Where are the Moral Limits of Helping the Hungry?
Part IIX of the Descendent of the Hyena Series.
Text and Pictures Samuel Hauenstein Swan
Over centuries, many societies have come up with mechanisms that reduced seasonal hunger of its citizens. Transport networks, agricultural technologies, storage and information on surpluses and shortages of food crops in various parts of a country all ideal mitigate the impact of hunger and hopefully prevent starvation of its populations.
However, systems and technologies no matter how sophisticated and right meaning depend on solidarity on all levels. For Anti-hunger policies they need the resolution of the powerfull to enable the voices of the communities that are subjected to the massive destructive forces of seasonal hunger and its aggravating factors – poor health, lack of access to resources conflict and so for.
Examples of success as plenty: massive relief interventions, public works programme, agricultural extension workers, relaxation of taxes to stimulate trade and lower prices. Social arrangements to redistribute food, assets and relief from the rich to the poor exists on the national and international level. Humanitarian is on an upward trend with record budget of US$27.3 billion for global humanitarian assistance for 2016
The question of who is “deserving” of this help, remains a contested topic. Those in power accept a moral and legal duty to protect poor and powerless against the worst and often focus narrowly on the prevention of starvation death while neglecting other forms of hunger and malnutrition. The concepts of vulnerability have evolved over the past decades for sure. The same sharp but the ultimately false distinction between “starvation prevention” and “hunger prevention” prevails today. An especially poignant question as the number of displaced, conflict affects and climate change affected populations raise quicker than the funds available to respond. Is the global moral responsibility limited to starvation or the much higher sum of death and distress caused by annual cycles of hunger which is mostly ignored?
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18 Hour Day with One Meal Only
Photo and Text: Samuel Hauenstein Swan – www.SamBronx-Photo.com
Part IV of the Descendent of the Hyena Series.
We ask the elder in the villages about his daily routine in the growing season. “my wife and I get up at about five o’clock in the morning,” he begins, and head out right away to the fields, to beat the heat that is building up very quickly. We try to get most of the farm work – which is at that time of the year mostly weeding and ensure the soil is not to compact around the base of the plants, so the rain gets to the roots quickly – before one o’clock n the afternoon.
By the time we reach home, it is nearly two it is we have our first meal.
During the months where we have the most work on the farms, we also have the least reserves in the kitchen. We often have just that lunch meal, and in the evening we make some tea with sugar.
These hunger season meals lack both in quantity and quality. It is often just as much that a headache is going but never as much that we feel full. During this month of the year, it is only porridge we dilute with much water and give a bit of tasing by adding wild leaves and hot spices.
“Hunger in the village and the region has to do with poverty and secondary with rains.” Zara’s neighbours explain: ”the rain permit only one harvest. The better off villages have the low grounds close to the river and with fertile soil to make most of the few spots of rain. The others have the fields that are higher and on slopes where the water runs off, and the most fertile ground is missing. These areas give little and even in good years are sufficient to feed the family. They also have no surplus to bring to the markets and gain cash to purchase food later in the season. Once their stocks are empty Zara, and families like hers must hope for occasional work in exchange for a meal.
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Empty Rivers
Photo and Text: Samuel Hauenstein Swan http://www.sambronx-photo.com
Part III of the Descendent of the Hyena Story.
The vast majority of small-scale farmers in Subsaharan Africa depend on rain feed agriculture. Yet, around Zara’s village the rivers dry up, as soon they have swelled in the short rainy season, and water becomes scarce.
Most of the world’s economic weak families live in rural areas and work in agricultural and livestock economies. For these households, poverty, hunger and illness are highly dynamic phenomena, changing dramatically over the course of a year in response to production, price and climatic cycles.
As a result, most of the world’s acute hunger occurs not in conflicts and natural disasters but in that annually recurring time of the year called the ‘hunger season’, the period during the year when the previous year’s harvest stocks have dwindled, and little food is available on the market, causing prices to shoot upward.
