Latest Corporate Expansion Resources

South African Compendium on pesticides is a comprehensive database listing over 100 papers produced over 20 years!

A user-friendly resource for researchers, advocates, and civil society ACB is proud to release a collation of the past two decades of research done on pesticide use in South Africa, in the form of a searchable (and downloadable) database, below. For the first time, this extensive body of scientific evidence of the harm caused by […]

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ACB 2024 Annual Report: Our Year in Review

In 2024, the ACB collaborated with progressive civil society networks to advance an integrated agroecological response to the biodiversity, climate change, and sustainable food systems issues of our time, intensifying our efforts to conceptualise what just and sustainable food systems could look like in the future. We actively participated in several policy processes in South […]

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Reimagining food sovereignty beyond capitalism

In March this year, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) convened the three-day Shifting Financial Power forum in Nairobi, Kenya. Over 100 participants attended, including farmers, researchers, activists, policymakers, and civil society leaders from across Africa. Speaking at the event, Stephen Greenberg of the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) called on AFSA and […]

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South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins exposes government’s failure to protect right to life

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 […]

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Stop chemical war on bodies of farm workers, farm dwellers and their children!

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 […]

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African Perspectives on Agroecology now available for free online

Edited by scholar-activist Rachel Wynberg, African Perspectives on Agroecology: Why farmer-led seed and knowledge systems matter is now freely available online. The widely endorsed book includes a chapter by the African Centre for Biodiversity’s Stephen Greenberg on corporate expansion in African seed systems: implications for agricultural biodiversity and food sovereignty. African Perspectives on Agroecology includes […]

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Wishing you a joyous end of year

“Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousandsby the tens of thousands pound the fallow landinto new dust thatrising like a marvellous pollen will befertileeven as the first woman whisperingimagination to the trees around her madefor righteous fruitfrom such deliberate defence of lifeas no other stillwill claim inferior to any other safetyin the world.”— […]

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ACB attends 25th SBSTTA meeting in Kenya

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) is participating in the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 25th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) in Nairobi, Kenya, 15–19 October 2023, represented by advocacy and research officer Sabrina Masinjila. (She is pictured above, sitting next to Barbara Ntambirweki –  Ugandan lawyer and researcher working […]

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World Food Day 2023: Working towards a just food system for all

This World Food Day, marked annually on 16 October, we’re connecting the dots between agriculture, our wider food system and the multidimensional crises we face, which includes climate change. The industrialised food system, from agricultural inputs and production to consumption, transport and storage, feeds climate change, and climate change, in turn, impacts the food system, […]

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Assessment of support for agroecology in South Africa’s policy landscape

by Dr Stephen Greenberg (Veuillez cliquer ici pour le français) In March 2023, civil society organisations and farmers met with the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to share views on agroecology and to promote a call from 58 organisations for a national agroecology strategy. In support of the process, the ACB […]

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Agroecology advocacy meeting held in Suurbraak

In February, together with the Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG) and Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), the ACB hosted a meeting in Suurbraak, Western Cape, bringing together a network of farmer and civil society organisations to discuss a strategy to approach government to support agroecology. Through the lens of advocacy, and a focus on the challenges facing […]

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ACB at the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15)

The 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) was held in Montreal, Canada, 7-19 December. Governments from around the world came together to work towards an agreement on a new set of goals to guide global action through 2030 to halt and reverse nature loss. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was adopted during COP 15 […]

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