Original subtitles

It has ravaged the world for centuries.

Gnawing hunger,

disease pandemics,

scarce water resources,

often amongst the backdrop of a civil war.

Famine is one of the most ruthless of deadly disasters.

But a lack of food,

and the debilitating diseases that follow,

is a threat to people all around the world.

Famines don't just occur in hot, arid areas,

but have been seen to occur in all continents in the world.

Famine killed almost 75 million people

in the 20th century.

In this episode, we will explore

where some of these devastating famines occurred.

The Soviet Union,

China and India.

Then, the Ethiopian famine of the 1980s,

that was seared into the consciousness of the world.

After this horrific tragedy,

famine seemed to be on the wane.

But attempts of eradicating world hunger

have proved to be complex and near impossible.

We take a look at how famine continues to devastate

parts of the Horn of Africa,

and how the specter of famine still haunts the globe.

Populations have to endure food shortages all over the world.

While perhaps we all think,

when we hear the word "famine,"

of situations in dry, arid areas in Africa,

that is a relatively recent phenomena.

Previous to that, famines were more common

in areas in Asia and Southeast Asia,

and also in Eastern Europe.

So we should be aware that famines can occur

in all different types of climates and ecosystems.

This is often a result

of catastrophic natural disasters

at both ends of the spectrum.

Months, if not years, of drought

can cause complete desolation.

Heavy flooding can destroy everything in its path.

Crops can be devastated by disease,

vermin and insect infestations.

They can be annihilated by tropical cyclones,

or made barren by below-freezing temperatures.

It's a hugely impactful phenomena,

and the impact isn't necessarily short-term,

and can last for many years after the event.

The U.N. works with a specific threshold

that has to be passed

before they will officially declare a famine.

In 2004,

the Food and Agriculture Organization

of the United Nations developed a scale called

the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification,

also known as the IPC scale.

It is based on the experience of households

in a given geographic area,

and is divided into five phases.

The first level is described as "generally food secure."

At Phase 2, there is borderline food insecurity.

Availability of food is unstable,

and there may be a lack of diversity in diet.

When there is an acute food and livelihood crisis,

a Phase 3 situation is declared.

There may be epidemics of disease,

and 10 to 15 percent of the population

suffer from acute malnutrition.

The next stage is a situation of humanitarian emergency.

There is a severe lack of food.

Disease is now pandemic.

And there may be intense civil conflict.

But it is only the highest level,

Phase 5,

that is described as a human catastrophe.

Whilst the scale is a necessary means of classifying a famine,

only once it has been declared is there a response.

Meaning that often, it is already too late.

The effects of starvation on the human body are mortifying.

The body deteriorates as it slowly uses up its reserves.

Unless careful therapeutic feeding is started,

the brain can be damaged,

along with other vital organs which can fail completely,

leading to death.

Therapeutic feeding involves administering high-energy foods

such as special pastes made from milk powder,

sugar, oil, peanuts,

and vitamin and mineral supplements.

Even if the victim survives,

prolonged periods of hunger result in stunted growth,

poor cognitive development,

and health issues for the whole of a person's life.

Entire generations can be affected in this way,

leading to serious social and economic consequences.

When famine wrecks a country,

it is rarely starvation that actually causes death.

Often, the body becomes susceptible

to infectious disease.

It's very important to understand

that most people don't die of starvation.

Most famine-related deaths tend to occur

in the context of viral diseases

that are caused by malnourishment, dysentery,

diarrhea, typhus or typhoid fever

are amongst the most common famine-related diseases.

In a body that has been severely malnourished,

the immune system will become compromised.

It becomes prone to diseases, such as malaria.

The natural disasters that initiate food shortage

can also cause a lack of clean drinking water,

leading to outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases.

These are exacerbated

when there is population displacement,

overcrowding and poor sanitation.

In sub-Saharan Africa,

the breakdown of healthcare systems during famine

often worsen an already low vaccination rate,

leading to epidemics of measles.

Famine also makes children much more prone

to diarrhea-related illnesses,

which are the cause of death for over half a million

under-5-year-olds every year.

These horrific statistics have led to a two-pronged approach

to tackling famine:

addressing malnutrition whilst fighting disease.

Giving children under the age of 2 vitamin A supplements

boosts their immune system

and mitigates the effects of diseases such as measles.