Employment and economic opportunities are often scarce during the hunger season, and to make matters worse, in many countries this period usually coincides with the rainy season, when severe illnesses like malaria strike hardest.
Despite the importance of seasonal cycles throughout the rural developing world, development response is often homogeneous in type and amount throughout the year.
Seasonality is one of these leverage points. Interventions like pre-positioning nutrition and health resources, providing employment during the hunger period, and indexing benefits to prices will cost-effectively reduce poverty, hunger, child mortality and illness.
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The Gaps in this Family Portrait
Part II of the Descendent of the Hyena Story.
Photo and Text: Samuel Hauenstein Swan – www.SamBronx-Photo.com
The few months after harvest in September, are comfortable for the community of Guidan Koura. Food is readily available. The water holes are replenished and full. The time of plenty is short-lived
Zara’s husband is missing, from the picture, he is coming only for the short rainy season to help with the agricultural season and harvest. they all know there will not be sufficient work or food for all and he is leaving for the rest of the year to work in the faraway coastal countries the rest of the year.
Soon the supplies reduce, the mothers have to think of the months to come and start to ration. Orientate their thoughts to the long months ahead. Survival to Zara’s family will depend on her forward thinking and her ability to balance her household economy and care duties as a mother.
2005 was a terrible year the harvest was small, no one in the village had much grain. The social fabric of the community began to unravel; neighbours hid food from each other, knowing that dividing food into even smaller portions would mean starvation for all. Hunger drove them all mad. It was then when Zara’s big sister fell ill and died; she left two daughters to look after. With no food in the home and two more mouths to feed her second born boy fell behind. He too died during the 2005 hunger season.
Zara now calls three daughters and two boys, one born in 2007 her children.
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Five year independence celebrated in hunger
Ongoing insecurity, high food prices, and major food deficits have pushed large numbers of already vulnerable people in South Sudan over the edge, leaving them struggling to meet their basic survival needs.
Powerful first voice video Link
all Video and photos: Guy Calaf for Action Against Hunger-USA
22 years old Agauwol Akec, sustenance farmer and mother of 5 children, collects weeds and branches to build a hut for a neighbor in the hopes of getting payed some small cash or some food, in her home village of Yargot, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan on May 7th, 2016.
Sanaa, Yemen, on January 24, 2016.
In this Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016 photo, a malnourished child lies in a bed waiting to receive treatment at a therapeutic feeding center in a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. This child is one of millions of people across countries like Syria, Yemen and Iraq are gripped by hunger, struggling to survive with little help from the outside world. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
A malnourished child lies in a bed waiting to receive treatment at a therapeutic feeding center in a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, on January 24, 2016. This child is one of millions of people across countries mired in conflict like Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, gripped by hunger, struggling to survive with little help from the outside world.
Entering Madaya
An aid worker recounts entering Madaya and discusses the power of the graphic visuals that have emerged
The Syrian town of Madaya, along the border with Lebanon, was pitch dark by the time aid workers arrived on Jan. 11. It took more than eight hours for their convoy to travel from Damascus; the town lacked electricity and it had begun to rain.
He took a picture and “just realized that for a very, very long time, we have been the only physical persons that have been there from outside, able to listen to their problems, able to listen to their suffering. It was very, very important, even if we didn’t really have the solutions to all of their problems,” link
Stefano De Luigi’s Photographs of Drought in Kenya
In 2009 Stefano De Luigi shot a series of works based on the Kenyan drought, specifically within the Turkana region in northwest Kenya. Stefano, uses the drought as a lens through which to examine climate change more widely. follow link to interview and pictures in the vice magazine.
Malnutrition – If you had $75 billion for worthwhile causes, where should you start?
The problem of widespread undernutrition: Around 165 million pre school children suffer from chronic undernutrition. Because of inadequate food intake, repeated infection or both they fail to grow at the same rate as healthy, well-fed children.
