Latest GM & Biosafety Resources

ACB brings you a new discussion paper Passer à la version française Clique aqui para a versão portuguesa Dear Friends and Colleagues, Expeditious and affordable access to medicines and other healthcare items will be critical to reducing the toll of COVID-19 in Africa. But if nothing is done to compel corporations to make their patents […]

Andean and African farmers condemn digital sequence information of potatoes from centres of origin – opens doors for biopiracy (Passer à la version française) (Por favor, haga clic aquí para el español) Cusco, Peru; Johannesburg, South Africa and Kigali, Rwanda – 05 March, 2020 Billionaire potato overlords on both sides of the North Atlantic want […]

Thank you for supporting our continental campaign to ban glyphosate The deadline for signing on to the petition was Friday, 30 August, 2019. In the next phase of the campaign, many organisations around the continent are sending letters to their governments calling for a ban. In this paper we explain why. Globally, glyphosate and glyphosate-based […]

On Monday 1st July 2019, Target Malaria announced the release of 6400 genetically modified (GM) sterile male mosquitoes in Bana, a village in Burkina Faso – the first GM insects to be released in Africa. This is Phase I – by Phase III, Target Malaria aims to release gene drive mosquitoes. Gene drives are based […]

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has produced a briefing paper in regard to a new and controversial genetic engineering (GE) technology to produce gene drive organisms (GDOs). These GDOs have been specifically designed to spread an engineered, ‘modified’ genetic trait such as sterility, with the potential to eradicate entire wildlife populations and even species. […]

A decade ago, genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes were first released globally, in the Cayman Islands, by UK-based company Oxitec. Further releases followed in Malaysia, Panama and Brazil. In a public relations whitewash, Oxitec has repeatedly claimed that the experiments successfully wiped out nearly 90% of the Aedes aegypti mosquito population, which is one of the […]

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) is pleased to share with you a three part animation series on GMOs in South Africa. These animations (each around 5 minutes long) are available on our YouTube Channel. The animations speak to the following topics: History of Maize Cultivation and Consumption in South Africa GMOs in South Africa […]

As part of the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB)’s monitoring and resistance of GMO activities in SA, we share with you, our latest GMO Alert. In this alert we highlight the following issues concerning GMOs in South Africa: General release of the Monsanto/Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) GM drought tolerant maize on hold as […]

Huge technical advances in molecular biology and big data biology are leading us towards a ‘forth industrial revolution’ with the ongoing development of novel genetic engineering techniques being reviewed by the UN Conventions for Biological Diversity, under the term ‘synthetic biology’. Such techniques are widening the scope and extent to which organisms can be modified, […]

Genetically modified (GM) “male-sterile” mosquitoes are due to be released in Burkina Faso this year by the Target Malaria research consortium. However, Target Malaria acknowledges that there are no benefits to the proposed GM mosquito release. The project is set to apply for a permit to make an open release of 10,000 GM Anopheles gambiae […]

In this briefing paper ACB, TWN and GeneWatch UK discuss that genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes were exported from Imperial College in London to Burkina Faso in November 2016. They are currently in “contained use” facilities in Bobo-Dioulasso, and are being used in experiments by a research consortium called Target Malaria. However, these GM mosquitoes are […]

The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project promises to develop drought tolerance in maize for the benefit of small holder farmers, but is really a project designed to facilitate the spread of hybrid and genetically modified (GM) maize varieties on the continent. WEMA involves five African countries: Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. […]