GEOG10001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Food Security, Diarrhea, Gastroenteritis
16 May 2018
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LECTURE 11 + 12: ASSESSING DISTRIBUTION THEORY
DISTRUBTION THEORY
Focuses on distribution of food: who produces, who gets it + why distribution is uneven
• Considers economic, political + cultural factors that affect food availability
• Looks at data on all scales: specifically, local + household scales, explains place through regional differences
• The more diverse range of entitlements held by an individual – the more food secure
• Entitlements: legally binding property rights, not human rights
o Looks at relationship between people + food resources
o Access: determined by social, political + cultural factors
Four Entitlements
1. Production-Based (growing food)
2. Trade-based (buying food)
3. Own-labour (working for food)
4. Inheritance + transfer (being given food by others – gifted)
Poverty
• Central issue in understanding the distribution of food – assuming Sen’s entitlements approach
o Capabilities of access to food
o Shaped by economic, social + political forces
• Food insecurity is a function of famine – occurs across many different scales – uneven effects of famine
• Interconnection of people + food systems contribute to famine
LIMITATIONS TO SEN’S ENTITLEMENTS APPROACH
• Rarely a clear segregation between entitlements, are related + can change quickly
• Consumption may fall because of ignorance, fixed food habits or apathy
• Some food transfers are a violation of legal rights – stealing
• Entitlements focus on starvation, which has been distinguished from all famine mortality – most deaths by disease
Fuzzy Entitlements
• Sen: Legal ownership by individuals of inalienable commodities = unclear
o Ignored weaker claim on resources – land tenure
o Institutional rights on property
o Fuzziness between mapping individual + community based rights
• Sen: uses representative individual, then scales up
o Problematic with complex ownership of resources
o With common resources: entitlements cannot be modelled to representative individual
Looting + Extra-Legal Entitlements
• War famines: triggered by political instability
• 2/3 of famines in 20th C: politics as principle cause
• War: disrupts economic activity, food production, food transport + storage, causes labour shortages + armed forces take over food +
medical distribution – all effect entitlements
• Extra legal processes have structural impacts on entitlements
Choosing to Starve
• Choose to starve to enhance or maintain future entitlements
• Causes malnourishment + nutrition deficiency – increases risk of death, most vulnerable in household die first
Health or Starvation
• Most famine deaths result of epidemics
• Hunger related diseases: diarrhoea, gastro-enteritis + lack of biological resistance to these illnesses
• De Waal (1989): indicators of poverty ‘no evident relation to mortality’
Bengal 1943 Famine
• Bengal = region in Indian sub-continent, densely populated
• 1943: serious famine, up to 4 million dead (7% of population)
Why?
• Availability of food only 5% lower than usual – can’t blame food availability
• Phase 1: Rise in rice price (basic staple of Indian diet), war pressure on economy,
people began to hoard food
• Phase 2: Current supply was not equal to food supply, chaos in Gov’t (army took
control of rations), worsened by migration
• High mortality due to: lack of access at start of famine, then disease
Sen’s Argument
• Famine not attributed to lack of food
• Wages didn’t keep up with high prices = inflation
• People outside agriculture most affected (many people landless labourers)
• Rice cultivators least affected – stores, feed themselves, subsistence
Sen: famines occur in situations of moderate food security, without significant decline of food availability per capita
(enough food, but poor distribution) – related to access of food on the smaller scale
Limits to Abundance Theory
• Focuses on population
+ food supply
• Large-scale global
perspective – ignores
smaller scales
• Talks about broader
env issues – ignores
importance of place
• Sen says it’s an
inadequate response
FAD: food availability decline
(Malthus)
FED: food entitlement
decline (Sen)
Document Summary
Sen: famines occur in situations of moderate food security, without significant decline of food availability per capita (enough food, but poor distribution) related to access of food on the smaller scale. Bengal = region in indian sub-continent, densely populated. 1943: serious famine, up to 4 million dead (7% of population) Talks about broader env issues ignores importance of place. Availability of food only 5% lower than usual can"t blame food availability. Phase 1: rise in rice price (basic staple of indian diet), war pressure on economy, people began to hoard food. Phase 2: current supply was not equal to food supply, chaos in gov"t (army took control of rations), worsened by migration. High mortality due to: lack of access at start of famine, then disease. Sen"s argument: wages didn"t keep up with high prices = inflation. People outside agriculture most affected (many people landless labourers) Rice cultivators least affected stores, feed themselves, subsistence.
