inherent in the livelihoods strategies outlook is the conception of famine as a social problem. Populations affected by increased food stress will try to cope through market structures (i.e. selling possessions for food) and reliance upon community and family support structures. It is only when such social structures collapse under the strain that individuals are faced with the malnutrition and starvation that has commonly been viewed as "famine".

During the 1980s and 1990s, studies of the process by which populations adapted to food stress as food security worsened received much attention. Four stages of the process were identified: // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ...

1. Reversible strategies, in response to 'normal' food stress, such as rationing food or diversifying income
2. Irreversible strategies in response to prolonged food stress, such as selling breeding livestock or mortgaging land, which trade short-term survival for long-term difficulty
3. The failure of internal coping methods and total dependence on external food aid
4. Starvation and death, in the event of the failure of the first three levels of coping

Income, generally defined, is the money that is received as a result of the normal business activities of an individual or a business. ...

Nutrition levels

Various nutrition benchmarks have been proposed as the cut-off points for food insecurity levels. The United Nations Refugee Nutrition Information System lists a number of such indicator cutoff points: Nutrition is the study of the relationship between diet and states of health and disease. ... The United Nations, or UN, is an international organization established in 1945 and now made up of 191 states. ...

• Wasting - defined as less than -2 standard deviations in body weight, usually for children between six and 59 months

• 5-10% = normal in African populations in non-drought conditions
• Greater than 20% = "serious situation"
• Greater than 40% = "severe crisis"

• Oedema due to kwashiorkor (swollen belly) is always a "cause for concern"
• Crude mortality rate (CMR), i.e. number of deaths per ten thousand people in a time span

• 1/10,000/day = "serious situation"
• Greater than 2/10,000/day = "emergency out of control"

• Under-five mortality rate (U5MR), i.e. number of deaths of children under five years of age within a time span

• 2/10,000/day = "serious situation"
• 4/10,000/day = "emergency out of control"

The use of these cut-offs is contentious. Some argue that a crude mortality rate of one death per ten thousand people per day is already a full-scale emergency. Others note that while most indicators are focused on children, parents will often reduce their own food consumption in favor of their children. Child malnutrition may thus be a trailing indicator, indicating non-emergency levels even after adult malnutrition has reached crisis levels. It has also been noted that malnutrition is often not directly related to food availability; malnutrition is often the result of disease or poor child-care practices, even with adequate food availability. In probability and statistics, the standard deviation is the most commonly used measure of statistical dispersion. ... Africa is the worlds second-largest continent and second most populous. ... A drought is an extended period where water availability falls below the statistical requirements for a region. ... Edema (BE: oedema, formerly known as dropsy) is swelling of any organ or tissue due to accumulation of excess fluid. ...

Combined intensity and magnitude scales

In an influential paper published in 2004, Paul Howe and Stephen Devereux, both of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, set forth a measurement of famine with scales for both "intensity" and "magnitude", incorporating many of the developments of recent decades. The intensity scale is: 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in Sussex, United Kingdom, is one of the worlds leading organisations for research, teaching and communications on international development. ... // University of Sussex Logo © University of Sussex The University of Sussex is an English campus university located near the East Sussex village of Falmer, near Brighton and Hove and on the edge of the South Downs. ...

On the magnitude scale: A market is a mechanism which allows people to trade, normally governed by the theory of supply and demand, so allocating resources through a price mechanism and bid and ask matching so that those willing to pay a price for something meet those willing to sell for it. ...

Using this framework, each famine would receive a Magnitude designation, but locations within the affected region would be classified at varying Intensities. The 1998 southern Sudan famine would be a C: Major Famine, with an intensity of 5: Extreme famine in Ajiep village ranging to 3: Famine in Rumbek town. In comparison, the 2000 Ethiopian famine in Gode district would be classified as a B: Moderate famine, and would thus should demand proportionally less of the limited resources available for famine relief. Rumbek is the capital of the state of Lakes (also known as Buhayrat) in southern Sudan. ...

While each organization working in famine-related areas has its own operational interpretation of specific indicators, the Howe-Devereaux framework has been widely adopted as a common framework by which famine warning and famine relief may be discussed worldwide, in particular in the use of the intensity scale. This has led organizations such as the World Food Programme to refrain from referring to the 2005 Niger food crisis as a famine, as indicators had not deteriorated into a Level 3: Famine. The 2005 Niger food crisis is a severe but localized food security crisis in the regions of northern Maradi, Tahoua, Tillabéri, and Zinder of Niger. ...

External links

• Famine Intensity and Magnitude Scales: A Proposal for an Instrumental Definition of Famine, (PDF) Howe, P. and S. Devereux, Disasters, 2004, 28 (4): 353-372
• Extract from "The Challenge of Famine", Osfood Field, J. Kumarian Press, Conneticut, 1993
• Synthesis Report on the Famine Forum (PDF), USAID and OFDA, May 2004