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Conf
By P. Terrence Hopmann
Year of
Agriculture
atSAIS
Scholars of violent
conflict, especially
conflict within
states, have long
recognized that a
sudden decline in
the availability of
adequate food supplies, due, for
example, to extreme drought
or massive flooding, can serve
as the spark that sets off such
conflict. This is particularly
true when these catastrophes
affect weak, failing or failed
states that lack the institutional
structures and physical
infrastructure to alleviate hunger
and malnutrition in the face
of humanitarian emergencies.
Disasters, whether natural or
human, also can exacerbate
existing conflicts over identity,
ethnicity and inequality—and
the unexpected disruption of
basic commodities pushes the
conflict across the threshold
into large-scale violence. In
states where existing conflict
impedes the delivery of food
to the population, food supply
problems compound the miseries
associated with conflict.
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