Madagascar Mirrors the Past
In this week's reading we took a look at how the development of a substantial food supply was an uphill battle in Africa. The poor soils left little to be desired in the sense of having a successful farming communities. Iliffe says that historically the African people adapted to their environment instead of changing their environment to fit to their needs. While the emergence of food-producing communities undoubtedly took place on the continent, we have learned little about, if any, food producing communities to exist on the island of Madagascar. In the twenty-first century Africa is a country still struggling with adequate food supply, but the children of Madagascar are not the first to come to mind when we think of the lack of food and the stability of poverty. This article was posted yesterday, and it goes into detail of the struggles the children of Madagascar face off of the mainland. While Madagascar's soil can produce a multitude of crops, the people of Malagasy are forced to sell their rich crops to provide their children with school supplies. The children in the rural communities have a very high chance of being stunted, or so malnourished at such a young age it stunts mental as well as irreversible physical developments in children by age two. It makes little to no sense how an island which has tenable soil must live in extreme poverty with a slim chance that their children will succeed from it without the proper tools or food to sustain a growing mind. The same problem that has plagued the African continent is still at work in the modern era and is reflected by the children in Madagascar.
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