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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13944550

A prolonged failure of rains, which began in late 2010, is now taking its toll.

The UN's Office for the Co-Ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) warns that the situation is continuing to deteriorate, and the number of people in need will continue to increase.

The numbers now affected are huge, Ohca says: 3.2m in Ethiopia, 3.2m in Kenya, 2.6m in Somalia and more than 100,000 in Djibouti.

That's not huge. That's just the start.

The spokeswoman for Ocha, Elizabeth Byrs, said appeals for Somalia and Kenya, each about $525m (£328m), are barely 50% funded, while a $30m appeal for Djibouti has raised just 30% of the needed funds.

So. Anybody going to be contributing money to the appeals?

Sad

Some friends from my agroforestry masters are actually in Ethiopia at the moment doing water related summer projects.

Grim.

I assume though it will be the usual emergency relief, rather than "dieoff".

energy-village wrote:Grim.

I assume though it will be the usual emergency relief, rather than "dieoff".

That's not a safe assumption given

(a) the financial problems facing most of the usual donor nations.
(b) the shrinking international stockpiles of "spare" food.

There's just not as much money and not as much food around as there was last time this happened in a big way (1984). There won't be any Live Aid this time.

It also depends how bad the problem gets. There are likely to be knock-on effects. As people leave the worst-affected areas it causes the problem to spread over a wider area.

Yup - as the net export model which I posted on a thread recently concluded, Africa is facing a mass die-off this decade, starting from now. We are not talking about millions but hundreds of millions.

Tragic but inevitable - and don't think us rich folk are going to be immune, it will be our fate eventually, although probably a few decades away.

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... hp?t=18585

Africa is the first region predicted to have major problems with producing adequate food, as I estimate that Africa's per capita consumption will have already dropped below 1.1 in 2010 (the data in the BP Statistical Review only goes up to 2009).


Given its present petroleum production trend, and this scenario's assumption of no food aid from other regions, Africa's population would go into immediate decline from its present peak population of 1 billion to a pre-petroleum level of 133 (Africa's estimated population in 1900, from The World at Six Billion) by 2022 as its petroleum production rapidly declines. This is a huge 87% decline in relative population over a decade's period of time.

This assumes no global food redistibution from the developed world to help out Africa. If this analysis is correct, we are looking at a mass die-off of over 800 million people over a decade's period.

Given its present petroleum production trend, and this scenario's assumption of no food aid from other regions, Africa's population would go into immediate decline from its present peak population of 1 billion to a pre-petroleum level of 133 (Africa's estimated population in 1900, from The World at Six Billion) by 2022 as its petroleum production rapidly declines. This is a huge 87% decline in relative population over a decade's period of time.

This is daft, Africa isn't going to drop to ~zero oil use within a decade. There's no reason to assume the 1900 population of 133 m was any kind of pre-oil population limit. I have little doubt that Africa's population will be larger in a decade's time, not smaller, even if the continent is consuming less oil than today.

I also question Africa's oil trajectory - the latest BP data shows Africa increased its oil consumption by 3% in 2010 (more than the rate of population growth). This fits the general pattern of non-OECD outbidding OECD for new oil production since the crash.

clv101 wrote:

Given its present petroleum production trend, and this scenario's assumption of no food aid from other regions, Africa's population would go into immediate decline from its present peak population of 1 billion to a pre-petroleum level of 133 (Africa's estimated population in 1900, from The World at Six Billion) by 2022 as its petroleum production rapidly declines. This is a huge 87% decline in relative population over a decade's period of time.

This is daft, Africa isn't going to drop to ~zero oil use within a decade. There's no reason to assume the 1900 population of 133 m was any kind of pre-oil population limit. I have little doubt that Africa's population will be larger in a decade's time, not smaller, even if the continent is consuming less oil than today.

I also question Africa's oil trajectory - the latest BP data shows Africa increased its oil consumption by 3% in 2010 (more than the rate of population growth). This fits the general pattern of non-OECD outbidding OECD for new oil production since the crash.

I don't follow your reasoning there. 133 million may not be the carrying capacity of Africa but it certainly isn't one billion plus two percent per year growth either. At the point where African oil consumption rises to equal all African demand the loss of export revenue will curtail their ability to import food. Egypt is already undergoing upheavals from this same equation. Add in the economic impact the loss of imported oil will have on the western countries now consuming it and there will be precious little food aid to be had. I expect starvation and war to become more and more common in the near future and a major decline in the population is the most likely outcome.

