African agriculture is in need of support and investment. Many initiatives are flowing from the North, including the G8’s ‘New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa’ and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). These initiatives are framed in terms of the African Union’s Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP). This gives them a cover of legitimacy. But what is driving these investments, and who is set to benefit from them?

This statement, signed by close to 60 organisations from 37 African countries, places these ‘modernisation’ initiatives in the context of the gathering global crisis with financial, economic, energy and ecological dimensions. It further calls upon these institutions to recognise the immense diversity found in African agriculture, and frame their responses accordingly.