How do people in poor countries run out of food?

If you’ve ever seen a picture of orphans, famine and felt sorry for those hungry kids and gotten out your wallets, you’ve responded quite appropriately and humanly to a needy situation. But have you ever wondered why these situations happen. How does someone run out of food? And how does it happen so quickly in many places in Africa or Asia.

How I lived in relationship with food in America is completely different than it is here, in Uganda. I started off on the farm where we canned the harvest in preparation for the winter. I came to learn how hard one needs to work in order to feed a large family for several months before one can plant and harvest again. And then I had to sort of forget about the harvesting and cooking from scratch process. Life became about getting food as fast as possible. I couldn’t enjoy the process of making good, nutritious food. It had to be cheap and plentiful and easy to make. Then I came to Uganda and at first food was as plentiful as it was in U.S. because my husband was prepared for us and the food we were accustomed to.

Gradually we adjusted to local food. It is different food. It was organic for sure. But there is nothing ornate or delicate about the food and how it is prepared here. No filigree patterns in the crust. Nothing ornate. Yams and cassava and beans are from the garden and cooked simply into starches and stew with a side of greens if you are lucky. Yesterday’s beef that was eaten at a last rite’s celebration was cooked with salt and a few stewed veggies and eaten voraciously by all. Nothing ornate. Nothing raving delicious, simply something to fill the belly. Not even a sprig of parsley or cilantro. It is as though the population is freshly out of starvation and the eating habits remain. As do the attitudes. While I badly miss the savory foods—tacos asada, burritos, shepherd’s pie, any pie at all—anytime someone posts a Facebook pic of their foodie find—I long for the flavors. But I’ve come to settle and be happy for the feeling of an empty tummy of simple food to fill it. Sure, there are supermarkets in Kampala that carry the Western food and for that you pay the White Person prices.

Most people are a day or two from starvation--often due to lack of planning but mostly due to the uselessness of planning. Planning and calculating is useless if rogue factors render them so. If there is no money from a job today, there is no food tonight. And mostly, people get paid or not at whim and will of employers and so many other rogue factors. Robbery is another major rogue factor. Someone comes and robs you clean. They take the money and the tools of your trade. You have to start from square one. Until you can gain some profits from somewhere, nobody eats and if you are lucky enough to have a garden you simply eat from there. Often people go to beg and borrow from someone who owes them or from a friend. It is easy to see where if war or unrest occurred, an entire population’s food production disappears. Even the 2011 elections in Uganda resulted in empty shelves in grocery stores because Indian owners left the country.

With the recent heists where Stephen’s businesses have been robbed clean then evicted without cause and the entire coffee harvest stolen, we’ve been down to two small meals a day. Being as budget minded as I am, I’ve been intentionally eating much less and skipping meals, while making sure the twins eat enough. The daily dinner involves working for it by harvesting beans from the garden and matoke from the trees, whatever has not been stolen. It feels like I’m being brought back to my roots were you eat only what you raise. The balance between consumption and production a precarious relationship.

In my home in the states, my cupboards full of preserved foods, caused my consumption to be divorced from my production. Production was a meaningless number hidden in the remittance line on my paycheck. I lived in a society trained to live in the realm of consumption, with no natural stops. In Uganda the natural stops involve the precarious nature of daily life. It is easy to understand how over-consumption and waste happen when people experience times of plenty. There is no way to preserve what one has in times of plenty. Use it or loose it. Canning is extremely expensive for a local budget: glass cans, lids and rings, cooking charcoal or gas or firewood. Saving money is mostly useless. Especially when there is a gnawing hunger in the pit of your stomach. I still save money as much as I can because I can't get rid of that habit.

Running out of food to eat is like running out of gas. You know you should keep a full tank but when the funds are tight and you have to use the cash to pay for other stuff, you decide to go that short trip somewhere. You see you can go lower on the gas gauge. Money is tight again and you go even lower on E. Running out of food is like that. It's a long process of getting used to planning what's for dinner when the ingredients arrive on you doorstep at 7 pm. And when everyone in the country is doing the same and the precarious food distribution channels collapse...boom...then you have a crisis.

Sure, I'm far from starving but I've also never been near this edge of the slippery slope.