Latest Resources
10 February 2023
JUDGMENT ON ACB’S HIGH COURT REVIEW OF MONSANTO’S ALLEGED DROUGHT TOLERANT GM TRAIT PENDING
On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, 7-8 February, the ACB’s case was heard in the High Court. Five years earlier, the ACB lodged the application for this review, to overturn the decisions of the South African Executive Council (EC): Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) Act, the GMO Appeal Board, and the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and […]
29 January 2018
Comments on the Competition Amendment Bill 2017
ACB has responded to the Economic Development Department (EDD) call for comments on the Competition Amendment Bill 2017. The amendments aim to strengthen the powers of the competition authorities to proactively investigate and develop remedies to deconcentrate markets. Although we do not agree with EDD’s entire approach to concentration (for example, that concentration and economies […]
20 May 2014
The Consumers Have a Right to say NO! No GMO in our Bread!
Dear CEO Pick n Pay Mr Richard Brasher, CEO Spar Mr Wayne Hook, CEO Shoprite/Checkers Dr. Whitey Basson, CEO Woolworths Mr Ian Moir, CEO Tiger Brands, Mr Peter Matlare, CEO Premier Foods Mr Tjaart Kruger, MD FoodCorp, MD Mr CB Sampson, We, the undersigned members of the public, are outraged to learn that our daily […]
4 June 2013
Tiger Brand snubs consumers on GM Purity baby food concerns
Baby FoodTiger Brands has snubbed South African consumers who petitioned the company about high levels of genetically modified (GM) maize found in Tiger Brand’s Purity baby food products. In April 2013 GMO watchdog organisation, the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB), sent two Purity products to an independent GMO testing laboratory to test for the presence […]
10 September 2012
GMOs have made no impact on food security in South Africa in fourteen years. ACB responds to DA p...
On the 5th of September 2012 James Wilmot, Democratic Alliance MP and Shadow Minister of Trade and Industry, issued a press release claiming that poor consumers cannot benefit from the “cost savings offered by GMOs” because genetically modified (GM) foods cannot be labelled. He claimed that labelling could not be implemented without a testing facility […]
3 December 2010
Deep concern: Patel’S New Growth Path (NGP) supports Green Revolution for smallholder farme...
Dear friends and colleagues, The ACB is deeply disturbed and disappointed that Minister Patel’s NGP has not embraced new thinking on agriculture policy which requires breaking from a wholly inequitable and ecologically unsustainable chemical-dependent system. The NGP lacks vision as it has missed an important moment to move South Africa towards systems that reconnect food […]
28 January 2010
Marketing of GE potatoes in South Africa imminent: African farmers face loss of markets and consu...
South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council (ARC) has developed a GE-insect resistant potato (SpuntaG2, which is a Bt potato) with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This potato now awaits safety assessment and general release approval from the national authorities. Read here.
5 December 2009
JENNIFER THOMSON’S GM Virus Resistant Maize
During 2007, researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT), particularly Professor Jennifer Thompson, in collaboration with Pannar seed South Africa, announced that they had developed transgene-derived resistance to the pathogen Maize-Streak-Virus (MSV). They also claimed to have developed the first maize with transgenic MSV resistance, heralding the first all-African produced genetically modified crop plant.[i] […]
15 May 2009
Africa’s Green Revolution rolls out the Gene Revolution
The ‘New Green Revolution in Africa’, touted since the 1990s, was given renewed impetus two and a half years ago, when the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations launched the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Although AGRA itself does not incorporate genetically modified (GM) crops in its projects, the ominous presence […]
22 August 2008
Letter from McDonalds Restaurant re GM Potatoes
Allegedly, McDonald’s is committed to providing quality food to our customers and source our products and ingredients from the best suppliers locally and globally. In South Africa, their potatoes are sourced from McCain Foods and so we asked their Managing Director, Mr Owen Porteus, to provide us with full clarification on the use of GMO […]