Double vaccination against measles and rotavirus,

both of which cause diarrhea,

can protect vulnerable children.

Food shortage leads to a concoction

of terrible health disorders

to which everyone is susceptible.

But, sadly, some are more vulnerable than others.

Generally, food crises and famines

will affect poorer people more adversely,

because they will have less resources to start with,

and are usually more vulnerable to the impact of famine.

Disasters tend to impact women and girls disproportionately.

This is particularly true of famine.

In many communities,

women have the traditional role of caregiver,

a role that is an extra burden in circumstances

where so many are hungry

and disease is a serious threat.

Women farmers are often unpaid,

excluded from decision-making,

and lack political representation.

Within the community,

women and girls are often charged with fetching water.

During drought-induced famine, they may have to travel further

and are at risk of violence within a state of conflict.

In looking at what causes famine,

one of the key factors is conflict,

and the way governments and non-state actors

behave in a conflict can be a major risk factor

for the creation of food insecurity and famine,

either directly or indirectly

by crimes of omission or commission,

and they can influence the risk of famine.

Its exact causes are complex,

but its disproportionate repercussions

make famine an even more complicated disaster to tackle.

Yet it is truly alarming that such an archaic disaster

should still pose such a threat

to people all over the world today.

Even though the technical definition of famine

is a recent science,

famine has killed throughout history.

Europe was haunted by famine throughout the Middle Ages,

with France suffering 75 separate outbreaks

during that period.

Between 1846 and 1851,

1 million people in Ireland perished

during the notorious Potato Famine.

The disaster was caused

by a fungal disease that decimated the potato crop

on which a large part of the Irish people depended.

After the deplorable arrival of the disease,

came the even worse response of the British government,

who continued to export large quantities of food

from Ireland.

It was really through those forced exports

encouraged by the British government,

exports of other foodstuffs, exports of oats,

exports of butter, cheese and fish,

that the shortage in Ireland was transported

into a full-fledged famine.

These actions would cause

the worst famine in Europe in the 19th century.

When natural disasters occur in vast countries

who are in the process of profound social change,

the risk of famine is very high.

And this proved to be the case in the Soviet Union,

on three separate occasions.

Between 1921 and 1922,

around 5 million people died from a lack of food.

Russia had been in a state of constant conflict since 1914.

Russia was involved concurrently in no less than four wars.

You have the First World War,

then you also had the Civil War

between the Bolshevik regime and the Tsarist supporters.

Then you also have the Intervention War,

the invasion of several former allies

of the Tsarist government into Russia.

And finally, you also had war against Poland.

The World War and subsequent revolution

had left infrastructure in tatters and millions displaced.

A relentless drought resulted in severe crop failures.

Farmers understood the need

to store enough grain through bad harvests,

but for several years they were particularly bad.

Furthermore, what little grain was left

was often taken by soldiers fighting the revolutionary war.

Now the granaries were empty and families were starving.

Some fled to the city,

but were dismayed to find people

dying in the streets of Kiev and Moscow.

The League of Nations

described the famine

as the worst in Europe in modern times.

But then help came from the most unlikely source,

in the form of aid from a country

that was the sworn enemy of communism:

the United States.

The relief effort was pushed through by Herbert Hoover,

who had been appointed the U.S. food administrator

during the First World War.

He continued his work after the conflict

to the war-torn countries in Europe.

American ships began supplying aid in September of 1921,

bringing corn grits, cocoa, condensed milk,

white bread and sugar.

Congress agreed to send $20 million worth

of wheat and corn to the starving millions.

Three hundred American relief workers

set out across Russia using camels,

horses and sleds to establish the networks required

to distribute the millions of bushels

and thousands of tons of seeds.

They hired 120,000 Russians and set up 19,000 kitchens.

By August 1922,

the American Relief Association

was feeding around 11 million people every day.

The harvest of 1922,

planted from seeds donated by the Americans,

brought an end to this miserable famine.

But relief was short-lived.

Less than a decade later,

famine returned to the vast country.

Between 1931 to 1934,

around 5 million people died.

The year of 1932 was a very, very dry year, and as a result,

the harvest stood quite below its expected levels.

Uh, but there still were enough foodstuffs

to supply the local starving population.

And it was really down to institutional factors

that the shortage became famine.

