Over one million people in Madagascar are struggling to get enough to eat because of what is said to be the world’s first famine caused by climate change. 
 
People in southern Madagascar have been struggling with large food insecurity caused by drought for several years now, the conditions getting worse day by day. In August 2021, the food crisis was attributed to be the first famine caused by climate change and not conflict, according to WFP official Shelley Thakral. 
 
Over a third of households lack adequate food at any given time of the year. In addition, Madagascar is highly exposed to climate hazards. Over the past 35 years, more than fifty natural disasters have struck the Big Island, and cyclones, drought, floods, and locust invasions have affected the lives of more than half the population. These natural disasters have brought in their wake food shortages and epidemics including malaria. By late June 2021, the WFP reported that 75% of children had abandoned school and were begging or foraging for food. Local media has said that out of the 2.5 million people who live in the southern districts of Madagascar, around 1.2 million are already suffering from food insecurity, while another 400,000, are in a critical situation of famine. 
 
Climate change has disrupted the people of southern Madagascar’s cycle of farming, affecting smallholder farmers and their neighbors. The country is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years, making the land too dry to farm, ultimately leading to crop failure. 
 
The causes of the drought and subsequent food crisis have been attributed to the lack of rain which usually takes place in the winter months of the year, but hasn’t. This severe lack of rain has led to depleted food sources and dried-up rivers, the leading cause of the famine. 
 
“If global temperatures rise further, Madagascar is likely to suffer from stronger tropical cyclones and, in places, possibly more droughts,” said Lisa Thalheimer, a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. 
 
Scientists also believe poverty, poor infrastructure, and a high level of dependence on rain for agriculture were also behind the country’s food crisis.  
 
WFP ( world food program)  is collaborating with humanitarian partners, and the Malagasy Government, to provide two types of response to the crisis.  Some 700,000 people are receiving life-saving food aid, including supplementary products to prevent malnutrition.  
The current drought’s impact is now being felt in larger towns in southern Madagascar too, with many children forced to beg on the streets for food.