GEOG 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Food Security, Phytophthora Infestans, Sub-Saharan Africa
1 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Africa is not a landscape of famine, nutritional prosperity (in general, day to day basis people in sub-saharan africa have enough food to eat) Have enough food due to 2 reasons: relatively low population, high percentage subsistence farmers. Drought (not enough water or rain), not all droughts cause famine. Land distribution (best, productive agricultural land and give it over to gov"t, less land for subsistence farmers. Poverty (no economic safety net, no back account, cannot buy food if a drought happened) Drought is not by itself a disaster it is made into one. Fluctuations in rainfall (rainfall is a hit or miss) Long history of human habitation (pretty good soils, fertile) High human death toll; livestock herd gone; crops devastated. Vulnerability = exposure to risk & ability to respond to risk. Promotion of peanut cultivation: loss of topsoil/soil erosion, vulnerability, convinced farmers to grow peanuts to bring in money for the farmers and gov"t through taxation.
