By JEFF OTIENO

After years of studious silence, the United Nations Development Programme has finally recommended genetically modified foods to fight famine and malnutrition. The twin calamities threaten millions Third World lives.

In its report, Human Development Report 2001, the organisation says many developing countries could reap great benefits from GMOs, whose use has remained as controversial as their invention. The report stresses the GM techniques' "unique potential" for creating virus-resistant, drought-tolerant and nutrient-enhanced crops.

"Malnutrition affects more than 800 million people worldwide. GMOs would be valuable to poor farmers working in marginal lands in black Africa," the report says. While many scientists consider GMOs the panacea to the world's unstable food situation, environmental groups, led by Green Peace, see them as a threat to nature and human life.

In Kenya, the Ministry of Agriculture has thrown its weight behind their use to resolve the food deficit bedevilling the country.

Now the UNDP urges public investment in research and development to ensure biotechnology meets the agricultural needs of the poor. "We can't count on the private sector alone to do the job," says Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, the report's leading author.

Kenya has entered a biotechnology research plan with multinational companies such as the controverted Monsato, headquartered in the US. Recently, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute said it had developed a superior-quality, disease-resistant sweet potato Monsanto's help.

What continues to worry environmentalists, however, is the question of biosafety. Kenya introduced tight biosafety legislation only in 1998.