Famine And Human Agency Case Study

Essay II Famine and Human Agency

Dylan Dempsey

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Human agency is referred to as the individual’s ability to making choices of their own free will. Famine is referred to as extreme and general scarcity of food, as in a country or a large geographical area. Human agency can be affected by a famine in many different ways.

Famine can be highly detrimental to human health and cause a lot of sickness throughout humans. It is clear that there are many biological effects caused by famine but there are also many effects on society and human agency. Famine can cause a breakdown in society and create barriers to economic growth. This can lead to dramatic changes in religions, cultural practices and the structure of government.

In a typical healthy adult, reductions in food intake is quite rare. Reducing the caloric intake of a typical adult inhibits our ability to fight diseases.

Children who experience high decreases in their caloric intake

Zedong was supported in making the decision of what was known as the “Great Leap Forward”. This wild plan was aimed at making the people of China achieve economic advances in just a few years that would usually take other countries decades to accomplish. Zedong believed that in order to achieve his goals that steel production was necessary in his plans. Instead of working in areas that were not being used such as fields for example, above millions of peasants were forced to work on local deposits of iron ore and limestone, cutting down healthy trees to look for charcoal, and to have metal smelted. The result of this work did not go as planned. Steel was not produced. The only thing that was produced was pieces of brittle. These pieces of brittle were no use for even the simplest of tools. Peasants that were working on these sights were then ordered to abandon all private production in food which resulted in high reductions in