Nuclear famine is a hypothesized famine considered a potential threat following global or regional nuclear exchange. It is thought that even subtle cooling effects resulting from a regional nuclear exchange could have a substantial impact on agriculture production,triggering a food crisis amongst the world’s survivors.

1. NAME:JOHN RAPHY
STUDENT
ID:191ADB082

2. DESCRIPTION OF THREAT
Nuclear famine is a hypothesized famine considered a potential threat
following global or regional nuclear exchange. It is thought that even
subtle cooling effects resulting from a regional nuclear exchange could
have a substantial impact on agriculture production,triggering a food
crisis amongst the world’s survivors.Many processes can be involved
leading up to a massive food shortage on a global scale. To begin, crops,
stored food and agricultural supplies such as fertilizers and pesticides
can be instantly destroyed in nuclear blasts; nuclear contamination of
soil, air and water can render food unsafe to eat, and crops unable to
grow properly; and uncontrollable fires can impede normal agricultural
or food gathering activities.

3. Experts predicted that in the first few years that follow a nuclear
war, more complex processes, such as the crippling of the
international economy and trade systems, collapse of global food
transportation and distribution networks, loss of exportation
incentives and importation, drastic climatic stress on the
agroecosystems, and associated chaos and disruption in society can
spawn to escalate the problem of food shortage.

4. PREVENTION CAPABALITIES
• There is an urgent need for further study to confirm the declines
in corn, rice and wheat predicted by Ozdogan, Xia and their
colleagues and to examine the effect on key crops in other
important food producing countries

5. • There is a need to explore in more detail the
subsequent effects that these shortfalls would have on
human nutrition including both the extent of the
decline in caloric intake that would result from these
crop losses and the extent of micronutrient deficiencies
that would, in turn, result from this decline in caloric
intake.

6. • The need for further study notwithstanding, the preliminary data in
these studies raises a giant red flag about the threat to humanity
posed not only by the nuclear arms race in South Asia but also by
the larger and more dangerous nuclear arsenals possessed by the
other nuclear weapons states. These studies demonstrate the need
for additional research and underscore the urgent need to move
with all possible speed to the negotiation of a global agreement to
outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons and the danger of nuclear
war.

7. DISASTERS
 TOKAIMURA NUCLEAR ACCIDENT(JAPAN)
The Tokaimura nuclear accident happened on
30th September,1999. Tokaimura was the
centre of nuclear energy in Japan. The
accident happened because three workers at
the Uranium processing plant mixed the
Uranium solution improperly. One of the
workers fell unconscious following a blue flash.
Within a few minutes, the other two workers
had nausea and also had their hands and faces
burnt. The accident emitted radiations that
were fifteen thousand times higher than the
normal levels. Hundreds were exposed to
varying levels of explosion following the
accident.

8.  WINDSCALE FIRE (GREAT BRITAIN)
The windscale fire was the worst nuclear accident in the history of great
Britain. It happened on 10th October 1957. The windscale facility had two
graphite-moderated reactors that were built as a part of the british post-
war atomic project. Unit 1 of the windscale facility caught fire and burnt
for three days releasing radioactive materials. The radioactive
contamination spread across the United Kingdom and rest of Europe. The
windscale fire caused about 240 additional cancer cases. Though people
were not evacuated from the surroundings, precautions were taken to
discard the supposed contaminated items like milk.

9.  CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER
On 26th April 1986, the core of nuclear reactor no.4 at the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant in the then soviet union(now Ukraine)exploded while
running a safety test. This is considered to be the worst nuclear disaster in
the history of mankind.
A sudden power surged destroyed the reactor core and the massive heat
evaporated all the coolant. The fire was followed by the release of an
immense amount of radioactive material to the environment.
The radiation released were 100 hundred more powerful than the bomb
blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Million of people were affected.
To limit the further release of radioactive radiations ,the emergency crew
completely covered the damaged unit with a temporary concrete structure
known as sarcophagus. However this process took a few weeks.

10. CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR
DISASTER

11. The impact on Human Nutrition and Health
Normally a decline in agricultural production affects food consumption by
raising the cost of food; the decline in “accessible” food, the amount of food
that people can afford to buy, is much greater than the decline in “available”
food, the actual agricultural output. The impact of rising food prices is, of
course, felt disproportionately by people who are already malnourished
precisely because they cannot, at baseline prices, afford to buy enough
food.

12. CONCLUSION
We need to consider the immense potential for war and civil conflict
that would be created by famine on this scale. Within nations where
famine is widespread, there would almost certainly be food riots, and
competition for limited food resources might well exacerbate ethnic
and regional animosities. Among nations, armed conflict would be a
very real possibility as states dependent on imports attempted to
maintain access to food supplies. It is impossible to estimate the
additional global death toll from disease and further warfare that
this “limited regional” nuclear war might cause, but, given the
worldwide scope of the climate effects, the dead from these causes
might well number in the hundreds of millions.