What causes a famine? It isn’t a lack of food. Nor does lack of food cause the kind of food insecurity, just short of a famine, that Britain is facing. In analyses of specific famines, the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen showed that social organisation and a lack of access to food for socially deprived people were the real causes of starvation.
As 2023 ends, Britain may not be facing a famine, as people are in north-eastern Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen or Somalia, but that is a low bar. The UK’s current levels of food insecurity will damage physical and mental health and increase health inequalities for years to come.
