On Tuesday, 19 women in Pakistan were killed in a stampede to get free flour. Just three days before, in Dallas, Norman Borlaug -- the agricultural scientist credited with spearheading efforts to create new varieties of crops to feed expanding populations -- had also died. The strange thing about the deaths in Pakistan is that Borlaug's efforts succeeded.

When he produced his research on new wheat varieties in the 1960s, it looked very likely that Pakistan and India were both on the brink of unprecedented famines, with populations ballooning faster than farmers could keep up. The new crop varieties that Borlaug produced changed that, in same cases doubling production in less than half a decade. Now both nations say that they can produce enough food to feed their populations. Yet, the deaths of these 19 women would seem to suggest otherwise.

The problem today, though, is not that there isn't enough food -- it's that the rise in prices is putting food out of reach for many people. With family budgets tightly fixed and very few people in urban areas able to grow food for themselves, rising prices don't just mean putting a higher portion of income toward food -- it means having less to eat. Even before the deaths in Karachi, food vendors had complained that the lines for free food distribution (traditional at Ramadan) were longer than ever. Some of this is due to food hoarding, and higher transport and storage prices. But farming, too, has become a more expensive proposition and -- with temperatures rising and the water supply from melting glaciers in the Himalayas rapidly disappearing -- it is likely to become even more so. Changing the kinds of crops planted saved millions from hunger, but making sure that food distribution and access are equitable may turn out to be just as necessary.

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