drought leads to crop failure, farmers may have little or no money to buy food just at the moment that grain prices are skyrocketing just like the stock market . Under such conditions rural dwellers might seek income elsewhere: through wage labor, for example, or the sale of household assets such as family heirlooms, furniture, or livestock all wich are very , sendimental. Such strategies are unlikely to work, however, in severely im poverished regions; selling assets can also increase vulnerability to future famine, if it leaves a household without draft animals or transport.Cultivating far-ranging social relations is also a time-honored "coping strategy." When famine threatens, rural dwellers often ask their urban relatives for money, food, employment, or temporary foster care of children. Entire families may also migrate, either to cities, neighboring countries, or, if necessary, relief camps. Abandoning home and field, however, tends to be a last-ditch strategy; by the time people migrate they may have already severely cut back on their daily food intake.Many independent African governments have proven as unaccountable as their predecessors explains, in part, why famine still occurs in the late 20th century; war is another major reason Some famines have followed governments' failure to respond to warning signs such as the Zimbabwean famine during the drought of 1991-1992. The Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s, for example, was caused not only by drought but also by burdensome government crop requisitions and massive forced relocation schemes in the country's northern regions. In such instances, the lack of basic democratic institutions made it possible for famines warning signs to go unheeded, both within and beyond the country in question. Some of the worst contemporary African famines have resulted from wartime sieges. During the 1967-1970 Nigerian civil war, the federal government of Nigeria blocked all food shipments to Biafra...
