Latest Resources

15 December 2017

Harmonised corporate seed laws in Africa: Where does this leave smallholder farmers?

The expansion of the corporate seed market, embedded in the green revolution agenda in sub-Saharan Africa is progressing very fast. This expansion is going hand in hand with regional policies and regulations – in a process also known as seed harmonisation – that will enable facilitate trade across national borders. This has been the case […]

16 October 2017

Is transformation on the Horizon?

Someone asked my son when he was about three years old, ‘What is your father’s job?’ He said, ‘Sibseba’, which in Amharic means ‘meetings’. This was because every time my son used to ask me where I was going, I used to tell him to sibseba. At the time, I was coordinating the Ethiopian civil […]

3 July 2017

Resistance is fertile! Farmers rise up against South Africa’s corporate seed laws

Calls to decolonise our seed system at Gauteng public hearings on the Plant Improvement and Plant Breeders’ Rights Bills. Are there alternative systems that put farmers at the centre, do not reduce genetic and agricultural diversity, and support agroecology, seed and food sovereignty and resilience? South African smallholder farmers, consumers, academics and civil society at […]

28 January 2006

The Long, winding road to a Biosafety Protocol – a South African view

At the negotiations for the Biosafety Protocol in Cartagena, the South Africa government surprised critics by displaying a maturity and understanding of the issues and concerns facing developing countries on the question of genetically engineered organisms. This in spite of attempts by the ‘Miami group’, a negotiating group representing the largest producer nations of biotechnology, […]