Latest Resources

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 […]

ACB co-hosts capacity-building workshop on PVP and farmers’ rights in Uganda

Organised in partnership with the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and the Association for Plant Breeding for the Benefit of Society (APBREBES), ACB is co-hosting and participating in a capacity-building workshop on Plant Variety Protection (PVP) and Farmers’ Rights, currently underway in Entebbe, Uganda. The workshop, bringing together civil society organisations, smallholder farmers, […]

New Genetic Engineering Technologies in Food and Agriculture in Africa

Over the past few years, the ACB has produced and shared several briefing papers concerning new genetic engineering technologies for food and agriculture. Building on this work, and in light of the major deregulation push globally concerning genome editing, including in several countries in Africa, we have produced two updated factsheets on this dangerous distraction […]

Annual report for 2023 celebrates ACB’s 20th anniversary

2023 was a special year for the ACB, as it marked the twentieth anniversary since our organisation came into being, initially in response to the emergence of genetically modified organisms and the attendant biosafety issues in food and agriculture.  As the organisation grew, our focus broadened to include a host of interconnected issues affecting food […]

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 […]

UPOV-aligned PVP laws impinge on farmer seed systems

We stand united in our commitment to addressing the pervasive push for the adoption of plant variety protection (PVP) laws in Africa, aligned with the Eurocentric International Union for Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) 1991 model. We continue to declare our unwavering dedication to championing a just and sustainable agricultural future for the […]

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 […]

Seed harmonisation in Eastern and Southern Africa

Failures, corporate occupation, and the rise of digitalised seed trade: dire implications for farmer managed seed and food systems in Africa Regional seed policy harmonisation processes on seed and plant variety protection (PVP) legislation have been underway for the past 15 years on the African continent. These have taken place under the auspices of various […]

Cultivating diversity for a just agroecological transition in Africa

The inextricable link between agricultural biodiversity, agroecology, climate change, and biodiversity In this briefing, Cultivating diversity for a just agroecological transition in Africa: the inextricable link between agricultural biodiversity, agroecology, climate change, and biodiversity, we highlight the pivotal role of agricultural biodiversity, in particular, crop diversity and its interrelatedness and dependence on farmer managed seed […]

The Africa we want?

A NEO-IMPERIALIST FOOD REGIME REINFORCED BY AGENDA 2063, THE UNFCCC, AND THE CBD Closely linked to this work, is a five part series of interconnected briefing papers which reflect on the inability of both the UNFCCC and the CBD, to address collapsing socio-ecological systems and rather, its complicity in re-embedding geopolitical inequality, debt, and underdevelopment […]