Mention the word “famine” and for many the Band Aid single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” comes to mind. It is now over 30 years since the release of that record, and while many of the artists who featured on it have faded from memory, the threat of famine still pulses in people’s minds.Note the word “threat”. As Cormac Ó Gráda points out in Eating People is Wrong: “By historical standards, what have passed for famines in the new millennium (so far) have been ‘small’. They have killed very few – with the exception of Somalia in 2011-12, a very special case – and have not lasted long.”It is the historical context to famine – technically, not just a severe food shortage but a situation w