Hunger Season
The hunger season is that period of time when all the food from the previous harvest has been consumed, and the next harvest is still some time away. Even in normal years, many households face an annual reduction in the amount of food they have available. Typically the hunger season will coincide with the start of planting the new crop, or shortly thereafter. So farmers are faced with a shortage of food at the very time they are expected to perform their heaviest labor.
One way of mitigating the effects of the hunger season is growing some non-seasonal crops close to the family home, such as bananas in humid areas, or cassava where it is arid. As an example, a family that has ten banana plants producing fruit during the hunger season is unlikely to experience excessive hardship. Sweet potato, pigeon pea, and Moringa oleifera should also be considered.
Read more about this topic: Tropical Agriculture
Famous quotes containing the words hunger and/or season:
“Pain and fear and hunger are effects of causes which can be foreseen and known: but sorrow is a debt which someone else makes for us.”
—Freya Stark (1893–1993)
“The season developed and matured. Another year’s installment of flowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, finches, and such ephemeral creatures, took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than germs and inorganic particles. Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)