The Great Irish Famine

O'Grada, Cormac

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139170970

Cited by 87 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Famines are not simply the result of crop failures. As Ó'Gráda (2007b , p. 7) points out: ‘most famines in poor economies are associated with the impact of extreme weather […] on the harvest, although, […] dramatic crop failures are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for famine’. In the Finnish case the backwardness of the agricultural sector together with a lack of adequate policy response from the authorities were primarily responsible for turning a crop failure into a famine ( Ó'Gráda 2001 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Poorly functioning grain markets may have exacerbated the crisis in Finland in the mid-1860s but, in a study of the regional grain market in Sweden, Ó'Gráda (2001) refutes the claim that poorly functioning grain markets were primarily responsible for the Finnish famine. Many authors emphasize that the social disruption and economic chaos caused by a famine ( Pitkänen 1993 ; Ó'Gráda 2007a , b ) is as devastating—and sometimes even more so—than the food short-' ages themselves ( Ó'Gráda 2007a , b ). A number of factors contribute to the large number of deaths during a famine: large-scale migration; the separation and uprooting of families; an increase in crime; the loss of land, livestock, and other assets of production; mental disorientation; and the consumption of alternative subsistence foods and loss of body weight.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of factors contribute to the large number of deaths during a famine: large-scale migration; the separation and uprooting of families; an increase in crime; the loss of land, livestock, and other assets of production; mental disorientation; and the consumption of alternative subsistence foods and loss of body weight. Thus, the core period of a famine is often defined by the number of deaths which occur rather than by the occurrence of crop failures or by rising food prices alone ( Pitkänen 1993 ; Ó'Gráda 2007a , b ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A re-analysis of the long-term effects on life expectancy of the Great Finnish Famine of 1866–68

2013

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The results of studies exploring the long-term consequences of famine during foetal or infant development are inconsistent. We tested the hypothesis that selection forces occurring during a famine change the distribution of frailty in the affected cohorts, possibly hiding negative long-term effects. Using mortality data for Finland, gathered from the Human Mortality Database, we explored the effect of being born during the Great Finnish Famine of 1866–68 by comparing mortality at age 60 and over for the 1850–89 births, taking into account unobserved cohort heterogeneity. Contemporaneous Swedish cohorts, unexposed to the famine, were used as an additional control group. When cohort heterogeneity is accounted for, a lower life expectancy at age 60 for male cohorts in Finland born during the famine is observed. The results for females are less conclusive. No substantial changes are seen in the Swedish cohorts. In order to provide consistent estimates of the long-run effects of famines, selection forces need to be considered.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A re-analysis of the long-term effects on life expectancy of the Great Finnish Famine of 1866–68

2013

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“…In some extreme examples, a regime shift can be identified by very significant changes. Notable examples include the Dust Bowl period of the 1930s in North America, when a prolonged drought rendered millions of hectares of farmland unproductive, and displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes [21]; the Ethiopian Famine in the 1980s, when a relatively minor drought triggered a catastrophic famine [22][23][24]; or the Irish Potato Famine, when the failure of a single crop caused a permanent depopulation of western Ireland [25,26]. Although extremely important, studying such tragedies lends itself to a qualitative case study-based research approach, and are difficult to analyze quantitatively, for a sample of other case studies see [27,28].…”

Section: Resilience and Agricultural Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape diversity and the resilience of agricultural returns: a portfolio analysis of land-use patterns and economic returns from lowland agriculture

2013

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Abstract

Background

Conventional agriculture is increasingly based on highly specialized, highly productive farms. It has been suggested that 1) this specialization leads to farms that lack resilience to changing market and environmental conditions; and 2) that by decreasing agricultural diversity, the resilience of the farming system also decreases.

Methods

We used agricultural gross margin (GM) forecasts from 1966 to 2010 and remote sensing data from agricultural landscapes in the lowland UK, in conjunction with modern portfolio theory, to test the hypothesis that decreasing land-use diversity results in landscapes that provide higher, but more volatile, economic returns. We considered the role of spatial scale on the expected levels of volatility and resilience of agricultural returns.

Results

We found that: 1) there was a strong linear trade-off between expected GMs and the expected volatility of those GMs in real lowland agricultural landscapes in the UK; 2) land-use diversification was negatively correlated with expected GMs from agriculture, and positively correlated with decreasing expected volatility in GMs; 3) the resilience of agricultural returns was positively correlated with the diversity of agricultural land use, and the resilience of agricultural returns rose quickly with increased land-holding size at small spatial extents, but this effect diminished after landholdings reached 12,000 hectares.

Conclusions

Land-use diversity may have an important role in ensuring resilient agricultural returns in the face of uncertain market and environmental conditions, and land-holding size plays a pivotal role in determining the relationships between resilience and returns at a landscape scale. Creating finer-grained land-use patterns based on pre-existing local land uses may increase the resilience of individual farms, while maintaining aggregate yield across landscapes.

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“…Attempts to eradicate hunger are as old as human civilization (Fraser & Rimas, 2010;Vernon, 2007). Food crises and famines-such as the Great Irish Potato Famine 1840s-1850s (Donnelly, 2001;Ó Gráda, 1989), the Great El Nino 1789-93 (Grove, 1998(Grove, , 2007, and the Great Chinese Famine 1958Famine -1962 (Song, 2010;Wang, Wang, Kong, Zhang, & Zeng, 2010)-shaped the history of humanity. Unfortunately, food crises are not only part of the history of humanity; they are an actual issue in many countries and regions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food and nutrition security and sustainability transitions in food systems

Bilali

Callenius

Strassner

et al. 2018

Food and Energy Security

212

101

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The concepts of food security and food sustainability are two main paradigms in the food system discourse—however, they are often addressed separately in the scientific literature. We argue that this disconnect hinders a coherent discussion of sustainability transitions, which will be necessary to solve problems (environmental, social, economic, and health) generated by conventional food systems. Our review highlights linkages between sustainability transitions and food and nutrition security using the perspective of sustainable food systems. We explore the diversity of food security narratives and food sustainability paradigms in the agro‐food arena, analyze relations between food security and food systems sustainability, and suggest options to foster a transition toward sustainable food systems. It is widely acknowledged that food systems sustainability must entail long‐term food and nutrition security in its availability, access, utilization, and stability dimensions. For food systems to deliver food and nutrition security for present and future generations, all their components need to be sustainable, resilient, and efficient. These linkages between food sustainability and food and nutrition security intersect at global, national, local, and household levels. Different strategies can be pursued to foster sustainability transitions in food systems: efficiency increase (e.g., sustainable intensification), demand restraint (e.g., sustainable diets), and food systems transformation (e.g., alternative food systems). Creating sustainable food systems requires moving from an agriculture‐centered to a food system policy and research framework. This will be fundamental to foster the complex and holistic transformation necessary to achieve sustainable food systems, which is, in turn, a prerequisite to achieving sustainable food and nutrition security.

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The Great Irish Famine

Cited by 87 publications

References 0 publications

A re-analysis of the long-term effects on life expectancy of the Great Finnish Famine of 1866–68

A re-analysis of the long-term effects on life expectancy of the Great Finnish Famine of 1866–68

Landscape diversity and the resilience of agricultural returns: a portfolio analysis of land-use patterns and economic returns from lowland agriculture

Food and nutrition security and sustainability transitions in food systems

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