The world is producing more food crops than ever before

If you ever find yourself in Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan, turn down Vesey Street toward North End Avenue. You’ll arrive at something unusual: a collection of stones, soil and moss, artfully arranged to look over the Hudson River.

It’s the Irish Hunger Memorial, a piece of public artwork that commemorates the devastating Irish famine of the mid-19th century, which led to the deaths of at least 1 million people and permanently altered Ireland’s history, forcing the emigration of millions more Irish to cities like New York.

The Irish famine is unusual in how heavily commemorated it is, with more than 100 memorials in Ireland itself and around the world. Other famines, including ones that killed far more people like the 1943 Bengal famine in India or China’s 1959–’61 famine, largely