Norman Borlaug is often called the father of the Green Revolution. Now it appears that Bill Gates wants to become its son.

Last month, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would devote $100 million to African agriculture over the next five years, in combination with a decision by the Rockefeller Foundation to chip in an additional $50 million. They have the ambition of sparking a Green Revolution on the continent that more or less missed the first one.

Africa deserves for them to succeed. It is a blighted land--torn by war, ravaged by disease, and plagued by hunger. In no other place has food production actually decreased in recent years.

Addressing these problems is a worthy project for two titans of philanthropy. The Gates Foundation is the world's richest philanthropy, following Warren Buffett's pledge of $31 billion earlier this year; the Rockefeller Foundation, a behemoth in its own right, was crucial in supporting the first Green Revolution.

This time, biotechnology will need to play a key role: The 21st-century's Green Revolution must also be a Gene Revolution. To be really successful, it will have to be.

The first Green Revolution transformed agriculture in the developing world and made it possible to feed a global population that now numbers more than 6 billion. No single breakthrough was responsible for its success, but rather a medley of factors: improved irrigation, better fertilizer, superior equipment, and new varieties of seed.

Likewise, a new Green Revolution must draw upon many sources of innovation. One of these is biotechnology, which wasn't available to the original green revolutionaries a generation ago.

Genetically modified crops won't cure Africa's problems--they are no panacea. If the nations of that continent are ever to thrive, they will need to undergo serious political and economic reforms.

GM foods are just one of several ingredients necessary to solving Africa's nutritional problems.

Yet they are an indispensable ingredient. Farmers in the United States and around the world have benefited enormously from improved soybeans, corn, and cotton. We've planted and harvested more than a billion acres of them in just 10 years. These crops boost yields and reduce costs. They're good for the environment because they help protect against soil erosion and require fewer applications of herbicide and pesticide. The future is even brighter, especially as biotechnology improves additional commodities. Rice--the world's most important staple crop--is on the verge of its very own gene revolution.

What's more, biotechnology is uniquely suited to address a fundamental problem that many poor farmers face: the enormous stumbling block of illiteracy. If farmers can't read the instructions on their bags of seed, fertilizer, and herbicide, the potential for unintended mistakes increases. Biotech crops, however, require much less maintenance than their conventional counterparts. There are still directions to follow, but they're less complicated. These seeds may come from the frontiers of science, but they're right at home in the developing world.

Fortunately, the Gates Foundation already has demonstrated its interest in these approaches, through grants it has given previously. It has refused to accept the anti-scientific paranoia of European activists who seem intent on denying Africans the best agricultural technology the world has to offer.

Just as biotechnology is no cure-all for Africa, the generosity of the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations will only go so far: $150 million is a relative pittance--less than the payroll of the New York Yankees. In 2005, the World Bank spent $537 million on rural development in Africa . Nations that belong to the African Union also have promised to commit a large portion of their budgets to agriculture.

But the involvement of the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations is nevertheless significant. For one thing, it represents a down payment on what may become a much larger investment. But it also carries symbolic weight. This marriage of the world's wealthiest foundation, created by one of history's greatest entrepreneurs, with the foundation that made so much of the first Green Revolution possible, sends a clear signal to the world that biotechnology has much to offer even the poorest people on the planet.