This is a sad result of people's rightful and fully earned suspicion of large corporations and the food industry. How many times have new products been introduced, people assured they're safe, and later we find they cause cancer, or men to grow breasts, or children to lose IQ points? The number of these stories that implicate the chemical industry are nearly countless.

Thus, when new techniques are introduced to agriculture, people become immediately suspicious that they are going to be poisoned so that someone can make a few extra bucks. The difference here is that most of the tweaks GMO scientists are making have well understood results as they produce well studied biological components. However, the protestors are not wrong that the same techniques can be used for good or ill. Science suffers as a result of the incentives of our economic system that prioritize profit over health and safety. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the world wide poor over the middle class of the rich world.

If a different system of research and production was instituted that focused on non-profit incentives, I imagine the reaction would be different. The criticism these scientists are facing is not necessarily scientifically grounded, but it is rationally based on a long history of consumers being exploited.

EDIT: A point was made in another comment that malnutrition is not primarily a technological problem these days, it's one of distribution. However, I don't see anything wrong with increasing yields from existing agriculture. Under a non-capitalist system, it would allow us to reclaim part of the environment for nature. Under a capitalist system, it means additional overproduction.