At the time,

the Soviet Union was the world's largest country,

and Stalin had attempted to impose central control

over nearly 22 and a half million square kilometers.

It was a Herculean task.

In order to feed the population of around 168 million,

Stalin attempted to reorganize agricultural production.

The government ordered the confiscation of private land

and forced labor on collective farms.

However, many landowners resisted,

destroying livestock and machinery

before giving up their farms.

Food production quickly plummeted,

and famine swiftly followed.

Repressive political measures in Ukraine

resulted in the starvation of almost 4 million people.

After eventually bringing food production under control,

the country was to be battered once more

as a result of the Second World War.

There were two famines in the '40s

that were experienced by the U.S.S.R.

First you have the localized famine that took place

during the siege of Leningrad in 1941.

Now, it was perhaps the harshest historical blockade

in all history.

It has been estimated that out of over 3 million citizens

of Leningrad that were living in the city

on the eve of the blockade,

only 750,000 people survived this famine,

and therefore we can say that it was one of the most

devastating famines in human history.

Many men never returned to the countryside.

A shortage of agricultural labor

alongside another severe drought in 1946

resulted in over 1 million deaths.

Famine is a natural disaster,

often made worse by the actions of those in power.

Sometimes through incompetence, but often willfully.

During armed conflicts,

access to food may be used as a weapon.

During the two world wars,

parts of Germany and Poland were cut off

by military blockades.

The result was mass starvation.

In the winter of 1944 to 1945,

the Netherlands was enduring

its last months under Nazi occupation.

The particularly cold winter caused crops to fail,

and when the Nazis also imposed a food embargo,

it left large parts of the population

without enough to eat.

The resulting famine was dubbed the Hongerwinter,

literally, "the hunger winter."

Around 20,000 people starved to death.

Famine wasn't just ravaging Europe

through the 20th century.

China was also suffering.

And while drought is often the catalyst for famine,

too much water can be just as devastating.

A land of enormous physical diversity,

China has vast, fertile and heavily populated regions

to the east and along the southern coast.

It contains isolated populations

in barren mountain ranges and arid deserts.

Its climate is equally diverse,

and suffers from droughts and floods

that can be disastrous for food production.

In 1931, one such disaster struck.

The mighty Yangtze River flooded.

From 1928 to 1931,

China was hit by a drought,

a monstrous snowstorm,

heavy rain and a cyclone.

Political instability and mismanagement

led to the monitoring of the river to be neglected,

and so when more tumultuous weather hit in 1931,

the dams broke and Central China was engulfed.

The ensuing flood inundated

77,700 square kilometers of agricultural land.

The rice crops on which millions depended

were wiped out.

With their homes swept away and no food to eat,

a mass migration followed.

Desperately weak and hungry people were ravaged by disease,

with 3 million people dying from illness

and 80 million left homeless.

It was to be one of the worst natural disasters

in Chinese history.

Nearly 30 years later,

the country suffered from the infamous Chinese famine

that killed 30 million people...

a disaster that was fueled

by the catastrophic policies of the government.

History has shown that famine is far more complex

than just a shortage of food.

Its root causes are a tangle of different factors.

The careful study by people such as the economist

Amartya Sen revealed this to be the case.

Through his work on the Bengal famine of 1943,

Sen argued that instead of there being

a simple lack of food availability,

the problem lies with individuals

unable to exchange their primary entitlements.

Speculative buying and panic hoarding pushes food prices up,

with devastating effects.

Bengal was wrecked by a cyclone and tidal waves.

Homes were destroyed,

thousands of people killed,

and hundreds of thousands of cattle lost.

Flooding spread diseases like malaria and cholera...

while the pores of a fungal disease

infested rice plants,

destroying 90 percent of crops.

But the consequences of these disasters

could have been curbed

were it not for the role politics played.

The actions of British prime minister Winston Churchill,

who continued to export rice stocks,

would lead to the death of 3 million people.

And in the Bengal famine you could argue again

the British government response was inadequate or inappropriate,

as you could also say with the Great Leap Forward famine

in China, or many of the other famines

that have occurred around the world historically.

So the government or state role in this,

as well as non-state actors, is of great importance.

The relationship between economics,

politics and famine is strenuous,

and one that gets to the heart

of what a government's role should be.

