There had been famine in China previously in 1942 (1 million dead), 1936 (5 million dead), 1929 (5 million dead), 1906 (25 million dead), 1877 (10 million dead), and millions dead from starvation during the Taiping rebellion of the 1860s.
Arguably, quite a few of them were man-made, or at least man-aggravated from warfare. This is not intended as apologia for Mao. His policies likely resulted in at least a million more deaths than might have otherwise happened. I just want to show that famine was routine in preindustrial agricultural societies.
Perhaps more than several million when estimates are between 15 and 55 million dead.
Interesting. Good to know and also not the impression I got from just "mass burials".
> Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on the island, according to the Associated Press news agency. But burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day
> It is not clear how many of the dead have no next-of-kin or could not afford a funeral.
That's a pretty important question to answer. Any idea?
And that was early enough in understanding COVID that it would make sense to do this kind of small mass burial with hazmat suits even if the death rate was unchanged.
> Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on the island, according to the Associated Press news agency.
> But burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day, said Department of Correction spokesman Jason Kersten.
They always did mass burials at this site. It just increased velocity during COVID. Mass burials did not start because of COVID.
It essentially mirrored the Holodomor - an occupying power exports all the food from an agrarian colony during a bad harvest. Famine happens. Occupying power shrugs. People wonder if it was a covert attempt at ethnic cleansing. Probably it was.
The difference is that the Irish famine was oh, just a big whoopsie while the Holodomor was an evil plot.
For example...
> The difference is that the Irish famine was just a big whoopsie while the Holodomor was an evil plot.
Have you heard of Charles Trevelyan? He was in charge of relief efforts during the famine, but he had a different take on the issue which informed British policy. In his words:
“The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.”
The Famine was a natural disaster which would have led to some amount of starvation and death, but that natural disaster was GREATLY enhanced by British elites who saw it as a convenient and "natural" solution to Irish overpopulation.
In many ways it shares the hallmarks of the Holodomor, with "we care about trade" used as a cover for genocide.
Mostly, this referred to the Qing government, in terms of the extensive corruption, pervasive opium addiction (thanks in part to Britain and the opium wars), etc.
Poor people rarely had much to eat to begin with, and bad years would often mean normally thin meals would be stretched too far. Until the communist revolution, farmers were serfs. After, they operated in collectives, but still were under orders. In both cases, they had little incentive to work, as they didn't keep the food they grew. It belonged to someone else. 1 in 3 children nationwide had stunted growth from malnourishment, almost certainly worse in the countryside. Farmers simply didn't have a surplus of food to store through an entire bad season.
After the 1970s, a combination of infrastructure projects which improved irrigation, some new cultivars of plants that had better yields, and changes to the operations of the farming communes to operate a bit more capitalistically, farmers were able to generate actual surpluses of food.
Except the one where China hasn't destroyed much of its industry, or alienated much of the world, and thus can trade for food.
Your examples are illustrative as well, inspite of your intention - the next three famines you list (1942, 1936, 1929) all occurred during a civil war in which Mao was a major player on one side, and at a time when part of the country was at war with/under occupation of imperial Japan.
Like, are we really immune from some mega drought occuring somewhere that mostly depends on rainfall? Or is that just extremely unlikely to happen, especially at a large scale?
If the 1930s American dustbowl had happened to a densely populated non-industrial society, it would probably have been one of the worst famines in history. Agricultural yields fell by like 50% for several years in the affected region. But they just brought in food from California and Saskatchewan. It was still a disaster, of course.
The Russian famine of 1921 was one of the first times industrial societies really mobilized in that way. At the peak grain grown in the USA and donated to the USSR was feeding about 1 in 10 Russians during the famine. One of the largest logistics operations in history up to that point. It's why Herbert Hoover was nominated for the Nobel peace prize five times.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pMsnCieusmYqGW26W/...
However, the papers which predict such scenarios have been criticized as being too pessimistic:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jnDibtfvWNHLucf4D/actually-a...
For the West specifically, wealthier nations can kind of just export the shortage by paying more for supplies that would go elsewhere.
The West also feeds most of its crops to animals, so that is an area for relatively easy reduction in an emergency. 67% of what is grown in the USA is animal food. But that proportion is dramatically lower in places like India.
https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel...
A very accessible book for all. I recommend it. It’s not perfect but it’s a good, easy read compared to other books touching on the same subjects.