Food Security

What causes famine? Here's what history teaches us

Green shoots in dry cracked soil.

The risk of famine today is much higher than it has been for many decades. Image: Unsplash/Abhishek Pawar

Guido Alfani
Associate Professor of Economic History, Bocconi University
Cormac Ó Gráda
Professor Emeritus, University College Dublin
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Chart showing famine, population size and climate change in Europe, 1300-1850
In pre-industrial times, most famines were triggered by some crop-damaging extreme weather event. Image: Alfani and Ó Gráda (2018)
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Related topics:
Food SecurityClimate ChangeSDG 02: Zero HungerSDIM2022
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