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‘Maize is Life, but Rice is Money!’ A Village Case Study of the2001/02 Famine in Malawi
Author(s) -
TIBA ZOLTÁN
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of agrarian change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.63
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1471-0366
pISSN - 1471-0358
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0366.2010.00289.x
Subject(s) - famine , vulnerability (computing) , shock (circulatory) , development economics , food insecurity , food security , warning system , geography , economics , socioeconomics , agriculture , medicine , computer security , archaeology , aerospace engineering , computer science , engineering
This paper provides a case study of the 2001/02 famine in Malawi from a village in the Southern Region of the country. Based on in‐depth micro‐level field research, it challenges some commonly accepted views about this crisis. The paper provides evidence that: (1) there was a serious ‘famine’ in the community; (2) the decline in food availability was not the major causal factor of the famine; (3) the early warning system in the rural areas was functioning appropriately and the famine did not happen in ‘silence’, unnoticed; (4) the food preferences of Malawians are not ‘inflexible’; and (5) the famine, contrary to the claims of some of the ‘new famine hypotheses’, was less the consequence of underlying vulnerability and long‐term social or economic trends but, rather, the result of an unexpected and sudden shock, which was generated by the exponential increase in the price of all food crops.