Chronicle of the Causes of Famine in the World during 1840–2019 and their Risks

Abstract Famine still exists in this world, hindering the achievement of sustainable development goal 2: zero hunger. The history and mechanism of famine have been broadly studied; however, few studies have focused on quantitative and long-term analysis of the general characteristics of famine. This study aims to analyze the factors influencing famine and estimate its risk. We developed a famine database and estimated the probability of the occurrence of famine through logistic regression with physical and social factors. Herein, we identified a few factors that are strongly related to the occurrence of famine and found that soil water and gross domestic product per capita are the most influential. By extrapolating the logistic regression to a future scenario, we revealed that although the number of countries with high famine risk would decrease, some countries in sub-Saharan Africa would remain at high famine risk for a while.