Latest Agribusiness Resources

Small-scale maize millers cannot compete with the major millers who control and dominate the industry. What are the alternatives for small-scale farmers who want to make a living from their land? Download this factsheet: English | Afrikaans | Sotho | Zulu To read the rest of the fact sheets in this series, click here.

Between 1999 and 2007, Tiger Brands, Pioneer Foods and Premier Foods fixed the price of bread and maize meal, two of our staple foods. The poorest people in South Africa, who depend on these foods for their daily meals, were the hardest hit by the price fixing. Download this factsheet: English | Afrikaans | Sotho […]

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 […]

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has today released its research report based on field work conducted in Malawi, titled “Running to stand still: Small-scale farmers and the Green Revolution in Malawi.” The research, conducted by the ACB in collaboration with the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM), Kusamala Institute of Agriculture and Ecology […]

The Peoples’ Dialogue and the Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE) have written a short booklet on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), the African Union’s framework for agricultural development for Africa, titled “Do African Farmers Need CAADP?” The objective is to summarise and simplify information on CAADP so as to, collectively, create […]

In this briefing, we deal with the Pioneer/Pannar seed merger, outlining the evidence led by the ACB in opposing the merger, what is at stake for South Africa if the merger is approved and the extent to which the merger will deepen structural imbalances in the South African economy. Read the briefing here.

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) learned today that US multi-national seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred has been granted permission by the Competition Appeal Court, to acquire the nation’s last major independent seed company, Pannar seed. The ACB was an intervening party, opposing the merger in the public interest. In granting the merger, the court has […]

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) applauds today’s decision of the Competition Tribunal (Tribunal) to prohibit the seed merger between multinational seed company Pioneer Hi Bred, and South Africa’s largest seed company, Pannar Seed. During December 2010, the Competition Commission prohibited the merger and the merging parties referred the Commission’s decision to the Tribunal for […]

The Bunge/Senwes joint venture signals the first significant investment by Bunge in Africa. Bunge is one of the world’s largest and most influential corporations and is amongst a handful of companies dominating global trade in agricultural commodities. Senwes holds a dominant position in the South African market for the storage and handling of grain crops. […]

The Competition Commission has on 2nd September 2011, approved, with conditions, a joint venture between the multinational grain trader Bunge, and South African grain storage and trading company, Senwes. In terms of the joint venture, a separate legal entity, Bunge Senwes Proprietary Ltd, has been formed, with each party controlling 50%. According to Mariam Mayet […]

Several groups in South Africa, including the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB), the Surplus People Project (SPP), Trust for Community Outreach (TCOE), the Food Sovereignty Campaign and Biowatch South Africa submitted a detailed report to the Competition Commission in support of their requests that the Commission investigate Monsanto’s extraordinary market power in South Africa. The […]

This paper provides a brief overview of the biofuels industry in the context of the South African government’s 2008 policy. Our key finding is that the large-scale biofuels industry has stagnated almost to the point of non-existence. There is, however, a growing impetus to address the shortcomings in government policy that has held the industry […]