Latest Agribusiness Resources

Cabinet ends corporate impunity: bans highly toxic pesticide Terbufos that killed primary school children

Press release: South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins (SAPToA) 17 June 2025 On June 16th, South Africans remember the many young people who died for our democracy. We also remember the young people who died through neglect as a result of policies that preference profit over people’s lives, such as occurred in Naledi, Soweto when, […]

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SAPToA to brief Parliament on Agrotoxins

UPDATE: Watch a recording of the Parliamentary Briefing below. Business Day covered the briefing, highlighting Judge Navi Pillay’s call for the Department of Agriculture to “urgently start phasing out the use of toxic chemicals, beginning with HHPs. She said it was ‘very disappointing’ that SA was a party to international conventions but had not implemented […]

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Pesticide poisons on farms, poisons in the streets: People’s Tribunal puts government, agrarian feudalism on trial in South Africa

People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins to expose agriculture’s ugly secrets Press Release: South African People’s Tribunal on Agrotoxins For immediate release 18 March 2025 On Human Rights weekend, the South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins will put the government on trial in the court of public opinion for gross dereliction of its constitutional duties to protect […]

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UnPoison’s 2025 update to South Africa’s Highly Hazardous Pesticide Database

On the 21st of February, Unpoison SA published an update of the database of highly hazardous pesticides registered for use in South Africa that they initially published two years earlier. Shockingly, unlike other countries, this database has hitherto not been publicly available. Instead of the government housing this database in a transparent manner, as is […]

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“Palesa’s Brave Discovery” violates children’s and consumers’ rights

SAPToA reports CropLife and Food for Mzansi for weaponising children in comic book & for false and dangerous advertising Press release by the South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins The South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins (SAPToA) has submitted substantive complaints to the South African Human Rights Commission and the Advertising Regulatory Board, calling for […]

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Ambitious action to phase out world’s most dangerous pesticides urged

UPDATE: Anna Shevel, network coordinator for Unpoison SA, a civil society network united behind effecting legislative reform of agrichemical policy, recently joined Pippa Hudson on CapeTalk to unpack the call on governments, policymakers and other stakeholders attending the Fifth International Conference on Chemical Management to urgently phase out highly hazardous pesticides. Explore some of ACB’s […]

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South Africa’s list of highly hazardous pesticides researched and published by the network Unpoison

UPDATE: On 21 February 2025, Unpoison SA published an update of the database of highly hazardous pesticides registered for use in South Africa that they initially published two years earlier. Click here to read the press release. Click here for the updated database. 21 August 2023 This publicly available list of Highly Hazardous Pesticides, hitherto […]

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South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins welcomes UN Expert’s assessment highlighting human and environmental rights violations

UPDATE: UN Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, Dr Marcos Orellana, recently released his country visit report on South Africa. Read the report here. He will present the report, among others, at the 57th Human Rights Council Session in Geneva on […]

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South Africa’s Competition Commission gives conditional approval for Bayer-Monsanto merger

In December 2016 Monsanto shareholders voted in favour of the sale of the company to Bayer for US$66 billion, making it the largest-ever foreign corporate takeover by a German company. The deal requires approval from about 30 regulatory agencies around the world. The Competition Commission of South Africa (CCSA) was the first to be officially […]

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Bayer-Monsanto merger: An existential threat to South Africa’s food system

In December 2016 Monsanto shareholders voted in favour of the sale of the company to Bayer for US$66 billion, making it the largest-ever foreign corporate takeover by a German company. Both Bayer and Monsanto are major global manufacturers of agrochemicals and seeds, including genetically modified seed. A merged entity would be the world’s largest supplier […]

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White men meet in London to plot ways of profiting off Africa’s seed systems

A meeting is to be held in London on 23 March by predominantly white men, with a sprinkling of Africans, some of whom represent private seed companies, to discuss how to make a killing off Africa’s seed systems. Farmers and civil society organisations have not been invited to the meeting, which will be attended only […]

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Acquisition of Africa’s SeedCo by Monsanto, Groupe Limagrain: Neo-colonial occupation of Africa’s seed systems

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) is deeply concerned about the recent acquisitions by multi-national seed companies of large parts of SeedCo, one of Africa’s largest home-grown seed companies. Attracting foreign investment from the world?s largest seed companies, most of who got to their current dominant positions by devouring national seed companies and […]

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