Zimbabwe turned away a U.S. donation of 10,000 tons of corn last month, even as the southern African nation faces a dire food shortage. The nation refused the shipment because the corn was not certified as free of genetic modification.

Better that a quarter of its 12.5 million people quietly perish from hunger, reasoned the government of Robert Mugabe, than allow genetically modified corn to creep into Zimbabwe's food supply.

It is against that backdrop that Mugabe, along with the leaders of about 80 mostly developing countries, descended on Rome this week for the United Nations World Food Summit.

Much of the four-day assemblage was given over to concerns that not enough progress has been made toward the target, set forth during the last U.N. food summit in 1996, to halve the number of the world's hungry people, from 800 million to 400 million by 2015.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan lamented that, in "a world of plenty," 24,000 people die each day from starvation or diseases made fatal by malnutrition.

And nowhere is that tragedy more pronounced than in southern Africa, where, according to Annan, a host of countries – including Zimbabwe, as well as Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique – "face a risk of outright famine over the coming months."

Yet, it seemed that all of Rome was plastered with posters decrying genetically modified foods, which hold out great promise for feeding the world's hungry and malnourished.

And foes of GM foods, of biotechnology crops, were well represented among both official government delegations and nongovernment organizations participating in the U.N. food summit.

Like Ana Bravo, biotech coordinator for Friends of the Earth, an environmentalist group, who demanded that the World Food Program refuse to accept biotech food donations.

And like Fred Kalibwani, an ecology activist from a Zimbabwe-based NGO, who said that development of genetically modified seeds somehow "will be tragic for Africa in the next few years."

But biotech foods, genetically modified seeds, may very well be the salvation for Africa in coming years. And for hungry, malnourished populations throughout the world.

Indeed, roughly a quarter of global food aid already comes from seeds genetically modified to withstand herbicides or to fend off destructive insects.

And that proportion could rise to more than three-quarters in the next several years or so as biotech companies introduce genetically modified wheat.

The promise of biotech foods is exemplified by a genetically modified strain of rice developed several years ago by researchers in Switzerland.

"Golden rice," as it is called, generates enough beta carotene for the body to manufacture the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A.

Which could be extremely healthful for the millions of children throughout the developing world at risk of vitamin A deficiency. They are vulnerable to any number of chronic ailments, from weakened immune systems to blindness.

And other biotech foods offer similar promise for developing nations, as documented by the BBC in a recent report on genetically modified crops in Africa.

The program featured a Uganda farmer, Margaret Nabwiire, who grows genetically modified bananas. The fruit matures faster, produces higher yields and are disease resistant.

And there are wondrous benefits for those who eat the genetically modified bananas. For they have been bioengineered to incorporate cholera vaccine. That represents a godsend for the people of South Africa where cholera is a serious problem and much of the at-risk population has little hope of getting the vaccine.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman was in Rome this week for the World Food Summit. And she promised the United States would provide a third of the 1.2 metric tons of food aid needed to forestall famine in southern Africa.

But the agriculture secretary made an even more important promise, one that offers the developing nations of Africa a means to address the long-term food needs of their peoples.

A 10-year, $100 million "collaborative agricultural biotechnology initiative." The aim is to boost research on varieties of crops better suited to growing conditions in developing countries.

That's not to say that biotech crops, that genetically modified foods, will end hunger as they know it in Africa and the developing world. Only that biotechnology holds out the very best hope of halving the ranks of the world's hungry by 2015.