Latest Resources

Unlabelled food tests positive for GM

OUTRAGE AS GM LABELLING LAWS FLOUTED IN SA The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) is outraged that several food products, including baby cereal, maize meal consumed as a staple, a renown and heavily promoted dietary supplement for active sports people and wheat free cereal, have tested positive for GM- yet are all unlabelled. From the […]

Bad News!! SA approves GM rice, barrage of new GM maize varieties for import

The South African GMO authorities have approved Bayer CropScience’s GM rice, Event LL62 for import into South Africa. LL62 has also been approved for commercial growing in the United States and for import into Canada, New Zealand and Australia. South Africa is a net importer of several varieties of rice, which it imports from around […]

Activists win right to intervene in Pioneer/Panaar seed merger

FIRST STEPS TOWARDS ADDRESSING IMBALANCES IN FOOD SYSTEM IN SOUTH AFRICA The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) welcomes the decision made by the Competition Tribunal on 19 August 2011, to allow the ACB to intervene in the merger proceedings involving multinational seed giant, Pioneer Hi Bred’s bid to take over South Africa’s largest seed company, […]

Cautious welcome for mandatory labelling of GM food in South Africa

PRESS RELEASE FROM AFRICAN CENTRE FOR BIOSAFETY AND SAFEAGE 5 APRIL 2011, Johannesburg, and Cape Town, South Africa. The African Centre for Biosafety and SAFEAGE cautiously welcome the mandatory labelilng regime established by the regulations made in terms of the Consumer Protection Act for GM food. According to Mariam Mayet of the ACB, “the mandatory […]

SANBI STUDY RAISES ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS WITH GMOS

The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), tasked by law, with monitoring the impacts of GMOs on the environment, has released its first report on 28th January 2011. The report co-produced by SANBI with premier biosafety unit, Genok in Norway and a number of South African universities record the findings of a three-year study on […]

Label GM Food: Our Right to Know

Issued by ACB/SAFEAGE Attention: News Editors For Immediate Release Tuesday, 18 January 2011 The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) and the South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering (SAFEAGE) have launched a nation-wide ‘Label GM Food: Our Right to Know’ campaign, to encourage the government to provide meaningful labelling for all genetically-modified (GM) foods in […]

Soya – Gates Foundation & Cargill Paper

The SOYA MODEL implies a war against the population, the emptying of the countryside, and the elimination of our collective memory in order to shoehorn people into towns and convert them into faithful consumers of whatever the market provides. The impacts of this model go beyond the borders of the new Soya Republics. The dehumanisation […]

Relief as Monsanto abandons GM canola in South Africa

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) is relieved to learn that Monsanto has withdrawn its application to conduct GM canola field trails in South Africa. GM Canola is predominantly grown in the USA, Canada and Australia. The global market for GM canola, used principally for cooking oils and animal feed, is estimated to be worth […]

Spoiling the Fruit of the Vine

South African GM Grapevine field trials to go ahead Press release: African Centre for Biosafety and Earthlife Africa eThekwini7 August 2009 South African authorities have given the go-ahead for open-air field trials of grapevines genetically modified (GM) to resist fungal disease, despite the failure of fungal resistant grapevines in German trials several years ago. The […]

The race to own Africa’s sorghum genes!

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) today published a third research paper in its ‘Sorghum Series’ titled, ‘The Sorghum Gene Grab.’ The hunt for agrofuel and drought-tolerant crops has propelled a huge commercial interest in sorghum, including a spate of patent claims over different components of the sorghum genome. Patent claims have been lodged by […]