So, tropical Africa is a "pole of hunger in the world. In the middle of the food situation here 96х is estimated by experts as critical. The situation is complicated by the fact that, due to extremely low income of about 90% of its residents live below the poverty line. This circumstance, uglublau contained environmental and energy challenges, high rate of population growth cause prolonged, chronic food crisis. As evidenced by the frequent outbreaks of mass starvation in the individual countries and the continuous expansion of its distribution until the formation of stable "zones": the hunger within the Sahel (from the 1970s) in the Northeast and South Africa (in the ' 80s). This paradox is the fact that 2/3 of the continent's population is employed in agriculture.
The situation was most serious in the countries of arid and semi-arid land areas occupied by dry savanna and semi-deserts. In the territories, other than the extremely low agroprirodnym potential increased fragility and reduced the "elasticity" of ecosystems, population growth is about 2 times faster than food production, leading to a sharp decline in per capita food production index. According to the United Nations, in the mid-1990s have experienced a serious shortage of food 26 African States, i.e. about half of the countries of the continent. These included in particular: GvineaBisau, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, Chad, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Togo, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, etc.
As already mentioned, especially the large loss of life have brought unprecedented drought in the ' 80s in the sudanosahel?skoj zone. Today it is clear that the Sahelian tragedy is not limited to natural disasters. There is evidence that even long before the tragedy of the sahel?skie countries have already entered into the environmental crisis, almost entirely due to socio-economic factors. Particularly sinister role played by mixing sparse woody vegetation and overgrazing. The crisis could go slower, but extremely unfavourable climatic conditions suddenly exacerbated it.
Analyzing the food situation in Africa, you cannot ignore the social and material structure of the local population. According to numerous reports, the narrow elite layer, covering only 5% of the local population, gives more than 1/3 of the national income, as well as the lion's share of the food aid provided from abroad. There is also a significant gap in the nature and level of the power supply between urban and rural residents and even among members of individual families.
One of the consequences of the widespread famine in sub-Saharan Africa — education of large migration flows of refugees, often cross national boundaries. The largest number of refugees falls on the Sahel zone and its neighbouring countries. According to the United Nations, only about 20 years in the 80 million Africans (Ethiopians, Chadians, Ugandans and others) fled their villages in search of food, many of them ended up in refugee camps, fed exclusively by international food aid. And today this process continues.
Tropical Africa