What is Famine?

In His inspired Word, God promises blessings for obedience to His laws and statutes (Lev. 26:1-13; Deut. 28:1-14). He also promises curses for disobedience (Lev. 26:14-39; Deut. 28:15-68). Among the curses that will result from disobedience is FAMINE!What is Famine?When you hear or see the word “famine,” what comes to mind? Do you think of people in underdeveloped third-world countries? Do you recall images of starving Ethiopians and others in distant lands? This is the common picture that forms in the minds of Westerners. But the Bible prophesies that the entire world will soon be plagued by famine.Can you imagine standing in line for hours…for a bowl of watery soup? Most people find it annoying to stand in line for hours to dine at a fancy restaurant. To even stand in line for hours at an amusement park is not “amusing” for most. What if you had to stand in line all day for a loaf of bread? Does this seem too “awful” to be true? This is the reality of famine. It is a reality that will not go away soon. And God’s Word shows that it is going to get far worse before it gets better.Revelation 6:6 states, “And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see you hurt not the oil and the wine.” This depicts two things. First: In some parts of the world there will be plenty of food, but little money to purchase it. Second: In other parts of the world, there will be massive shortages of food. The last phrase in this verse suggests great scarcity.Famine is more than a lack of food. It is more than an agricultural problem. These are the most obvious elements. It is a disaster comprised of many contributing factors bringing catastrophic results.Famine can arrive in the wake of war. In their aftermath, natural disasters can leave the unnatural disaster of starvation. Human efforts to end the suffering often fail. Unlike some diseases, there is no known cure—and there is no end in sight. Ezekiel 5:12 prophesies that one-third of the world’s population will die from famine and disease immediately before the Return of Jesus Christ to this earth: “One-third of you shall die of the pestilence, and be consumed with famine in your midst…”Notice this: “Famines are about death; that much is obvious to the casual observer. But, in reality famine is about more than death. To the author of [the book of Revelation]…Famine is an entity distinct from the other three Horsemen of the Apocalypse—War, Pestilence, and Death. In the latter distinction, famine was seen as a catastrophe separate from war and pestilence and apparently also separate from death.“Famine is…a catastrophic disruption of society as manifested in a cumulative failure of production, distribution, and consumption systems…the human death toll…is only one part of the overall problem. A long-term depletion of resources carries the implications of famine far beyond the realm of a discrete event. Once a localized crisis has passed, the process of nation-building is severely impeded by the loss of people, community integration, livestock, savings and even the government’s capacity to tax and invest. Such losses make the process of social and economic rehabilitation very difficult because they compound the poverty that pre-dated, and contributed directly to, the individual crisis. The famine survivors of today can easily become the famine fodder of tomorrow” (Famine and Food Security in Ethiopia, Patrick Webb and Joachim von Braun, p.11).Preludes to FamineWhen it comes to cause-and-effect relationships, human beings usually have trouble connecting the dots. Consequently, the big picture is often invisible or, at best, blurred. Professing Christians, who claim the Bible as the source of their beliefs, often choose to distort its plain statements. They do not connect “…sin is the transgression of the law” (I John 3:4) with “…the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Human nature always finds a way to reason around God’s instructions.Inability to discern cause and effect has resulted in a world filled with numerous problems, including religious confusion, hate, crime, war, injustice, poverty, famine and disease.Silently, ominously, the specter of famine has spread in this past century. So far, this has primarily occurred in the second and third world countries. However, man’s best efforts, along with innovations and technology, have not stemmed the tide, and now the increasing possibility looms over all—including the developed nations—as the causal factors are compounded and expanded in scope.Fuel Shortage…Food Shortage?An observation should be drawn from the turn-of-the-century “Y2K” problem. Although it did not turn out to be the disaster that many experts predicted, the “doomsday” scenarios presented are still quite plausible. For instance, a prolonged fuel crisis could lead to catastrophic problems, food shortages being one. Consider: If farmers have no fuel for their equipment, then planting and harvesting, and all the intermediate processes requiring the use of fuel-driven machinery, come to a stop.The following quote illustrates the devastating effect that a fuel shortage, even of short-term duration, can have on agriculture: “A farmer depends on a heavy supply of fuel at certain times of the year, rather than a constant steady small supply, such as urban homeowners and automobile drivers need. In the spring of 1973, however, as planting was in full swing, fuel was often unavailable. Cotton crops just sprouting could not be tended; preparation and planting on some farms was halted. Longtime fuel customers waited precious days for delivery of their fuel” (World Crisis in Agriculture, Gary Alexander and the Ambassador College Agricultural Research Dept., p. 11).Unless farmers can resort to primitive, non-modernized methods, and remain productive, they are out of business. In an age when many have already left farming and relocated in urban areas, this spells disaster.Notice the following stunning quote. As you do, recognize that 95 percent of the original colonists lived on farms. “Only two percent of the U.S. population are farmers and ranchers,” reports John Cromartie, an economic research analyst for the National Agricultural Statistic Service of the U.S. Census Bureau. History suggests that the above two percent is a number that will continue to shrink. Picture an ant carrying an elephant and then ask how long that can last.Also consider that grocery stores (which would be non-existent without farmers), from which we are accustomed to obtaining the bulk of our food, “…operate on razor-thin profit margins, which requires keeping low inventories and using a ‘just-in-time’ (JIT) delivery mechanism to restock on a daily or weekly basis” (Time Bomb 2000, Edward Yourdon and Jennifer Yourdon). The context of the above statement is that of electronic monitoring of grocery store inventories. But it illustrates the reality that, at any given time, there is no more than a three-or-four-day supply of food on grocers’ shelves. Does this statement shock you? It should shock and frighten you—especially when you consider how little it takes to create civil upheaval and outright mayhem today. In a society built on the principle of “every man for himself,” when the “cupboards are bare,” chaos will reign supreme!“Unlike other natural catastrophes, famine is not a sudden disaster but a long-drawn-out process passing through several stages. The rains fail, vegetation withers for lack of water, food gradually dwindles. Shortage becomes scarcity and eventually complete dearth. It may take many months before this final, dreaded stage is reached. Drought is still the main traditional cause of famine. Some famines have followed upon calamitous floods. There have been cases...when a new disease attacks the main food crop of a people, as in the terrible potato famine of Ireland. Armies have inevitably brought famine in their wake, killing the men who should be working the land or by deliberately laying waste the land itself” (Catastrophe And Crisis, Jeremy Kingston and David Lambert, p. 79).Starvation affects human beings in a profoundly different way than do other catastrophes. Depriving the body of vital nutrients decreases its ability to maintain proper functions, and increases its susceptibility to disease. Psychological effects include fear, uncertainty and dependency, which can escalate on both individual and collective levels. “What do people do when faced with the threat of starvation? In most cases, everything in their power. The people who die during famine should not be seen as passive victims but as losers of a hard-fought struggle for survival” (Webb and Braun, p. 56).