Being based in the South, we are synchronising with the onset of spring to share our fresh new website and introduce our beautiful new logo, hand-painted by Mzwandile Buthelezi, who also invigorated our organisation’s palette and look. We invite you to explore our crisp user-friendly site and take this opportunity to recap some highlights of the year so far.

There are several highlight segments in our playlist from the conference, including a clip featuring Lovelyn Ejim, farmer and founder of the Network of Women and Youth in Agriculture. She commented: “Farmers, when they understand the implications of these GM varieties, will refuse to plant them. No to Bt Cowpea.” 

Recently HOMeF hosted a workshop with judicial officials, lawyers and representatives of the Ministry of Justice, to examine issues related to GMOs and biosafety in Nigeria. A key recommendation is that the National Biosafety Management Agency Act urgently needs to be reviewed to close existing gaps and establish measures for strict implementation.

Other countries are also under pressure to adopt this technology; namely Burkina Faso and Ghana, and the latter is putting up a fight with two related legal battles being waged by Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG). First, they are trying to stop the entry of BT Cowpea and GM rice into Ghana through a legal suit in the High Court. This is groundbreaking social resistance against the release of a GM indigenous centre-of-origin crop. 

Simultaneously, FSG is challenging the constitutionality of the Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Act 1050, 2020 in the Supreme Court. Their claim points out that UPOV 1991 not only infringes on farmers rights but is also in contradiction of international agreements and treaties that provide for sui generis models affording protection of farmer seed systems and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources and related traditional knowledge. Read more here.

FSG’s Edwin Baffour updated us that the Ghana Judicial service is currently on annual break and FSG awaits to hear of a date later this year for the Supreme court PVP case, as well as a date in the High court, when the defendants’ second of three witnesses is expected to testify. Find out more in this two-part conversation with ACB.

The developments in Nigeria, Ghana and Burkina Faso, as well as other threats facing the continent in terms of the push of second generation technology, despite the failures of the first generation, was on the agenda at a meeting hosted by the ACB in Kenya.

Following on from online meetings and with support from Professor Marion Mutugi, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, the ACB hosted another meeting in May in Kenya, which led to the founding of the Network of African Scientists for Biosafety, Biodiversity, and Health (NASBIOH) – Réseau des Scientifiques Africains pour la Sécurité Biologique, la Biodiversité et la Santé (ReSABS) in French. Seipati Mokhosi, an Accelerated Academic Development Programme lecturer in the School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, who attended the event, was quoted in a university article, as saying: “One of the main issues related to the growing and emerging trends has been the use of genetic editing tools and techniques on the continent, and how responsive corporate science and scientists are to the current issues of Africa.” You can read the article here.

The ACB participated in the La Via Campesina Southern and Eastern Africa (LVC SEAf) Regional Youth Training in Harare, with a focus on the historical conditions that shaped the current agro-food systems/agriculture practices. ACB’s Advocacy and Research Officer Rutendo Zendah spoke to Chengeto Muzira from the Zimbabwe Smallholder Farmer Forum (ZIMSOFF) and Lynne Effie Atieno of the Kenyan Peasants League here.

Comments are open until 8 September on a  draft  White Paper that points to the need for a shift to conservation that enables access and beneficiation by communities adjacent to protected areas, as well as for previously disadvantaged individuals. The ACB are preparing comments, which we will put in the public domain. You can have your say here.

The ACB is bringing farmers from around the continent together for on-site training and sharing of experiences in October. Participants will meet in Harare, Zimbabwe and then travel to two districts – Chimanimani and Mudzi. This is hosted together with the Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) Zimbabwe and in collaboration with Towards Sustainable Use of Resources Organisation (TSURO) and Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT). We have also embarked on producing a film about seed in Southern Africa so watch this space for more details...