Hunger as a weapon: in war and at home

Published August 6, 2024, by Matthew Hirsch

Displaced women making bread during the humanitarian pause in Khan Younis. UNRWA photo by Ashraf Amra.

From Gaza and Ethiopia, to Ukraine and South Africa, from active war zones to apparently peaceful democracies. Hunger can be used as a weapon in various ways.

This topic was explored by Professor Stephen Devereux, a development economist working on issues relating to food security, at the “Hunger and Power” conference. The first session of the day, as part of the 2024 Food Indaba (formerly Food Dialogues), was led by the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security (CoE-FS).

Professor Devereux, who holds the National Research Foundation Research Chair in Social Protection for Food Security, affiliated with the CoE-FS and the Institute for Social Development at the University of the Western Cape, presented. He demystified the notion that famine was purely a natural phenomenon.

In the 20th century, he told the audience, there were a number of catastrophic famines.

“If you look at the breakdown of famine deaths by region, Africa had the least deaths from famine in the 20th century. Most of the deaths happened in East Asia and Europe.”

Rather, 100 years ago, Devereux explained, China, India and Russia were considered the “lands of famine”.

Famine as a weapon

Devereux cited the Holodomor famine in the Ukraine, which killed millions of people from 1932 to 1933, and is also one of the most notorious examples of food being weaponised.

“In many cases, famines are also entirely politically constructed. This is one of the most notorious examples. In 1931, Stalin deliberately set quotas for grain production that were far beyond the capacity of farmers across the Soviet Union.

“When farmers failed to meet those quotas, Stalin’s men swept their farms to confiscate all the grain they could find.”

In January 1933, knowing that Ukrainians were fleeing in a desperate search for food, Stalin closed the borders, ultimately sending people back to their homes to starve.

Devereux added that there were parallels between what happened in Ukraine 90 years ago to what’s happening now.

Reflecting on famines in more recent times, Devereux noted that there was now a shift to Africa as the worst-affected. He cited the famine in Ethiopia in 1984: “They blocked humanitarian access … it wasn’t just about aid”.

“This was a political famine and almost every famine since has been either a politically engineered famine or a by-product of war and could and should have been prevented.”

Turning to Palestine, Devereux said that Gaza was a paradigmatic case of how food is being weaponised.

“The Human Rights Watch, by December, was saying Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. The evidence was incontrovertible.

“It’s been well documented that only about 10% of necessary food supplies were going into Gaza in the first couple of months after the blockade was declared.

“There is no doubt that this is happening, and it’s been deliberately constructed by one group of people to suppress another people,” he added.

Hunger at home

Devereux then brought the topic closer to home. While we don’t have famines in South Africa, Devereux noted that one could argue that food is being weaponised.

“We have chronic malnutrition. Levels of child stunting in South Africa have not changed since 1994. About one in four children in South Africa remains stunted and chronically malnourished. People can’t get through from one month to the next without being hungry,” he added.

South Africans, according to its constitution, have a right to access adequate food. But that right is not always recognised.

He said India and Brazil are examples of countries that have recognised the right to food.

“In 2001, one person died of starvation in Rajasthan and civil society, which was until recently, very active in India, took the government to court and the Supreme Court, because they said this violates the right to food.

In 2005, the Indian government introduced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act which guarantees 100 days of work at the local minimum wage to every rural household in India.

Likewise, Lula, in his first term as president of Brazil, introduced the “Fome Zero” programme in 2003. This policy included low-cost shops for working-class people, subsidised restaurants, support for small-scale farmers, and a massive school feeding programme.

Devereux ended his presentation by calling for a Treatment Action Campaign-esque movement, but for hunger. Hunger, he says, requires specific attention.

“We had the TAC 20 years ago. It’s possible, it can be done. It needs mobilisation, it needs people to focus on hunger, which we haven’t had so far.”

Trolly traders

The second part of the morning sessions saw Oscar Sithole, a CoE-FS grantee, talk about the importance of trolly traders in South Africa.

According to Sithole, trolly traders provide an essential service, as far as food accessibility is concerned. They go to the doorsteps of the elderly and other vulnerable people in impoverished townships in Gauteng.

“They play a critical role in making sure that these people also have access to nutritious food by [selling] their fresh produce directly at their doorsteps.”

He says these traders are able to sell fresh produce at an affordable price, compared to the supermarkets. Sithole added that the majority of the traders are migrants from other SADC countries.

“These small actors, they are socially embedded in the communities that they live in, and that enables them to sell on credit to their clients

“They can help to address the many issues surrounding food waste as they donate the less fresh but technically edible produce to the needy.”

Dr Marc Wegerif, senior lecturer and researcher in the University of Pretoria’s Anthropology, Archaeology and Development Studies department, agreed that there was ongoing chronic hunger in South Africa.

“To be stunted, to not reach your full potential as a person and not be able to contribute your full potential to society, is a tragedy for the people involved.”

Dr Wegerif, a CoE-FS project lead, said that lessons could be learned from the trolly traders.

“People like these trolley traders and other street traders are managing to fill that gap and provide an alternative. This is an immediate alternative that helps people access food more affordably.”