Conclusion

The only way to be sure of curing a famine, however caused, is to import more food. Any analysis is dangerous if, like Sen's, it underestimates the degree of shortage - it will lead to inadequate relief measures and to a worsening of the famine. The appropriate method of examining a famine has nothing to do with the opposing dogmas of the FAD approach (if such an approach ever existed) and Sen's entitlement theory. The approach normally used in examining price policy and marketing is rigorous and has an enormous explanatory power. A complex model is built up to take into account all institutional factors and other factors relevant to the market. Such a model has the advantage that factual inaccuracies are immediately revealed as inconsistencies. It also has the advantage of taking into account the agrarian problems, the price policies and the marketing systems that are all too often the underlying cause of the famine, and that strongly influence the course of the famine.