Recent literature on the agrarian crisis in Africa questions the adequacy of a technocratic approach to explaining and alleviating the crisis. Bringing about sustained growth in African agricultural output and rural incomes will require more than a technological breakthrough. Farmers' capacity to employ improved technology and to increase output and investment depends on their access to productive resources—broadly defined to include not only human, financial and material inputs, but also the knowledge and institutional means to use them effectively. To advance knowledge of the causes of the agrarian crisis and strengthen capacity to develop meaningful measures to alleviate it, it is necessary to understand the conditions under which African farmers gain access to productive resources and the ways in which conditions of access affect resource use and agricultural performance.