Talk:2005–2006 Niger food crisis

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Reversion of page move[edit]

I have reverted the move of the page to 2005 Niger famine. According to the publications of the Famine Early Warning System network that I added to the external links, the media has been blowing things out of proportion and it is not predicted to become a famine, as technically defined. Apparently there are about three other places in Africa where food security is worse, not that Niger's case is in any way good. - BanyanTree 19:17, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Could you provide a source for that claim? I don't trust one U.S.-funded organization to tell me what's really happening in Africa. Provide more sources. Revolución 20:22, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • the page on famine defines "Famine" as "a phenomenon in which a large percentage of the population of a region or country are undernourished and death by starvation becomes increasingly common....Famine is associated with naturally-occurring crop failure and pestilence...In the past few decades a more nuanced view focused on the economic and political circumstances leading to modern famine has emerged." The page also lists Niger as an example of a famine in Africa. Revolución 20:27, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • If that weren't enough, UNICEF is using the word "FAMINE" to describe this crisis. This is a famine, and things are not being blown out of proportion this is a serious problem and people are going to starve to death if nothing is done about it. Revolución 20:27, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm reverting back to "2005 Niger famine". Revolución 20:27, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
And it's reverted back. Note that Revolución is cutting and pasting page content between the two rather than using the Move button, so there are two different page histories. He did move the talk, but not the actual article, which I find quite strange.
Back to content discussion:
  • I did source the claim and can't be held responsible for your own prejudices. FEWSNET is the center of global research into famines and famine prediction and if you want to ignore good info because they're funded by the US government, that's your problem. If you must, take a look at the Reliefnet front page and compare the number of occurrences of "famine" vs "food crisis". The World Food Programme is quite clear about its crisis nature [1] and the info is in line with FEWSNET's claim that the media has sensationalized their reporting. If the lead international famine prediction organization and the lead food relief organization say one thing, and the public relations departments of various aid organizations say another, I go with the experts. - BanyanTree 23:03, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for quoting the words I wrote in the famine article, as well as my addition of the Niger food crisis to the page. (Look at the page history.) As the contributor, I say that this is a food crisis.
  • As for your assertion that "people are going to starve to death", of course they are, and "food crisis" doesn't imply otherwise. The sources I'm citing are quite clear about the increase in child mortality rates that can be expected. "Food crisis" and "famine" are technically defined terms that get confused in popular usage, but both involved increases mortality that differ in scale and intensity. Wikipedia is not an advocacy tool and the title should stay technically correct. - BanyanTree 23:03, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would be helpful if you could provide links to definitions, either within Wikipedia (where they hopefully exist already) or elsewhere. Then we can put a footnote or a link or a wikilink in the article to explain the difference. Rd232 13:10, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
See this for the discussion (and disagreement) about how to define levels of food insecurity, and this for an explanation of the ambiguity of stages. WHO defines famine as where "the severity of critical malnutrition levels exceed 15 percent of children aged 6 to 59.9 months". I'll try to find the criteria used for the other levels, but I would just repeat that if WFP and FEWSNET are being careful to avoid the word "famine" in their literature, Wikipedia should not be playing fast and loose with its terminology either. An example is how Refugee is for the legal definition of the term and not the colloquial, by which is normally meant displaced person.
Having done a bit of editing in this area before, the two obvious places are the famine and food security article, and neither has definitions. The wiki is quite weak in the field of agriculture and international development/aid. I'll try to expand Food security or create a new article once I get more background literature, and modify famine appropriately, when I have a bit of time to concentrate. - BanyanTree 16:40, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I just created a new article at Famine scales, though I'm not wild about the title, and linked to it from this article. - BanyanTree 04:39, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent work. As to the title, the opening line suggests "food security assessment" or some such. In fact, there's a case for merging with food security, I'd say. Rd232 06:46, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've asked what should be done with the article at Talk:Food security. - BanyanTree 03:54, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Update[edit]

This needs updating; much of it is written in the present tense, and the usual suspects are already predicting another famine.Sartoresartus (talk) 02:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dead link[edit]

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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