Great Sanmran Famine

The Great Sanmran Famine was a severe famine that affected Sanmra and (to a lesser degree) surrounding areas in the early 1600s. After multiple years of minor droughts, a year of severe drought caused widespread crop failures and subsequently severe food shortages throughout the country. The famine not only caused many deaths but also significant shifts in population and national identity.

Background

Weather bad, farming hard.

Mass migrations

As the famine worsened, many members of the northern Sanmran tribes abandoned their traditional tribal lands (which they had maintained after Sanmran unification), instead migrating south to Lake Ani seeking food in Sanmra and other cities along the lake. However, extremely low water levels impeded shipping along the Dera River and reduced fishing grounds, causing widespread food shortages in that area as well.

This in turn caused mass migrations south, toward the coast, in particular focusing on the city of Elten, whose large port in theory would allow it to import food and receive aid. This mass increase in population was initially overwhelming, with the Sanmran government scrambling to build housing for the newcomers. While the port was indeed able to import food, the extreme cost left many still desperate and hungry.

Recovery

Facing a crisis that threatened to destroy all of Sanmra, the Sanmran government (which was based in Elten) implemented a work-for-food program for newcomers, in association with several wealthy businessowners in the city. They sponsored the development of several new business ventures, including a mass cottage industry of home spinning, dying, and weaving cloth for export. These exports were used for emergency food imports and encouraging alternate farming methods that were better-suited for drought conditions.

After two very severe years of drought, weather conditions improved and crop yields returned to normal levels, finally ending the famine. Despite this, the economic, cultural, and political impacts continued to reverberate.

In particular, the Great Sanmran Famine is widely considered to be the end of the historical tribal system in northern Sanmra. With so many members leaving their tribal lands and integrating into cities, many tribes ceased to exist altogether. Similarly, many southerners had to learn to live and work with those from other parts of Sanmra, together adapting their traditions to the new reality. While the loss of traditional ways of life was regretted by some at the time, it also served as a unifying force, molding both northern and southern Sanmrans into a single identy, nearly a century after their political unification in the mid-1500s.

Even after the climate improved, many who had migrated to the cities were reluctant to return, either out of fear of another famine or because of the temptations of city living. The Sanmran government initially offered incentives for people to leave Elten and return to an agricultural way of life, but reduced the program after conflict between people who, during the famine, had moved into and potentially even improved abandoned properties, and former owners who sought to reclaim them. Special courts were set up to handle such situations, as well as to find new tenants for properties not claimed by any tribe or individual.

This approach ultimately resulted in the "tract" agricultural system, in which government-appointed agricultural overseers managed huge areas of land that were subdivided into tenant farms, which famously was one of the major grievances during the Kirapail ni Ato Enkarua (Great Warring Period) of the 1700s.