A landmark G8 initiative to boost agriculture and relieve poverty has been damned as a new form of colonialism after African governments agreed to change seed, land and tax laws to favour private investors over small farmers...Olivier de Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said governments had been making promises to investors "completely behind the screen", with "no long-term view about the future of smallholder farmers" and without their participation...Yara International, said the initiative helped donors and companies "pull in the same direction" and created space for "dialogues on where there are opportunities, how investments can be of mutual benefit"...Syngenta...said it planned to develop a $1bn business in Africa by 2022 and was working closely with the US development agency...and the UK Department for International Development...Prakash-Mani said the company was not involved in drawing up countries' co-operation frameworks, but added that policy reforms were "essential to ensure that investments made by Syngenta and others have the desired impact on the ground".