Some say the free movement of food during a shortage

should be stopped,

as it encourages profiteering, stockpiling,

and leads to the further increase of food prices.

Others think free trade motivates traders

to search for maximum profits,

and will therefore naturally bring food

to those areas where it is most needed.

With a disaster of such complex causes,

there is no easy solution.

It was the famine in Ethiopia between 1983 and 1985

that galvanized the world to action

in a way never seen before.

The Horn of Africa, on the east of the continent,

is subject to particularly harsh droughts.

The low rainfall in 1984

resulted in a disastrous harvest

in the north of the country.

Food became more scarce, and prices quickly rose.

At the same time, in the northern regions

of Eritrea and Tigre,

wars were being fought for independence of Ethiopia.

I don't think the government was terribly interested

in aiding a population that they regarded as rather rebellious.

And it certainly inhibited aid agencies, foreign agencies,

from responding as they should have done,

because it was physically so difficult to operate

in northern Ethiopia.

With the economy starting to crumble,

many were unable to afford food.

In March 1984, the Ethiopian government,

unable to cope with the worsening crisis,

asked the international community for help.

But aid agencies were unable to stop thousands from dying.

And due to inadequate transport,

organization and security,

they were impeded from getting help to areas

where they were desperately needed.

By the summer of 1984,

thousands were dying

and 6 million were at risk of starvation.

Although newspaper reports of the famine had emerged,

it was the graphic television footage

of the suffering being endured

that brought home the sheer horror of the situation.

BBC reporter Michael Buerk

stood amongst the distraught Ethiopians

at a feeding station on a dusty plain.

He described the situation

as a Biblical famine in the 20th century.

The conscience of the world was awakened,

and prompted the most highly publicized

international relief effort in history.

In November of that year,

the first relief plane from Great Britain

landed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Celebrities, such as Liv Ulmann,

traveled to the disaster

to keep the world's attention focused

on the plight of the starving.

How many times must you see a child die in your living room

before you just say, enough.

Musician Bob Geldof

was so moved that he convinced a group of 40 other pop stars

to join him in the relief effort.

The newly formed Band Aid and their record,

"Do They Know It's Christmas"

became the fastest-selling single ever released,

raising over $10 million.

Despite the best efforts of aid agencies

from around the world, the famine endured.

Around 600,000 people were displaced,

forced to locate around designated areas

where relief could be provided.

Bob Geldof and fellow musician Midge Ure

continued their remarkable efforts to raise money

and awareness of the disaster.

Concerts at the Wembley Stadium in London,

and the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia

were beamed live to over a billion people

and raised more than $125 million for food aid

and long-term development in Ethiopia.

It's just a staggering achievement.

I'm very proud to be part of it.

International aid plays a vital role

both in alleviating emergencies as they happen,

and also in long-term help during prolonged periods

of food shortage.

Humanitarian organizations such the U.N.

have continued to work with high-profile figures

to bring the plight of those caught up

in deadly disasters

to the attention of the wider public.

Nations with a production surplus

ship food to countries in need of it,

where it is then distributed by humanitarian organizations

on the ground.

One such organization is the World Food Program,

the largest humanitarian organization,

eradicating hunger and food insecurity around the world.

It is currently working in over 80 countries

to help over 86 million people every year.

But while there are serious attempts

to tackle this disaster,

famine still devastates the world

well into the modern day.

Twenty-five years after the disaster in Ethiopia,

Somalia, a neighboring country on the east coast of Africa,

was struck by famine.

It killed an estimated 260,000 people,

half of them children under the age of 5.

Children are often the most vulnerable in a famine context,

because of their high food needs

in terms of kilocalories per kilo,

and also because they tend to be most vulnerable

to infectious diseases,

because their immune system is less developed

than in adults.

The livelihoods of Somalians

depend on the country's rainfall.

There are two main seasons.

The gu occurs from April to June,

and the deyr from October to November.

Market prices rise and fall

depending on the time of year.

They decrease after the gu and deyr seasons

as the harvests are replenished,

and increase when stock is low in between.

The careful balance

between harvest yields and market prices

is a delicate one.

With the extreme weather that Somalia experiences,

the balance can be offset with devastating effects.

Africa's droughts are increasing,

due to climate change fueling the effects

of the El Niño and La Niña cycles

across the Pacific.

