Outside, protesters dressed as giant ears of corn and over-sized, plump tomatoes howled against the proliferation of biotechnology in food crops. Inside, bureaucrats from 29 countries mulled over just how they could employ technology to meet the World Food Summit goal to reduce global hunger by half by 2015. That was the scene at the USDA-sponsored Science and Technology Conference in Sacramento, Calif., in June.

I didn't make Sacramento, but I was at the World Agricultural Forum at the St. Louis Union Station in May--a similar meeting with similar protests.

In both cases, the protesters have taken their well-worn act on the road, ignoring or ignorant of the meeting's real purpose.

Inside the St. Louis meeting, one participant talked about how African soils had been mined so thoroughly of nitrogen that corn yields were miserable. The presenter explained that through international funds, a system of nitrogen-fixing trees interspersed with rows of corn had solved the problem.

After the presentation, I headed outside to query protesters about motives. After all, half of the presentations had focused on "sustainability." I wanted to ask why they were protesting a meeting focused on solving hunger via "sustainable" agriculture and biotechnology; a meeting that was sweeping enough to address trade liberalization and disparity in world agricultural subsidies as they affect countries of poor and hungry people.

But Market Street was empty. A policeman told me I'd missed the crowd, which had been noisy, but little else. No WTO mayhem. No volleys of brick and cobblestone, nor a fog of tear gas.

There had been a few protest stragglers, he said. Three to be exact. But they'd wandered off for a cigarette break. This was discouraging. My man-on-the-street interview would have involved a mix of issues: market concentration, trade barriers, labeling or testing biotechnology--the very topics of discussion inside. I'd heard what elected and appointed officials, aid workers and experts said. I wanted to hear from the average walking ear of corn or giant tomato.

That's the problem with the anti-globalism, anti-biotech, anti-corporation activist crowd. They're hard to take seriously. Within their ranks are intelligent and educated people who have valid arguments about world-wide agriculture.

Then there are the folks, who head to a government building and strip on its steps. Sadly, that wasn't the case in St. Louis, May being one of the city's most pleasant months for public nudity.

Hunger, fair trade, biotechnology, these issues will persist regardless of how loud Bob the Walking Cob screams at the police line. And the protester's preferred political structure, anarchy, won't help. The truth is that challenges along the lines of disagreements in trade or staving off hunger are solved in monotonous meetings among people who wear the kind of suit that takes a tie, not clip-on butterfly wings or green tights.

Last autumn, in Zambia, there was a protest of another sort. Faced with starvation, a group of villagers stormed a warehouse where the World Food Program stored relief rations (biotech corn), which had been banned from distribution by the Zambian government. Whether the Zambian government's aversion to biotech grain was fueled by populist anti-globalism, anti-biotech rhetoric or fears of trade ramifications, the incident shows what's at stake. It's a bit more serious than strapping on a tomato suit. What is one man's food politics is the starving man's lunch.

Come to think of it, that'd make a great protest sign.