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The harvest failures were devastating for the northern Italian economy. The economy of the area had recovered well from the previous famines, but the famines from 1618-21 coincided because of a period of war in the area. The economy did not recover fully for centuries. There were serious famines in the late 1640s and less severe ones in the 1670s throughout northern Italy.
England also lagged behind the Netherlands, but by 1650 their agricultural industry was commercialized on a wide scale. The last peace-time famine in England was in 1623-24. There were still periods of hunger, as in the Netherlands, but there were no more famines as such.
Famine has a strong impact on demographics. For example, it has been observed that periods of extensive famine can lead to a reduction in the number of reported female children in some cultures. Demographers and historians debate the causes of this trend. Some believe that parents deliberately select male children (by killing or selling female children, see infanticide), who were perceived as more valuable. Others believe that biological processes may be at work.
As observed by the economist Amartya Sen, famine is usually a problem of food distribution and poverty, rather than an absolute lack of food. In spite of this, people die. In many cases such as the Great Leap Forward, North Korea in the mid-1990s, or Zimbabwe in the early 2000s, famine is caused as an unintentional result of government policy. Famine is sometimes used as a tool of repressive governments as a means to eliminate opponents, as in the Ukrainian Famine of 1930's. In other cases, such as Somalia, famine is a consequence of civil disorder as food distribution systems break down.
Famine caused by war or deliberate political intervention is still widely observed in the world today.
Today, nitrogen fertilizer, new natural pestcides, desert farming, and other new agricultural technologies are being used as weapons against famine. They increase crop yields by two, three, or more times. Developed nations share these technologies with developing nations with a famine problem.
Davis Mike, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World, London, Verso, 2002
Greenough Paul R., Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal. The Famine of 1943-1944, Oxford University Press 1982
Sen Amartya, Poverty and Famines : An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982
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