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:
“So if hunger provokes wailing and wailing brings the breast; if the breast permits sucking and milk suggests its swallow; if swallowing issues in sleep and stomachy comfort, then need, ache, message, object, act, and satisfaction are soon associated like charms on a chain; shortly our wants begin to envision the things which well reduce them, and the organism is finally said to wish.”
—William Gass (b. 1924)
“Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)