History and Hunger in West Africa - Food Production and Entitlement in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde

As Africa entered the 1990s, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa declared the continent incapable of feeding at least one-fifth of its peoples. Africa is the only region in the world where per capita food production is actually declining. Even with imports, the average African gets only enough nourishment to meet 85 percent of the minimum daily calorie requirement. This book analyzes the contemporary food crisis in Africa from an historical perspective, using two West African case studies.

From the perspective of food production and entitlement, the volume traces the economic history of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde beginning with the slave trade, through the colonial and postcolonial periods to democratization and structural adjustment. Using the theory and methodology of political economy, the study argues that the way in which African societies have been integrated into the world market diverted resources from food production, exacerbated exploitation, thus affecting entitlement to the food produced. Conditions for national food dependency and the degradation of the environment ensued.

List of contents

Introduction
The Food Question in Africa: An Historical Perspective
The Peoples of Guinea-Bissau and the Slave Trade Era
Guinea-Bissau: The Colonial Economy
Peanuts, Plantations and the Senegalization of Guinea-Bissau
Politics of Force and Forced Migration
Cape Verde Islands: Colonialism, Commerce and Crop Failures
Slavery and Tenancy
The Party-States, Privatization and Food
Guinea-Bissau: Rice. Trade, Aid and the New Ponteiros
Cape Verde: Agarrian Reform, Public Works and Extraversion
Maps
Historical Islamic States of the Guinea-Bissau Region

About the author

LAURA BIGMAN is founder of the Africans in Washington Project and is currently a Research Associate in the African Studies Department at Howard University.

Product details

• Authors: Laura Bigman, Bigman Laura
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Languages: English
• Age Recommendation: ages 7 to 17
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 21.06.1993
• EAN: 9780313267468
• ISBN: 978-0-313-26746-8
• No. of pages: 176
• Weight: 454 g
• Series: Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies: Contemporary Black Poets
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > Individual industrial sectors, branches; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disasters & Disaster Relief, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Development / Economic Development, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Social and cultural history, Development economics & emerging economies, Development economics and emerging economies, Famine, Social impact of disasters / accidents (natural or man-made), Cabo Verde (Cape Verde), Geography and World Cultures