Famine and Ethiopia have been equivalent terms for many years. Drought, deforestation and civil war have destroyed much of the country’s agriculture. The ensuing famine has caused the deaths of millions. Millions more have fled to refugee camps, where international organizations have provided food and medical aid. The following quote illustrates the error of this human approach toward solving a problem: “[F]amine is a development issue and not just a humanitarian concern. The artificial wall between relief and development must be breached. Rebuilding the food security of millions of vulnerable households therefore has to be a central pillar of development in any famine-prone country. “For this, there is no…easy or inexpensive solution. There are finite resources in the donor community and among poor governments for investment against famine…The feeding camp is a symbol of failure; it signals that policymakers failed to invest their resources more appropriately in the recent past. “Policymakers and planners [are] awakening late to the realization that not preparing against famine can be more expensive in the long run than responding to individual crises” (Webb and Braun, p. 4) Do you grasp the significance of this last statement? Mankind always seeks to solve his problems by addressing the effect and not the cause. Providing food and medical aid cannot eradicate famine. Regardless of how much money, food, medical aid, etc., is put towards a solution, the problem will remain the same. Why? Because human nature remains the same. Until man’s governments are replaced by God’s government, the many problems that abound in today’s world will not go away! “Little more than a decade ago, world hunger was almost entirely blamed on the forces of nature. Drought, flooding or some other weather-related event took responsibility for the hundreds of millions of people who went to bed hungry every night. But now more and more people are starving due to human causes, according to a
recently released report by the Flood and Agriculture Organization (FAO). ‘For the first time, human-induced disasters such as civil strife and economic crises have more effect on food shortages than nature-induced crises,’ said Dr. Hartwig de Haen, assistant director of FAO. In 1984, man-made disasters accounted for only about 10 percent of the total food shortages around the globe. The remaining crises stemmed from natural causes, such as drought or flooding. FAO’s statistics suggest that humans now play a role in more than 50 percent of all food shortages. “…economic setbacks have pushed much of Asia into a food emergency. In Korea alone, hunger galloped from 16 percent to 48 percent of the population. In Cuba, economic woes exacerbated by drought and flooding threw the country into massive food shortage… Afghanistan’s hungry citizens increased from 33 to 62 percent of the population…Cambodia, one of the leaders in decreasing global hunger, was unable to feed 63 percent of its people…In 27 countries, the number of people going hungry increased by almost 60 million” (Stephanie Kriner, “War, Economic Crises Increase World Hunger,” December 9, 1999). Famine in the 21st Century?
To most citizens of affluent nations, it is inconceivable that famine could occur on such a scale as to affect their own personal, daily lives. Most tend not to even think beyond the limited realm of their own circumstances. In addition to taking for granted favorable weather conditions, they do not acknowledge man’s proven proclivity to wreak havoc on his environment, as described in the following statement: “The chief responsibility for causing famine has shifted…from nature to man. Nature can still produce calamitous droughts when…changes occur in the pattern of rainfall distribution. But man can make the harmful effects of a drought very much worse. “Mankind has always had the ability to alter his environment for the worse…we already live in a starving world, where [2 billion] people go hungry every day, where another [1.5 bil-
lion] barely manage…” (Kingston and Lambert, p. 94). There is a cause for every effect. Why are people starving to death in an age of awesome scientific and technological advances? It is because man has ignored all of God’s Laws, not only those contained in His Ten Commandments. These provide the basic principles of proper human conduct, which, if obeyed, in spirit and letter (as Christ emphasized in Matthew 5), would lead to happy, peaceful, and truly productive lives. There are many other biblical laws governing human actions and behavior. Included among them are laws pertaining to agriculture. If mankind obeyed these laws, there would not be the tragedy of famine in the world today. But man continually rejects God’s clear commands. So it is only going to get worse. Land Sabbaths
God’s laws are as sure as the law of gravity. He has set in motion a law of land sabbaths that was to be kept from the very start of the nation of Israel. We find this law in Leviticus 25:1-7: “And the LORD spoke unto Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: you shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. That which grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, neither gather the grapes of your vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you, and for your servant, and for your maid, and for your hired servant, and for your stranger that sojourns with you, and for your cattle, and for the beast that are in your land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.” The law of land sabbaths was instituted so that farmland could be given one year in every seven years to replenish lost nutrients. 7