Against the backdrop of possible famine in southern Africa and debate over genetically modified foods, delegates at the U.N. World Food Summit called Monday for governments to make good on pledges to end world hunger, reports the Associated Press.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the summit by urging greater access for the world's farmers to land, credit, markets and technology - including technology to help them grow more resistant crops.

"There is no shortage of food on the planet," Annan told delegates at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. "But while some countries produce more than they need to feed their people, others do not, and many of these cannot afford to import enough to make up the gap." The summit is expected to conclude Thursday with a declaration recommitting governments to promises to cut hunger they made in 1996 at the first food summit.

During that meeting, delegates pledged to reduce the number of hungry people in the world from 800 million to 400 million by 2015. Today, the number of people without enough to eat, however, remains at 800 million, according to AP.

"So there is no point in making further promises today," Annan said. "This summit must give renewed hope to those 800 million people by agreeing on concrete action."

Pope John Paul II, in a message read to the summit on his behalf, said the reasons that the 1996 goals hadn't been met were due to inertia, selfishness "and to international relations often shaped by pragmaticism devoid of ethical and moral grounds."

Annan cited the growing food crisis in southern Africa as an area for urgent action - an issue that is expected to figure prominently in speeches as well as in side events tackling issues such as the role of women in fighting rural hunger.

An estimated 12.8 million people in six southern African countries are at risk of starvation because of drought, floods, government mismanagement and economic instability.

Other issues are likely to crop up at the summit and on the sidelines as well - among them international trade policies, calls for delegates acknowledge the "right to food" for all, and the use of genetically altered seeds.

The United States has been a major advocate of genetically modified foods, arguing that the creation of drought - and-insect resistant crops ensures greater food security - a goal of the FAO, writes AP.

Opponents say engineered crops pose environmental and health hazards and are designed to benefit the multinational corporations that develop them, not farmers or consumers.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Sunday such opposition was due to ignorance about the benefits of biotechnology, which she said she would highlight in her speech later Monday.

"We are already seeing new products being developed that could help some of the more food-deficit regions of the world," she said in an interview, citing drought-resistant corn and Vitamin A-enriched rice.

The United States has clashed with other delegations on another major issue on the agenda, that of having the summit agree to a code of conduct recognizing the "right to food" of the world's 6 billion people.

Late Sunday, a watered-down compromise appeared to have been reached on the final wording of the document, in which there would be no explicit recognition of the "right to food," the Italian group Other Agriculture said.

Delegates would instead call for a code of conduct that would "create the conditions necessary" to recognize the right to food, the group said.

The United States opposes the concept because it doesn't address practical ways of ending hunger but rather turns it into a philosophical debate, said Alan Larson, the undersecretary of state for economic affairs at the U.S. State Department and a delegation member.

Non-governmental organizations are also pressing summit delegates to open markets to farmers in the developing world, arguing that subsidized imports from the European Union and United States were putting them out of business.