Some info on food shortage pls....
Answers
Even when production shortfall is the primary cause of insufficient supply, the ecological and political reasons for production problems vary widely. They range from natural disasters such as drought, flood, or fungus, to political disasters such as civil conflict, to misguided economic policies such as price controls- all of which discourage production of essential foods.
In all situations of food shortage, many within the region's population are hungry; but in every food-short region, others still enjoy adequate access to food. Equally, although many are food secure in areas of adequate food production, some still go hungry. These variable patterns of hunger result not only from skewed food distribution within regions based on differential political and economic resources, but also from selective marketing, and from non-market political policies of food extraction or assistance.
This chapter begins with an overview of the evidence for global and regional food shortage and where it is most likely to occur. It then analyses the causes of country or within-country food shortages. Finally, it considers the relationship between drought and famine, using recent evidence to argue that food shortage is not inevitable even in areas of widespread production failures: political, not environmental factors are the primary causes of food shortages.
Answer:
The worst part of British rule in India had been the frequent occurrences of famines.
Famine is a situation wherein many people do not get food to eat and die from hunger
and diseases. Famine occurred nearly 33 times during whole British period. The most
devastating famine was the Bengal famine of 1943, just four years before independence.
More than 1.5 million people died at this time due to lack of food. Some reasons for
occurrence of famines were as follows:
(i) Bad rainfall upsetting food grain production since irrigation facilities were not
available. Agriculture was dependent on rainfall.
(ii) British government kept on exporting food grains to its native country England
and elsewhere even if there was local need for these things. British government
was only interested in earning revenue for itself by exporting food grains to other
countries. It also used food grains to feed its soldiers who were fighting wars in
different parts of the world. You know that the British had not only captured India,
but also many other countries of the world. So they were sending food from India
to these countries where their soldiers were fighting to capture territories.
(iii) Poor people had not enough money to purchase food grains from the market.
(iv) As said above, Indian farmers were encouraged to produce cash crops on their
fields. This led to fall in production of food grains because less area was available
for their cultivation
Explanation: