New Delhi, March 18 -- Paul Ehrlich's 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb, opened with an apocalyptic vision of humanity's near future: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

Few have been more wrong. Today, we produce more than enough to feed every person on the planet, and if we still have food insecurity in some corners of the planet, it is because we haven't yet learned to deal with spoilage. If we can preserve all the food we produce till it gets to those who need it, we would easily be able to feed the millions who still go hungry. That we cannot, despite the technological progress we have made, is one of the ...