My first experience of campaigning was volunteering for the Freedom from Hunger movement as a schoolboy.
My older brother ran a small newspaper to raise money for Oxfam's charity appeal – and I helped him.
We billed it as the only paper whose proceeds were devoted exclusively to helping the hungry.
As an 11-year-old I believed then what I believe now: that in a world so productive and fertile it shames us that so many still face a daily struggle to feed themselves and their families.
In the 1960s when I was first galvanised by this injustice and inspired by the example of President Kennedy, almost 40 per cent of the world's population went hungry. For 40 years we made steady progress and reduced the numbers underfed to 15 per cent of the world's population.
But today there is a new danger that rising food prices and the global recession will cause numbers to rise again. Last month – for the first time – the number going hungry passed one billion people. That's almost one in seven of our fellow human beings who are not guaranteed even basics such as rice and bread to eat each day. A hunger emergency looms and the world must act.
And it is not just the numbers going hungry that are soaring because of these twin crises.
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