With the prospect of further global food crisis, this is not the time for leaders to back-out of their commitment to halving hunger. France’s President Sarkozy will host this year’s G20 meeting which could create a breakthrough in global hunger eradication – if countries agree the right actions. Make sure they do.

All countries agreed to half hunger by 2015, as set out in the millenium development goals. So far – on the whole – they’ve failed miserably. At this year’s G20 meeting, hosted by President Sarkozy in Cannes in France, the leaders of the world’s most powerful economies must take decisive action to end continuing food crisis. We know it is possible. There are no excuses. And there are very specific things they can agree to.

 Firstly the G20 can reverse 30 years of bad ‘neo-liberal’ policies which have left poor countries hungrier than ever – by investing again in the small holder farmers who are proven to be the key to food security.

 Secondly they can regulate their own financial institutions by stopping them from gambling on food stocks – a practice which creates food price flucuations. They can also make sure that their own companies are regulated to stop them from grabbing land in hungry countries, land which should be used for growing food by local people.

 Thirdly can stop using food from hungry countries for fuel – by retreating on their biofuels policies which take food out of the system and cause land grabs in hungry countries.

 And finally they can champion national and regional food banks to act as buffers in times of high prices or shortfalls.

There are almost no credible food experts in the world that disagee that these steps can help eradicate hunger.

Read more and sign the petition on Peuples Solidaires

We, the undersigned members of African civil society organisations, as well as organisations from other parts of the world, do urgently call for a moratorium on new agrofuel developments on our continent. We need to protect our food security, forests, water, land rights, farmers and indigenous peoples from the aggressive march of agrofuel developments, which are devouring our land and resources at an unbelievable scale and speed.

We call for:

 A moratorium on new agrofuel developments in Africa. Our governments urgently need to stop and think before delivering our continent to the fuel demand of foreign investors.
 No agrofuel targets for Governments in Europe and the rest of the world.
 An international moratorium on agrofuel exports, until the true social and environmental costs can be assessed, and disaster averted.

We have chosen to name this problem “agrofuels” instead of the more common term “biofuels” to make clear that we are talking about the large-scale growing of crops specifically to produce liquid fuels. We are not talking about the use of wood, dung or waste matter. Nor are we talking about small-scale production that is integrated into food production and used for household and local energy supplies. We wish to make clear that the agrofuels push is about large-scale fuel production on massive privatised plantations, driven by the fuel demands of export markets. more

• Please sign on to this Call by sending an email with your name, organisation and country to: agrofuelsafrica@gmail.com