Home  »  Home

About the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB)

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) is a 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

4 April 2024

Rising ultra-processed food consumption deepens Africa’s biodiversity, climate and pollution crises 

A series by the African Centre for Biodiversity Factsheet 7 is now released! In this 6th factsheet in the series on ultra-processed food (UPF) in Africa, we briefly discuss how UPF is impacting ecological health and functioning, and driving the interconnected biodiversity, climate, and pollution crises on the continent.  Over the last two decades, food […]

READ

5 February 2024

Game-changer for regulation of genome editing and new tech as SA’s Ag Minister overrules Industry...

PRESS RELEASE 5 February 2024 The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), welcomes the final decision taken by the South African Minister of Agriculture Ms Thoko Didiza, in terms of section 19 of the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) Act of 1997, to uphold the October 2021 decision of the Executive Council (EC) that the risk assessment […]

READ

5 December 2023

Draft Plant Breeders’ Rights and Plant Improvement Act Regulations

Further comments submitted by the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB). In November, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) hosted stakeholder consultations in Pretoria and Cape Town on the regulations of the Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) and Plant Improvement (PI) Acts. The ACB was quick to accept the invitation to attend both […]

READ

New to the subject?

DISCOVER OUR FACT SHEETS