CLV
But a fall to "just" Pre Live Aid levels of population would be a 50% fall in the horn of africa, at least, possibly as high as 70%.
And these people *already* exist on USAid food hand outs.

UndercoverElephant wrote:So. Anybody going to be contributing money to the appeals?

Can't afford. Besides, I already give what I can (a substantial amount) every year to a tiny charity working in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda; they try to help people become self-sufficient in food.

vtsnowedin wrote:133 million may not be the carrying capacity of Africa but it certainly isn't one billion plus

It's not always good to generalise about a place as big and varied as Africa, however, Africa's population is already over 1 billion, slightly less than India's, and it's population density is about 30/km^2 whereas India's is 360/km^2. Somalia, the subject of this thread, has a population density of only 15/km^2 so 'overpopulation' needs some explaining.

Much more important than the number of people is what the people do. The Somalis have been doing the wrong things, starting by cutting the acacia trees down to make charcoal instead of using solar pv (ok, so solar pv hadn't been invented when the trees were cut down so there's a bit of an excuse for past behaviour but that doesn't wash today) and their recent behaviour has hardly improved.

Population numbers are just too easy a scapegoat. I think it's better to get them to plant acacia trees, cook on efficient rocket stoves, install solar pv and stop killing each other than to shout from a distance "You've been having too many babies - you're doomed". Though I do admit that's an easier thing to do from this distance.

Report after report in Africa this year stresses the massive levels of malnutrition among the young Africans - including Niger and other parts of Africa.

As DomJ notes, the Horn of Africa is dependent upon foreign food aid and without that will go into die-off. There was a recent BBC documentary into this area of the world and it shows that people are totally reliant on imported food for survival.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0125mlb

Also note that this analysis, based on net export declines for countries who have peaked already, calculates that there will be a 50% decline in available oil this decade. Africa will be literally outbrought by the rest of the world by oil and will starve as a result.

biffvernon wrote:It's not always good to generalise about a place as big and varied as Africa, however, Africa's population is already over 1 billion, slightly less than India's, and it's population density is about 30/km^2 whereas India's is 360/km^2. Somalia, the subject of this thread, has a population density of only 15/km^2 so 'overpopulation' needs some explaining.

Hmm, anyone know what the population of India was in 1900?

Population numbers are just too easy a scapegoat. I think it's better to get them to plant acacia trees, cook on efficient rocket stoves, install solar pv and stop killing each other than to shout from a distance "You've been having too many babies - you're doomed". Though I do admit that's an easier thing to do from this distance.

With sufficient geoforming, we could do a great deal to increase any carrying capacity.
But the resources to do so in Somalia are likely never going to be available, and the current population of Somalia is several times what it was before they destroyed what little capacity they had.

http://www.populstat.info/Asia/indiac.htm

271 million people in India, 1900.

DominicJ wrote: With sufficient geoforming, we could do a great deal to increase any carrying capacity.
But the resources to do so in Somalia are likely never going to be available, and the current population of Somalia is several times what it was before they destroyed what little capacity they had.

Could Somalia be self sufficient and enjoy a sustainable future with its present population and future increased population predicated by current demographic? I have no doubt that the answer is yes, if only the Somali people did the right things and the rest of the world didn't mess things up for them. Neither of those conditions is likely to obtain.

Somalia has had a long history of exploitation by foreigners, not least by the British, and the environmental destruction caused by foreigners taking Somali charcoal and the industrial fishing off the coastline, again by foreigners, has been ecological genocide. The country's most valuable resources have been stolen.

We need to step back a moment, look at the physical inputs, sunshine and rain, minerals from the soil, on the physical landscape, and determine what the productive capacity of the land and ocean could be, if everyone behaved themselves.

Somalia could feed itself if only it stopped shooting itself in the foot and the rest of us stopped shooting too.

Yer probably right. Everyone forgets that Africa isn't all deserts and jungle: for a start there are 2 belts of perfectly good Mediterranean-type climate where olives and the like could be grown. Less familiar, but probably just as useful (except perhaps harder to store), are all the starches and fruit that grow in tropical places. Africa doesn't have a food production problem: it has an out-of-practice-at-doing-Peace problem.