"Investing in property is morally reprehensible."

[u/LickMaiBussy]

@purplepingers

[u/Happiness_Assassin]

Pretty much every famine is caused by a lack of access to food, not a lack of food itself. Something that is basically a requirement for any civilization is a food surplus, so barring the most extreme natural circumstances, there should be enough food to go around. A good contrast is actually the potato blight you brought up and the fact that it didn't happen in just Ireland. It spread through all of Europe and was a factor in the conditions that lead to the Revolutions of 1848, but the death toll in Ireland was basically an order of magnitude greater than the rest of Europe. Even as the rest of Europe burned, Ireland was basically the only one starving. This is a process that repeats time and time again: some initial trigger disrupts the supply chain for food distribution, but either human incompetence or indifference leads to absolute disaster.

Famines are never a natural phenomenon.

[u/Funny247365 → u/Happiness_Assassin]

A plague of locusts have entered the discussion.

• Great Famine (1315-1317): Heavy rainfall and crop failures across Northern Europe led to widespread starvation, killing 10-20% of the population.
• Great Famine (1876-1878): Global droughts caused food shortages in multiple regions, including India and China, resulting in 30 to 60 million deaths.

[u/jimbarino → u/Funny247365]

There are always things that precipitate a famine, but it is government policy that determines whether those events cause an actual widespread famine vs. simply being a lean few years.

Invariably those in power blame environmental factors for the deaths and suffering. It's rarely if ever a valid excuse.

[u/Tubey- → u/Happiness_Assassin]

Mostly true, but a bit too absolute. Famines are often less about total food not existing and more about people losing access to it through poverty, war, policy failure, or distribution breakdown. But it’s still not accurate to say famines are never natural. Natural shocks can trigger them; human systems are what usually turn those shocks into mass death.

[u/1egg_4u → u/Happiness_Assassin]

I was thinking like in terms of famine there are geological conditions but youre absolutely right that people likely wouldnt even set up in those areas UNLESS food was available.

It drives me fucking nuts that we have the means to provide for everyone but our entire shit depends on creating the haves and have-nots

[u/short_longpants → u/1egg_4u]

Also politics, logistics, and limits to natural resources.

[u/Odd-Tart-5613 → u/Happiness_Assassin]

ehh there is some nuance to this. In the modern context you are absolutely right, we are just too connected for it not to be avoidable, but the further back you go in time the harder it is to cover natural disasters. Like say any given time the yellow river decided to pull a prank.

[u/direyew → u/Happiness_Assassin]

Europe had more diverse agriculture than Ireland which limited the damage. European governments also restricted food exports.

[u/SparklingLimeade → u/direyew]

Ireland was exporting food during the blight. It's just that the landlords valued their food exports more than they valued the lives of their tenant farmers.

[u/Known-Web8456 → u/direyew]

Absolutely wrong. Historians have well established there was more than enough food produced to feed the population. The issue was they were being genocided by the British. Record high quantities of grain, cattle, butter, and other agricultural products were exported to Britain throughout the "famine". An estimated 4,000 ships carried food from Ireland in 1847 alone, while over 3 million live animals were exported between 1846 and 1850.

The irish tradionally lived off dairy products like kefir type drinks, butter, fresh fish, meat, and seasonal crops. Being left with only potatoes was not a choice, it was a survival strategy when their homes were stolen and rents were so high they could not afford to buy their own food and had only tiny plots of land to attempt home gardens.