Latest Resources

4 February 2011

Sorghum and the Antioxidant Craze: What Benefit for Africa’s Farmers?

A highly successful health food company in the United States, Silver Plate Inc, is seeking to cash in on the health benefits of sorghum. More particularly, it has begun to commercialize foods rich in sorghum anthocyanins, natural “antioxidant” chemicals found in some strongly coloured plant foods that are believed to have heart and other health […]

12 March 2010

African Sorghum for agrofuels: the race is on

Author: Edward Hammond About the briefing: The interlocking problems of climate change, emissions from fossil fuels, and limited oil reserves have stimulated interest worldwide in the use of plant crops to produce fuel. Agrofuels are not a new idea. Brazil, for instance, has used them on a large scale for many years. The potential scale […]

31 August 2009

Genes from Africa: the colonisation of African DNA

“You people. We thought you folks had taken everything you could. You took our land, you took our homes. You stole our pottery and our songs and our blankets and our designs. You took our language and, in some places, you even took our children. You snatched at our religion and at our women. You […]

28 January 2008

Agrofuels in South Africa – projects, players and poverty

The South African government has readily embraced the establishment of an agrofuels industry, citing job creation, the need for clean and renewable energy and the creation of markets for small-holder farmers, as key motivators. Nevertheless, it is our view that the logic of the Biofuels Strategy to introduce large-scale, mono-crop agriculture into the former homelands […]

10 November 2006

Turning Food into Fuel

GM Drought Tolerant Soybean and its use in the Production of Biodiesel Read the briefing here.