Caroline Boin, Project Director at International Policy Network and Douglas Soutgate, Agricultural Economist at Ohio State University, use the occasion of 2009 World Food Day to point out how famine and hunger are caused by bad policies in this excellent article in the Business Daily (Kenya).  Harmful trade policies are chief among the culprits:

"But farmers are hit especially hard: overall, African farmers pay 60 per cent more in export taxes than other African businesses."

Julian Morris, Executive Director of International Policy Network, echoes these sentiments in the Wall Street Journal:

Since the 1920s, global deaths from drought-related famines have fallen by 99.9%. The reason? Continued specialization and trade, which has skyrocketed the amount of food produced per capita, and has enabled people in drought-prone regions to diversify and become less vulnerable.

In places where trade is restricted, people are forced to remain subsistence farmers. So, when drought occurs, the majority suffer and many die. The Indian drought of 1965 affected 100 million people, of which 1.5 million died. India subsequently liberalized and farmers adopted new technologies, notably high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice developed by Norman Borlaug, a truly deserving recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Although the droughts of 1987 and 2002 affected three times as many people, there were only 300 reported deaths in 1987 and none in 2002.