The European Union (EU) is in the process of defining a new set of priorities in the African agricultural and food sectors, through the proposed implementation of the EU-Africa Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs. Their Task Force for Rural Africa published a report with draft recommendations, which is oriented towards promoting the capitalist transformation of African agriculture, through a path of ‘accumulation from below’ based on: family farmers; participatory democracy and planning; policy space; technological improvement and efficiency; ecological balance; protection of land rights; and rural diversification. It thus includes some of the demands of those like the food sovereignty movement – around local markets, public support for family farmers, participatory planning and knowledge building – but embeds them in a framing of private sector and entrepreneurial growth that essentially intends to tie African farmers into global circuits of finance and accumulation. The African Centre for Biodiversity submitted a commentary on the report, as part of the stakeholder engagement process.