Latest GMOs/Biosafety in Africa Resources

OVERVIEW We have been approached by civil society groups in Swaziland to provide comments on the Draft National Policy Document, “Creating an enabling environment for the safe use of biotechnology and its products in Swaziland” and the Biosafety Bill, 2005. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)/World Food Programme (WFP) crop and food supply […]

The Mauritian Paradox Selva Appasawmy, April 2004 OVERVIEW Mauritius has introduced legislation to regulate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and its associated activities. This legislation perhaps represents the most stringent precautionary regulations yet on the African continent. As a Party to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Biosafety Protocol), the Mauritian government can also be said to […]

The government of Malawi published its biosafety draft regulations in The Malawi Gazette Supplement on 13 September 2002 (“biosafety law”), at the height of the GM food aid controversy when several countries in Southern Africa imposed restrictions on the acceptance of genetically modified food aid from the United States. Malawi accepted the GM food aid, […]

Evidently influenced by the UNEP-GEF Biosafety Project, the Biosafety Bill has been drafted principally to implement the Biosafety Protocol verbatim, and in so doing, perpetuates some of the weaknesses and deficiencies of the Biosafety Protocol. For instance, the scope of the Biosafety Bill is predicated on the scope of the Biosafety Protocol where the risks […]

A Bill For An Act Of Parliament To Regulate Biotechnology And Biosafety Matters And For Connected Purposes. The ACB has been requested by a network of NGOs and other civil society groups in Kenya, to analyse and critically comment on the latest draft of the Kenyan Biosafety Bill (“the Bill”). Read the draft bill here.

Ghana – GMO Legislation Read here.

Event Tms60444 (Cassava) Objections To The Application Made By ARC? Institute For Industrial Crops In Respect Of An Experimental Trial Release Application For Event Tms60444 (cassava) to the National Department of Agriculture, South Africa PREPARED BY THE AFRICAN CENTRE FOR BIOSAFETY and GRAIN, with special thanks to Elizabeth Bravo from Accion Ecologica, Ecuador for her […]

Sorghum, a grass of east African origin, is said to have present as early as 8000 years ago. The timing of the emergence of the domesticated sorghum, Sorghum bicolor from the wild species progenitor is disputed with dates ranging from 3700-4900 years ago to not much before 2000 years ago.[i] Four main groups can be […]

GM Drought Tolerant Soybean and its use in the Production of Biodiesel Read the briefing here.

African Groups Condemn US Decision To Authorize Illegal GM Rice Sent To Africa Friends of the Earth Africa and the African Center for Biosafety are today urging African countries to monitor US rice imports and to recall all shipments contaminated with GM rice known as LibertyLink601 (LL601). This call follows the confirmation of the presence […]

The Donald Danforth plant science centre (the ‘Danforth Centre’), who’s partners include Monsanto corporation, has been pursuing disease-resistant Cassava since 1999 for its projects in Kenya. Despite initially claiming a breakthrough, the group has subsequently conceded (on the 26th of May, 2006) that its GM virus resistant Cassava has now lost resistance to the African […]

Two World Bank projects, with funding from the GEF (Global Environmental Facility), propose to introduce genetically modified crops such as maize, potatoes, cassava, rice and cotton into African and Latin American countries that are centres of origin or diversity for these and other major food crops. Civil society organisations warn that DNA contamination from genetically […]