The crisis started in 2010,

when the usual deyr rains that fall

between October and December stopped,

and failed to adequately water the pastures

and freshly planted crops.

La Niña cools water

over the central and eastern Pacific,

while the western Pacific waters warm up.

The result of the phenomena

is intense rains across Australia

and Southeast Asia.

Westerly winds whip across the Indian Ocean,

removing any moisture from East Africa.

The result in 2011 was an unforgiving drought.

And what we're looking at is building up

the food supplies here, because people come here,

many of them haven't eaten in days or weeks.

And some of the children we've seen are very weak.

It was the worst drought in 60 years.

Many areas didn't get rain for nine months.

The severity of the drought was recorded by satellite data,

which showed how little rain fell that year.

There were reports of animal carcasses

strewn across roadsides,

the remnants of livestock crucial to survival

for so many families.

Due to years of war,

there were no stockpiles

to deflect the impending disaster.

Reduced harvests and a fall in the demand for labor

meant that food prices rocketed.

All this was happening amongst extreme conflict.

By July of the following year,

the U.N. declared that southern Somalia

was in a state of famine,

affecting 3.1 million people.

The area was controlled by Al-Shabaab,

a militant Islamist group who turned a dire situation

into something catastrophic.

They stopped aid agencies

from helping the starving population.

The famine spread to areas

controlled by the government,

including the capital, Mogadishu,

where 17 percent of children under 5 perished.

This time, though,

the international community was slow to react.

Despite repeated warnings of an impending catastrophe,

aid to Somalia between 2010 and 2011 actually fell.

In September 2011,

a major appeal for donations was launched,

which helped raise funds through the next two months

before the rains returned in November,

and food prices finally lowered.

All these folk we've been talking to just here,

have walked, some of them for three days,

some of them for one month, another for two months,

because there's no food and water,

and a few of the kids that we've spoken to

through their parents are not doing very well.

By February 2012,

the U.N. was able to declare that the famine in Somalia

had ended.

But famine still remains a terrifying threat to Somalia

and other countries in the Horn of Africa.

Six years later,

Somalia succumbed to another drought,

with millions in need of food assistance,

at risk of killer diseases, and with no access to water.

So far we lost the livestock.

We have not lost a lot of people yet.

But we are reaching that moment

where you will see a lot of people dying because of--

You know, we could not provide the food or what they need.

We started a campaign for Somalia,

for Yemen and for South Sudan,

because in East Africa they need support

and they are regionally affected.

In the same year in South Sudan,

a famine was declared.

It was the first in the world for six years.

South Sudan is warming at one of the fastest rates

in the world.

The combination of an increase in drought and flooding

has caused desertification to spread through the country.

At the same time,

farmers have had to fight against crop pests and disease,

whilst constantly battling through exhaustion.

Famine is persistently at the forefront

of the nation's mind.

Combined with conflict and chronic poverty,

it makes the impending disaster ever more inevitable.

South Sudan became independent in 2011.

However, despite its liberation,

the country was in a fragile state.

Armed rebellions and border clashes persisted.

Ethnic tensions were fiercely abundant,

and mass killings a terrible reality.

Furthermore, the army was disorganized and fractured.

It was split by the same ethnic groups

that were dividing the country.

In 2013,

the nation was enveloped in a civil war

after accusations of there being a coup

against the government.

By 2017,

the situation was bleak.

We hear of villages being plundered and burnt.

We hear of rape.

So yes, all these killings are really happening,

and this has to stop.

Around 100,000 people were affected.

Many had been displaced from their homes

by the ongoing civil war.

And to make matters worse,

the country was to be hit by deadly weather conditions.

Rainfall was erratic with areas suffering from severe drought.

The crops and cattle which did survive

often had to be abandoned due to conflict.

With no crops or livestock,

people were reduced to fishing, and foraging for food

such as wild fruit or water lily roots.

For many, the only available water

was from ponds and the brackish,

almost motionless rivers,

leaving them vulnerable to cholera and other diseases.

In March 2017,

42 percent of the population were severely food-insecure.

After a blistering few months,

the weather turned and rain clouds appeared.

However, instead of providing relief

to the desperate population,

quite the opposite happened.

When the rains eventually fell in September,

flooding made it difficult for aid to be distributed,

as roads were engulfed.