In 2004, 2008 and 2012, the Copenhagen Consensus Centre held a series of global conferences. At each, an expert panel, including four Nobel Laureates, looked at twelve major global challenges, deliberating the question: “If you had $75 billion for worthwhile causes, where should you start?” read more
BENTIU, SOUTH SUDAN by Lynsey Addario
BENTIU, SOUTH SUDAN – MAY 2014: An Internally displaced girl stares at a severely malnourished government soldier, Jay Thiep, who was found unconscious near the airport when he was brought to the clinic at the base of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan in Bentiu, South Sudan, May 6, 2014. Thiep was thought to have been hiding without food for roughly three weeks in the bush following a retreat of government soldiers from Bentiu. Roughly twenty-five thousand IDPs live at the UNMISS base in Bentiu, and one million Southern Sudanese have been displaced from their homes since the start of the civil war in December 2013, pitting ethnic Nu’er against Dinka. Because of continued fighting, many have been unable to plant crops to harvest the next season, and aid organizations have been unable to preposition food in anticipation of the rainy season. According to the United Nations official coordinating humanitarian aid in South Sudan, if the civil war doesn’t stop, and the country does not receive international aid, South Sudan will face the worst starvation in Africa since the 1980s, when hundreds of thousands of people died in Ethiopia’s famine. see more Photograph by Lynsey Addario/Reportage by Getty Image
Sierra Leone’s Turtle Islands
Seven months after Sierra Leone’s first Ebola case, the Turtle Islands have now become dependent on food aid. By /Tommy Trenchard/Al Jazeera
Read more
Pictures for the FEED project, by Joey L
The portraits in this post were taken to to support my friend Lauren Bush Lauren’s charity, FEED Projects. Lauren and I dreamt up a concept for the shoot over coffee. We would capture portraits of FEED’s celebrity ambassadors and influencers in a studio setting that felt classic, natural, and share a moment of intimacy between friends or business partners. It would be the first major advertising campaign effort for FEED, and although grassroots, the final images would live in a lot of major places, including Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, and Elle, just to name a few.
Link www.joeyl.com
My new report: Action to Increase Nutrition
Wondering why you should care about a conference on nutrition? We’ll explain…
On November 19, ministers from 193 countries will meet in Rome for the first time in 22 years to look at ways to tackle malnutrition.
At the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), they’ll be asked to adopt two documents: the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and the Framework for Action on Nutrition.
Progress in tackling malnutrition since the first ICN in 1992 has been weak and patchy because of inadequate commitment and leadership, financial constraints, weak human and institutional capacities, the depletion of natural resources exacerbated by climate change, and a lack of appropriate accountability mechanisms.
The good news is that today the world is much wealthier than it was 22 years ago, and the knowledge of what works and what action is needed is far more advanced. As momentum on nutrition builds internationally, this conference presents an historic once-in-a-generation opportunity for strong political commitments that could help end child hunger.
Read more: link
Mark Bittman – How to Change the Food System
During the New York Times ‘Food for Tomorrow’ conference, Mark Bittman shares some of his thoughts in this video. He says, “The slogan should not be ‘let’s feed the world’, but ‘let’s end poverty’. That may not be profitable. But this isn’t about the business of agriculture, it’s about justice and political power.”
Fannie ?
In an effort to reach hundreds of thousands of starving and malnourished people in South Sudan, the first air drops by the International Red Cross in nearly two decades took place in Leer on July 5. Thousands of people waited in the hot sun for emergency food supplies and seed. NBC NEWS
A town destroyed – Leer, South Sudan
Since fighting broke out in mid-December between rival army factions in South Sudan, plunging the new country into widespread conflict pitting communities against one another, thousands, perhaps as many as 30,000 people, have died; 1.5 million have been forced from their homes and around four million require humanitarian assistance, with food insecurity the main concern. Link
Hunger in Afganistan
photographer Daniel Berehulak visting Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ITFC) wards, at the Bost Hospital, a Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) assisted hospital in Lashkar Gah, in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
Read more: Daniel Berehulak the Freelancer’s Way
Food Crisis Worsens in South Sudan as Civil War Is Displacing Millions
WAU SHILUK, South Sudan — Five months of war in South Sudan has led to the deaths of thousands and the displacement of more than one million people. But officials warn that the tragedy could just be beginning. A serious food crisis is looming over the country, and the United Nations says that if action is not taken immediately, the consequences could be dire.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
The Starving Town Of Ganyliel Fighting breeds hunger.
