Despite the scars of that horror, despite myriad subsequent famines around the world, despite great advances in science, engineering, wealth creation and food production, despite modern communications that make it impossible to pretend we are unaware that fly-blown children are starving in faraway countries, today 820m people are hungry.

This week, a UN report warned that the number of people going hungry — yes, 820m, 164 times the population of Ireland — has risen for the third year in a row.

The UN found conflict, climate change, and weak economic growth are the causes. So too is the rich, well-fed world’s reluctance to commit resources to try to end this terror.

Indeed, many rich countries are curtailing aid. The OECD recently reported foreign aid is down 2.7% this year, while the Norwegian Refugee Council reports aid agencies have received less than a third of the funds they need.

It must mean something significantly immoral that the very countries cutting aid are spending more and more to try to contain accelerating obesity.

Famine has been weaponised too, as the Syrian government’s destruction of crops shows.

Assad’s “kneel or starve” strategy involves attacks on, health facilities, factories,and farms. Humanitarian relief has been blocked and relief workers attacked.

Appalling as these attacks are the consequences of cutting development aid are almost as profound.

Africa and Asia account for more than nine out of 10 of the world’s stunted children, at 39.5% and 54.9%.

Addis Ababa’s Child Policy Forum said nearly 60m African children do not have enough food despite the continent’s recent economic growth.

A child dies every three seconds globally due to food deprivation — around 10,000 children a day.

Even if figures show a reduction in child hunger globally, more and more children go hungry in Africa, where the problem is seen as a question of political will or, as today’s trials in South Africa show, political corruption.

The conventional comfort that real hunger is a faraway thing no longer stands. The number facing famine is huge but when those struggling with food insecurity are included then the figure is above 2bn.

According to recent US Department of Agriculture figures 11.8% of Americans are food insecure.

That means just under 40m people struggle to feed themselves in the world’s strongest economy.

There are at least 2,000 food banks in the UK where academics have warned that the facilities’ banks are becoming embedded within welfare provision. Figures from 2018 show that 80,000 people in Ireland relied on food parcels.

No matter how it is dressed up, no matter where it strikes, hunger is a resources’ issue. That it persists at such a late point in humanity’s story indicts us all.