Impacts of Food Insecurity

Geography: Cambridge International GCSE (2027 Exams), topic 10.3.3

Impacts of Food Shortages

Listed below are some of the potential negative impacts of food insecurity and food shortages:

A famine is defined as an 'extreme scarcity of food'.
If a famine goes on for long enough, people can starve to death.
Not eating enough stunts a child's growth and development, reducing children's life expectancy.
Humans can survive 3-4 weeks with no food.

Undernutrition is when people do not eat enough of a certain type of vitamin, nutrient or food group.
Like famine, not eating enough of the right nutrients stunts a child's growth and development, reducing children's life expectancy.
In 2017, 520 million people in Asia were malnourished and 243 million people in Africa were malnourished.
Malnutrition can also be caused by having a diet of mostly just one crop. This means that the requirements for a balanced diet are not met.
Protein deficiency can cause Kwashiorkor.
A vitamin B1 deficiency can cause Beriberi.
Maize-based diets can lead to a lack of niacin in the body and result in Pellagra.

Soil erosion does long-term damage to the farming productivity of farmland.
When there isn't enough food to eat, farmers will overgraze their livestock, will overcultivate their land. Soil erosion will happen and the land will struggle to recover, leading to even less food production in the future.

If people demand the same amount of food, but the amount of food available has fallen, food prices will rise.
This means that poorer people will be the people who cannot afford food anymore.
However, higher prices do incentivise farmers to sell more produce (instead of keeping it for themselves) and to grow more crops in the future.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the French Revolution of the 1780s both happened when harvests were bad and people didn't have enough to eat.
When people are starving, they often blame their governments. This can lead to riots, civil wars, or revolutions.
Even in less serious crises, people will stockpile and horde food for themselves.