Fighting breeds hunger.
In South Sudan, thousands have been killed in political and ethnic fighting since December. The fighting has disrupted much of daily life and left nearly 7 million at risk of hunger and 3.7 million facing starvation, according to the United Nations. Last week, Peter Biro of the International Rescue Committee visited the northern town of Ganyliel, South Sudan. Link
Bangui’s ghettos
Now, fewer than 1,000 remain in the city, the rest having fled amid a veritable pogrom carried out in reprisal for atrocities committed by an alliance of mainly Muslim rebels who had seized power in March 2013.
Those left behind are stuck in ghettos or makeshift camps, protected by African Union troops but still surrounded by units of hostile anti-balaka militiamen. Link
South Sudanese refugees LINING UP
LINING UP: South Sudanese refugees waited in line for food at a refugee camp in Adjumani, Uganda, Friday. The president of neighboring Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, recently admitted that he is helping South Sudan President Salva Kiir fight rebel forces.
Edward Echwalu/Reuters
Bountiful Harvests And Happiness While Millions Died From Starvation
If you haven’t read Murong Xuecun’s piece about China’s Great Famine revisionists — those who doubt even the textbook figure that around 15 million people died prematurely from 1959-62 due to hunger — start here.
Two other stories on this subject are also worth your attention. Foreign Policy, which ran Murong’s declamation, has a slideshow of propaganda posters and slogans that were published in China during the Great Famine. Sample a few images link
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Thebronxpapers's Blog 
Any Spare Coin is Invested in Goats, Sheep and Camels
Photos and Text Samuel Hauenstein Swan – www.sambronx-photo.com
Part X of the Descendent of the Hyena Series. Full Story
Food aid has traditionally been the dominant form of assistance to people suffering from hunger. In the past decade, however, support in the form of cash transfers has become increasingly popular as an alternative to food aid, especially in Africa. The advantages of cash are many. Cash gives people more choices to the recipient than food, enabling them to meet a range of food and non-food needs, including health expenses, clothing, and – even in emergency situations – the purchase of livestock and other critical assets needed to build livelihoods. Herds small to big not only provide food directly, but they also guarantee an income flow, can act as a store of value enhancing risk-bearing capacity, and often have an inherent value linked to the status they confer to their owners. Farmers like Zara ideally invest there harvest surplus profit to gain animals which the resell if they face financial hardship, such as an illness, prolonged food deficit etc.
The nomadic communities around where Zara lives had once abundant and diverse herds. The “dry” years of the late 1980s and the first decade of the 21st century severely reduced the numbers and composition of the animals. Trying to recover in the aftermath of severe droughts is a long and tough process: buying young and healthy animals is beyond the means of all but the wealthiest. Losing their strong camels signifies diminishes the ability to move from place to place in search of water and pasture. In turns that result in heightened conflict between the villages and the nomads as the prolonged presence of animals and humans around limited water-points leads to increasing overgrazing, deforestation, and disputes over the usage of extensive plains.
Almost all evidence available highlighting positive effects of cash transfers, on livestock and inputs. The impacts on savings, ownership of animals were consistent highlighting positive results of giving distressed communities cash on hand at times of seasonal hunger.
Cash also has ‘multiplier effects’ in the economy: spending cash transfers will generate income and employment for others that not got the cash directly. Capital can help farmers protect their belongings and their production systems. prevent distress sales of animals and livelihood stimulate local food economies.
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January 26, 2018 | Categories: Analysis, commentry, Local Voices, photo | Tags: Africa, cash, cash transfers, climate change, drought, Environment, family, hunger, innovation, livelihoods, livestock, Niger, nutrition, Photojournalism, SAM, seasonality, severe drought, West Africa, Women | Leave a comment