Chris Barrett, who chaired my dissertation committee at Cornell and with whom I have co-authored a good number of articles, was on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” yesterday to talk about the famine in Somalia. In case you missed it, you can listen to it here.
As we were driving through the mountains and losing reception, I only managed to catch a few minutes of the show, but I got to hear Chris explain the “political and bureaucratic” definition of famine used by the United Nations. Chris has written on many topics in agricultural development, but his 2005 book on food aid, co-authored with Dan Maxwell, is perhaps the most relevant thing to read in this case.