Kere (famine)

The Kere (also Kéré; from the Antandroy dialect of Malagasy, literally meaning 'starved to death') is a recurrent famine affecting Madagascar's Deep South. Since 1896, sixteen such famines have been recorded. The average gap between Kere events is two years. The famine, affecting a region of approximately 50,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi) from the Mandrare River to the Onilahy River, kills thousands of people per year and contributes to the severe poverty of the region—97% of the territory of the Kere are classified as "very poor" by Madagascar's Institut national de la statistique. Though aid and interventions aimed at alleviating the Kere have taken place for decades, the famine has been resistant and is worsening. In the Kere zone, whose residents are called o'ndaty, non-Kere periods are called anjagne ('good' or 'peacetime').

The southern regions of Madagascar used a number of introduced cacti species as famine food since the late 1760s, but the so-called raketa cactus had died out by the late 1920s, when they were consumed by cochineal insects (Dactylopius tomentosus). The first major kere event had started by 1930 and lasted until 1934. The second kere event started in 1943 due to El Niño, and at least one period of kere has taken place in nearly every decade since then.