Famines in Ethiopia

Subjectively the Economy of Ethiopia was based on subsistence agriculture, with an that consumed the surplus. Due to a number of causes, the peasants lacked incentives to either improve production or to store their excess harvest; as a result, they lived from harvest to harvest.

Despite the extensive modernization of Ethiopia in the last 120 years, as of 2016, about 80% of the population are peasants who still live from harvest to harvest, and are vulnerable to crop failures.

As described in the Futuh al-Habasha, this took a heavy toll on Imam Ahmad Gragn's army: "When they entered Tigray each Muslim had fifty mules; some of them even one-hundred. When they left, each one of them had only one or two mules." (Paul Lester Stenhouse translator, The Conquest of Abyssinia [Hollywood: Tsehai, 2003], p. 367) Amongst the dead was the Imam's young son Ahmad al-Nagasi. (p. 373)

As J. Spencer Trimingham describes, "The Amir Nur exerted every effort to help his people to recover, but after every respite the Oromo would again descend like locusts and scourge the country, and Nur himself died (975/1567-8) of the pestilence which spread during the famine." (Islam in Ethiopia, p. 94)

Dejazmach Hailu Eshte, who was then living in Este, settled many "needy people" in his villages as guards. "And hearing of this report... many commanders who acted as he did adopted his example for themselves." (Herbert Weld Blundell, The Royal chronicle of Abyssinia, 1769-1840 [Cambridge: University Press, 1922], p. 411)

Unless indicated otherwise, information is based on the following sources:

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Wikipedia