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The ACB welcomes the decision by the Executive Council, GMO Act that new breeding techniques (NBTs) and their products must be subject to the existing regulatory framework for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and critiques industry’s repudiation of this.

About the ACB

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) is research and advocacy organisation working towards food sovereignty and agroecology in Africa, with a focus on biosafety, seed systems and agricultural biodiversity. We are committed to dismantling inequalities and resisting corporate-industrial expansion in Africa’s food and agriculture systems.

Our Focus Areas

GM & Biosafety
Ac Bio Home Biosafety

Within networks of partner organisations we work towards the building of public awareness and capacity to respond to, and resist, the uptake and/or further expansion of first and now second GM technologies, such as gene drives or genome editing, in Africa.

Seed Sovereignty
Ac Bio Home Seeds

ACB’s seed sovereignty work seeks to resist commercial seed laws and policies that threaten smallholder farmers’ critical role in maintaining, adapting and reproducing agricultural biodiversity, and farmers’ rights associated with recognition of this role.

Corporate Expansion
Ac Bio Home Corporate

The ACB monitors and contests corporate expansion by conducting research and analysis, sharing information, and working with networks to build popular resistance, with a focus on agricultural input supply (seed, fertiliser, pesticides).

Our Approach

We have a long and respected track record of opposing the aggressive push of the Green Revolution on the African continent, and the national and regional institutional architecture driving this.

At the same time, we work with partners to deepen a shared understanding of, and realise transitions to, agroecological farming practices that provide an alternative to the corporate capture of African seed and food systems.

Trending

2 Dec 2022

Civil society and farmer network organisations call on the South African Department of Agricultur...

This is the main thrust of the open letter we sent to Minister Thoko Didiza today, with Biowatch, Environmental Monitoring Group, the Association for Rural Advancement, and Tshintsha Amakhaya. So far 50 organisations have endorsed the letter.  This letter is intended to push the Department to engage systematically and meaningfully with CSOs, including household and […]

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25 Jul 2022

The battle over regulation of new breeding techniques in South Africa

– A blog by ACB Director Mariam Mayet Snapshot In October 2021, the South African (SA) government determined that the regulatory and risk assessment framework that exists for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will also apply to new breeding techniques (NBTs), which make up a host of new genetic engineering technologies. This decision appears to follow […]

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29 Nov 2022

The changing nature of Kenya’s seed sector: lessons from the potato seed industry

In this paper, we discuss the changes taking place in the Kenyan seed sector, with a focus on potato. The changes paint an extremely disturbing picture of how draconian agricultural and seed laws and policies are undermining smallholder farmers and their seed and food systems.  These laws and policies form part of the architecture that […]

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