The spread of disease became ever more extensive,

and the potential for harvests was shattered.

Refugees had to move through areas

controlled by rival armed militia.

Four million people were displaced,

with around 2 million fleeing to neighboring countries,

many of which, like Ethiopia, Kenya,

Sudan and Uganda were in the grip

of food insecurity themselves.

By 2019,

the situation was still dire,

with nearly 7 million people still facing severe hunger.

South Sudan is one of the most vulnerable countries

to the effects of climate change.

It is estimated that it will be felt two-and-a-half times more

than the global average.

Agriculture, fisheries and resources from forests

are essential for nearly 95 percent of the population

who depend on them for their livelihoods.

A vicious cycle of conflict and food shortage

is a daunting prospect for the future,

as streams dry up, deforestation increases,

and farming communities suffer.

In places where catastrophic weather patterns

collide with turbulent politics,

it is difficult to predict

when this kind of disaster will end.

In the longer term, I think,

with climate change and population growth

and increasing conflict over rare resources,

I'm afraid I'm not particularly optimistic.

I think famine is going to be an issue

that haunts humanity for the foreseeable future.

Famine is a highly complex disaster,

with an entanglement of causes,

each of which is highly challenging to address.

The focus is shifting from managing the crisis,

to managing the risk.

Advances have been made

in the ability to predict drought

and manage the following implications.

In recent years, we've gotten much better

at predicting famines

due to efforts from the United Nations

and others in setting up Famine Early Warning Systems.

So using satellite imagery, for example,

we can look at the impact of a low rainfall on vegetation.

That can help us make predictions

about how people are being impacted on the ground.

Agricultural production is carefully monitored.

Price movements within the commodity and labor markets

are frequently checked.

These precautionary measures can be used

to anticipate possible food emergencies,

and preemptive steps can be taken.

The Red Cross Center for Climate Change

is just one agency that has developed

forecast-based financing.

Using this model,

funds are automatically released

when a certain alert threshold is reached,

getting aid to where it is needed quickly.

The agency focuses on the ability of people

to support themselves,

putting them in a better position

to cope during and after a crisis.

But too often, warnings are either ignored

or not acted on in good time.

This is a dilemma known as "early warning, late response."

Often this occurs

due to inefficient bureaucracy

or political expediency.

Food is withheld by certain groups

as a means of exerting power and influence.

Despite international law

explicitly forbidding the use of food

as a weapon of war,

in some cases it still happens.

The primary responsibility

for preventing a food crisis or famine

will lie with the government of that particular state

or territory where the problem is occurring.

And for various reasons,

governments may not respond in the most appropriate way.

For example, if they are an occupying power,

their political priorities may lie elsewhere.

If they are fighting a conflict,

then organizations and states

have often used food as a weapon of war.

Or if they are just politically disinterested

in that particular population,

because their priorities lie elsewhere,

again, that may be a reason why they choose not to respond

as fully as they could,

and therefore famines are more likely to develop.

Research suggests that in recent decades,

the number of famines worldwide has significantly decreased,

as has the geographic area

in which populations are at risk of it.

But the fact that famine still exists

within a world that should be able

to provide for everyone's needs,

is a disaster within itself.

According to the United Nations,

there are still 700 million people

exposed to severe levels of food insecurity.

Which means that nine in every hundred people

are not sure where their next meal is coming from.

Even if famine has not been officially declared,

there are still countries around the globe

who are on the brink of crisis.

There are ways of preventing food shortage

turning into a humanitarian emergency.

Using our scientific knowledge

to anticipate the early signs of famine.

Inoculating against the diseases

that are associated with malnutrition.

And solving the conflicts that exacerbate food shortages.

Natural causes are at the heart of famine,

and attempts to curb these disastrous weather patterns

must be at the core of any plan to end world hunger.

As global temperatures increase,

the yields from staple crops go down.

The spread of infectious disease accelerates.

Thousands will become displaced as a result of severe heat...

droughts,

storms and floods.

At the same time, the U.N. predicts

that the global population will leap

from 7.8 to 11.2 billion

by the year 2100,

meaning that the world could be heading towards

a food security crisis.

Unless we tackle climate change

and the resulting extreme weather events,

rising sea levels,

desertification and water shortages,

the battle to eradicate

the most terrifying of disasters, famine,

will be lost.