Latest Agribusiness Resources

The South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins (SAPToA) put government on trial in the court of public opinion this past weekend for gross dereliction of its constitutional duties to protect the right to life. Farm workers and community members shared harrowing testimonies of how government has persistently failed to protect farm workers, their families, and […]

Legal loopholes to allow continued use of highly hazardous pesticides, GM crops On the 27th of February, the ACB submitted substantive objections to the South African government’s attempt to backtrack on its commitments to phase out highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), including glufosinate ammonium (GLA), by way of spurious and potentially unlawful “derogation” regulations. The rise […]

Statement rejecting the Draft Regulations for Hazardous Chemical Agents published on 5 April 2024, under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, 1993 (Act No 85 of 1993) On 5 May 2024, the Democratic Alliance (DA) staged a protest outside the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) headquarters in Johannesburg. As part of the political […]

Let’s reclaim our food sovereignty and transform the industrial food system! African organisations participating in the global response to the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), including the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), coordinated an online session, as part of the three days of global counter-mobilisation, which took place during the UNFSS pre-summit, from 25 to […]

On Tuesday March 9, the managing editor of U.S. Right to Know, Stacy Malkan published an article: The next neocolonial gold rush? African food systems are the ‘new oil,’ UN documents say. This article references the African Centre for Biodiversity’s reaction to the Regional Dialogue on African Food Systems, which took place at the Seventh […]

On the pretext of supporting scientific innovation for malaria eradication, African countries vociferously defended a techno-fix that does not address the wider determinants of malaria – but rather, represents the changing face of colonial medicine and threatens the biodiversity of an entire continent. At the UN’s recent Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a proposal to […]

I attended a dialogue on corporate ownership in South Africa in May, in Tshwane, hosted by Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS). There was strong government representation at the dialogue, including from Treasury; Trade and Industry; Minerals and Energy; and Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. Someone from the EU was also there. Corporate concentration is a […]

The Competition Tribunal announced the finalisation of the merger between Bayer and Monsanto in South Africa in May. Bayer had taken the original conditions imposed by the Competition Commission in 2017 to the Tribunal for reassessment. These included selling businesses to black economic empowerment (BEE) compliant companies. Bayer has claimed confidentiality on the conditions, making […]

There are no simple answers when it comes to predicting the future of African food systems. Across the continent, the push to commercialise African agriculture to feed the growing and urbanising population, increase incomes, and reduce poverty is well known. However, this ‘solution’ is also heavily criticised for its ineffective, inappropriate and misdirected approach for […]

This submission is made by the ABC because of serious public interest concerns about the proposed merger between Bayer and Monsanto. This merger is occurring in the context of other related mergers in agricultural input supply, between ChemChina-Syngenta and Dow-Du Pont. We urge the Commission to consider the wider implications of these mergers beyond a […]

MODERNISING AFRICAN AGRICULTURE: WHO BENEFITS? African agriculture is in need of support and investment. Many initiatives are flowing from the North, including the G8’s “New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa” and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). These initiatives are framed in terms of the African Union’s Comprehensive African […]

The undersigned 28 civil society organisations support and represent the interests of smallholder farmers and livestock keepers from Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and are concerned with the conservation of agricultural biodiversity for livelihood security and food sovereignty. View the full statement here.