Surviving the Lean Season

Published by Action Against Hunger.

What Is the Lean Season? 

Stores from last year’s crops have nearly run out. The shelves on the market are nearly empty, and the few products left are expensive. Families are forced to make impossible choices—skip meals, sell off precious assets, or go into debt—just to survive. This is the reality of “lean season”, also known as “hunger season” or “pre-harvest season”.

Lean season is the period between planting and harvesting, when food availability is at its lowest. It is the furthest point from the previous year’s harvest, and the current crops need time to grow before the next harvest can arrive. Generally, it occurs between May and September and peaks around June but varies regionally. The length and severity of lean season can be impacted by weather, conflict, inflation, and other factors that influence farming cycles and food availability.

This agricultural gap is deadly and causes irreparable damage to the health of children every year. Climate change is making the situation worse. But there are practical, preventative measures we can take to ensure that every life is well nourished, no matter what the seasons bring.

The Human Toll: How Seasonal Hunger Impacts Families 

When food isn’t available, families have to take desperate measures to survive. Families resort to eating unsafe foods, for example food contaminated with fungi or pests, because that is all that is available to them. Sometimes parents give up food so their children can eat, compromising their own health. In 2024, about 4.3 million people were at risk of severe hunger during the lean season and faced dire circumstances like these.

Malnutrition in children rises during the lean season. According to OCHA, 2.6 million children are expected to become acutely malnutrition during the 2025 lean season in Nigeria alone. Malnutrition is gravely serious, especially for children in their first 1,000 days of life (from conception to the second birthday), when their physical and cognitive development is most malleable. Even if treated, children can suffer with complications from being malnourished for life.

To survive one hunger season, families often make sacrifices that undermine their ability to avoid the next one. Sometimes, they sell livestock or other income-generating assets just to have enough money to eat. Parents seek out additional jobs, and sometimes children drop out of school to work or help around the household. Without education, the children have less chances of rising out of poverty in the future, and a cycle of poverty, hunger, and lack of education is perpetuated.

Climate Change: Worsening the Lean Season 

Climate change is disrupting traditional farming cycles, making lean seasons longer and harsher. It has caused shifts in the timing of key events that guide planting and harvesting of crops such as flowering and insect emergence, both of which impact food quality and crop yields according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These changes can extend periods of food scarcity and create greater unpredictability for what was once a predictable seasonal gap. In Southern Africa, for example, OCHA warned that a changing El Niño pattern coupled with the worst dry spell in 100 years would cause the lean season to start as much as three months earlier than usual — time that some families cannot afford.

The World Bank warns that “About 80% of the global population most at risk from crop failures and hunger from climate change are in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, where farming families are disproportionally poor and vulnerable.” Despite contributing to climate change the least, vulnerable farming families are suffering the greatest consequences of prolonged agricultural gaps. To make matters worse, droughts, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and other extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change. An extreme weather event can wipe away assets and damage soil fertility for years to come. Impoverished families have limited access to financial resources that can help them rebuild from climate shocks, so when the lean season comes again, they are left exposed.

How Action Against Hunger Responds 

1. Emergency intervention

Action Against Hunger is there to provide lifesaving assistance when hunger is at its worst. Children diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition receive essential therapeutic feeding treatment from our expert staff, and over 90% successfully recover to full nutritional health. Food is distributed to hungry families. Cash transfers are made, enabling parents to make the best financial choices for their households, whether that be to purchase food, water, medicine, or other essential items. Whatever a family’s most pressing needs are to get through lean season, Action Against Hunger is ready to do whatever it takes to support them.

2. Prevention

The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report concluded that climate change will increasingly add pressure on food production systems and undermine food security. For families already stricken by months of seasonal hunger, the threat is unfathomable. To help at-risk communities adapt, Action Against Hunger promotes climate-smart agriculture to increase crop yields despite difficult growing conditions. Farmer training programs prioritize agroecological principles that promote sustainable, eco-friendly farming methods that improve soil health and build long-term resilience. Climate-smart agriculture strengthens food security and boosts incomes, so families have more resources to get through the agricultural gap.

As climate disasters become increasingly frequent, early warning systems are playing a vital role in the fight against seasonal hunger. The systems integrate climate predictions, food price tracking, nutrition data, population movements, and market trends to forecast where and when food insecurity may spike—often months in advance. Action Against Hunger develops early warning systems and works with partners to pinpoint when and where to focus our resources during the lean season for greatest impact, saving both lives and livelihoods.

3. A Gender Equitable Response

Women experience hunger at higher rates than men largely due to social and cultural barriers, and malnutrition is not the only threat. A 2022 study found that food insecurity is associated with more than double the odds of experiencing or perpetrating violence against women and girls. Action Against Hunger offers protection services and mental health support to victims of gender-based violence and builds a gender-equitable response to the challenges of lean season. Our livelihoods programs focus on women, uplifting them with skills like financial literacy and climate-smart farming which help them live a safe and dignified life.

While women are especially at risk during the lean season, they are also its most powerful changemakers. About 90% of the time, women are responsible for preparing and purchasing food for their families, and dietary choices are gravely important in times of food scarcity. Action Against Hunger equips women with knowledge on how to make the best nutritional choices in suboptimal conditions. In peer support groups, Action Against Hunger promotes good health, nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, and care practices for mothers, infants, and young children. Sanitation and hygiene practices are essential for fighting malnutrition during the lean season when hunger-causing illnesses like cholera and malaria spike.

Case study: Zambia 

In 2024, Zambia was facing the worst drought in forty years due to a changing El Nino pattern. Total crop failure and the death of livestock that damaged the livelihoods of over 6.5 million people. Water sources dried up, and women faced long, dangerous journeys to obtain it elsewhere. The lean season began early and with brutal force. With over 2 million people facing crisis levels of hunger (IPC phase 3 or above), a national emergency was declared.

Action Against Hunger made a swift intervention. We expanded operations to nine districts in the worst-affected regions, taking a multi-sectoral approach that included nutrition and health, food security, WASH, and climate resilience. We collaborated closely with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to mitigate the spread of cholera, which was breaking out due to limited access to clean water, through WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) initiatives. Lifesaving food assistance was given to families grappling with the dual burden of cholera and food insecurity, helping to aid in disease management and malnutrition prevention. For long term impact, a climate-resilient farming program was launched. The Seeds of Hope Cowpea Project trained 1,285 farmers on agroecological techniques for cultivating drought-resistant cowpeas. This generated ZMW 650,000 in income from crop sales and a reduction of post-harvest losses to nearly zero. Armed with tools and knowledge in climate-smart agriculture, these farmers are now equipped to build a stronger food system in Zambia for the next time lean season strikes.

We cannot break seasonal patterns, but we can break the cycle of hunger and build resilience to seasonal food insecurity. Hunger during the lean season is preventable. With a combination of emergency interventions and long-term resilience-building projects, we can build a future where every life stays well-nourished, even during an agricultural gap.

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Action Against Hunger leads the global movement to end hunger. We innovate solutions, advocate for change, and reach 21 million people every year with proven hunger prevention and treatment programs. As a nonprofit that works across over 55 countries, our 8,900 dedicated staff members partner with communities to address the root causes of hunger, including climate change, conflict, inequity, and emergencies. We strive to create a world free from hunger, for everyone, for good.