Latest Resources

2 August 2024
The decline of FISPs in Malawi – debt, corruption and hunger
What future for smallholder farmers and realising agroecology?

18 July 2024
Is Zambia’s food system collapsing?
Zambia’s collapsed food system: never-ending debt, climate shocks, biodiversity loss and FISPs – the indispensability of transitioning to agroecology In this briefing, we look at how Zambia is facing a gathering food crisis of serious proportions. Amidst repeated droughts and floods, energy rationing, and shortages of drinkable water, food prices are rising and millions are at risk […]

28 August 2023
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 […]

16 August 2023
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 […]

26 May 2023
Assessment of support for agroecology in South Africa’s policy landscape
by Dr Stephen Greenberg (Veuillez cliquer ici pour le français) In March 2023, civil society organisations and farmers met with the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to share views on agroecology and to promote a call from 58 organisations for a national agroecology strategy. In support of the process, the ACB […]

5 May 2023
UNSAFE GM WHEAT TO ENTER SOUTH AFRICA’S FOOD SYSTEMS
DISASTER CAPITALISM, BIOTECH INDUSTRY IN DECLINE & INSTRUMENTALISATION OF WHEAT IN AFRICA In August 2022, the South African government approved a GM wheat variety HB4 for importation as food, feed, and for the purposes of industrial food and feed processing, following Nigeria’s approval in July. Since then, Argentina and Brazil have been the only two […]

17 March 2023
2,4-D GM MAIZE AND THE REGULATORY ANOMALIES REGARDING GMOs AND ASSOCIATED PESTICIDES
The case for categorising 2,4-D as a highly hazardous pesticide in South Africa In December 2019, three genetically modified (GM maize) varieties developed by Corteva (formally Dow AgroSciences) – genetically engineered to tolerate the toxic and highly hazardous chemical 2,4-D – were approved for commercial cultivation in South Africa, despite many long years of opposition […]

20 October 2022
Global Biodiversity Framework stuck in a paradigm of catastrophic growth: what future for Africa?
A series on the GBF by Linzi Lewis and Mariam Mayet As part of a series of briefings by the African Centre for Biodiversity in the lead up to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to be held in December in Montreal 2022, this briefing examines the contradictory nature […]

19 October 2020
We are nature! Human rights, environmental law, and the illusion of separation
Por favor, haga clic aquí para el español Passer à la version française Clique aqui para a versão portuguesa Food connects us with nature. There is no other place where our intrinsic relationship with the living world is as clear. When we eat, our body transforms nature into people. Moreover, the production of nutritious food […]

11 September 2020
DRC’s seed laws set to destroy small farmers’ seed systems
(Veuillez cliquer ici pour le français) This briefing, in collaboration with the Common Front for the Protection of the Environment and Protected Spaces of the DRC (FCPEEP), is concerned with how the Seed Bill of the Democratic Republic of Congo may impact on farmer managed seed systems (FMSS), which remain the very basis for seed, […]