The silent signals of famine: What India’s past warns Africa today

How lessons from India’s famine years can help Africa keep food fair, balanced, and within reach for all.

In 1943, Bengal starved while ships still carried rice abroad. At the height of the famine, mothers traded heirlooms for a bowl of grain. The earth had produced enough. What failed was fairness. India’s famine was not a storm of nature but a collapse of conscience. It came from neglect and a system that valued trade more than people.

Across parts of Africa today, the same quiet signals are beginning to show. Prices rise faster than wages. Markets are full but plates stay empty. Trade continues, yet those at the end of the line lose their share. The danger is not scarcity. It is imbalance.

The British colonial system once prized export over access. When drought struck, grain was hoarded, prices tripled, and relief was delayed. The economist Amartya Sen later called this “entitlement failure,” a famine caused not by lack of food, but by lack of access to it.

Imports and exports are not the enemy. Trade keeps economies alive and connects nations. The danger comes when profit rises higher than protection. In Africa, where food imports fill the gap between harvests, balance is what keeps hunger at bay. Imports should steady supply, not replace domestic strength.

When warnings return

Liberia offers one of the clearest warnings today. About 70 percent of the rice eaten in the country is imported, leaving the nation exposed when prices shift abroad. In 2022 the cost of a 25-kilogram bag rose from roughly 13.50 to 17 dollars, a 26 percent increase in one year. The government spends close to 200 million dollars annually on rice imports, yet supply often runs short before new shipments arrive.

Audits and trade reviews have shown delays, missing consignments, and weak customs checks that allow diversion of grain meant for public programs. Shortages have fueled a black market where traders raise prices far beyond official rates. At the same time, many young Liberians have left farming because of low yields, poor credit access, and a market that rewards importers more than growers. The result is food in transit but not always on the table.

At the same time, fewer young people see a future in farming. Land disputes, poor credit, and weak trust in government have turned many away from the fields. When youth leave the land and crooks run the market, hunger draws closer. It is a pattern seen before in India’s famine years: food moving, but not reaching those who need it most.

India recovered through reforms that placed food back within reach of its people. Grain reserves were built. Ration systems gave citizens steady access. The Green Revolution turned deficit into surplus. For decades, India became a net exporter, topping global rice shipments at more than US$10 billion and nearly 18 million tonnes in 2023. The country feeds millions beyond its borders, yet hunger still lingers within. More than 200 million Indians remain undernourished, and the nation continues to rank in the “serious” hunger category on the Global Hunger Index, with a score of 25.8 in 2025. The contrast shows that production and export success do not automatically bring equity. Growth alone does not feed everyone. Fairness must stay constant, or progress will always unravel.

Africa now faces its own turning point. Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria battle food inflation despite strong harvests. Malawi’s fertilizer program and Rwanda’s irrigation projects show what can happen when governments act early. Yet in places like South Sudan, the contrast is stark. Crowds sit quietly in the heat, waiting for food they cannot buy. Aid lines stretch where fields once stood. Years of conflict have broken transport routes and scattered farmers. It is the picture of how hunger looks when systems collapse.

Trade helps. Imports fill gaps. But stability comes only when systems protect both the trader and the consumer.

^{Photo: Food and commodity prices continue to soar across South Sudan’s markets, pushing more people into poverty.} ^{Oxfam East Africa, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

Trade can feed a nation, but only justice keeps it full.

The solution lies in honesty and inclusion. Governments must secure transparent pricing and punish fraud before it reaches the market. Importers should work openly, not through shadow contracts. Farmers, especially the young, need credit, training, and recognition that feeding a nation is not a fallback career but the core of stability. Across the continent, women-led cooperatives and agri-tech programs are proving that fair systems can still be built from the ground up.

The lesson from India is that famine does not strike without warning. It begins quietly, through small failures and silence. India learned too late that hunger is not a weather event. It is a human choice. Africa still has time to act. The signs are visible. Whether they become a warning or a story of prevention depends on how fairly food is moved, managed, and shared.

^{Photo: Relief work during the great famine in South India, between 1876-1878. See page for attribution}

Imports, trade, and progress can lift nations. But if fairness fails, history will not just repeat itself. It will continue. The harvest will belong to those who balance trade with trust.