Latest Resources
30 November 2012
African farm analysts demand answers from UK over DfID funding Is the UK setting up a poverty tra...
The Africa Centre for Biosafety (ACB), supported by Food & Water Europe and the Gaia Foundation, today wrote to UK Ministers for International Development, Business and Environment asking for evidence for the basis of UK overseas aid policy. The ACB recently published a searing critique of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (known […]
27 November 2012
Harmonisation of Africa’s seed laws: death knell for African seed systems
The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has released its new report titled, ‘Harmonisation of Africa’s seed laws: a recipe for disaster- Players, motives and dynamics. The report shows how African governments are being co-opted into harmonising seed laws relating to border control measures, phytosanitary control, variety release systems, certification standards and intellectual property rights, to […]
23 November 2012
Harmonisation of Africa’s seeds laws: a recipe for disaster
The core of the paper is focused on the pressures being exerted on African governments to adopt the 1991 Act of the International Union for the Protection of Plant Varieties (UPOV), particularly through regional harmonisation of plant variety protection (PVP) policies and laws. We also discuss the adverse impacts PVP laws will have on the […]
19 November 2012
ARIPO’s PVP law undermines Farmers’ Rights & Food Security in Africa
The African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) has proposed a draft regional harmonized policy and legal framework on Plant Variety Protection (PVP), based on the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) Convention of 1991. The draft legal framework, if adopted, will have significant adverse consequences for small-scale farmers that dominate […]
6 November 2012
Submission by ACB and African CSOs to ARIPO on its draft PVP law and policies, November 2012
During October/November 2012, a number of African groups from civil society in Africa supported a submission to ARIPO on its draft policy and legal framework for PVP. In such submission, the groups pointed out that draft legal framework was not written with the interests of sub-Saharan African states in mind, particularly ARIPO member states. This […]
25 September 2012
Statement on AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa)
At a farmers rights meeting held in Uganda in September 2012, where a statement was drawn up and signed by many concerned parties. Read the statement here. Signatures:
15 September 2012
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA): laying the groundwork for the commercialisation...
We consider AGRA’s broad philosophy and structure, focusing on AGRA’s own views or those of its consultants, before turning to a more detailed consideration of its specific work in the Programme for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS) and, in slightly less detail, its Soil Health Programme (SHP). These programmes are inseparable because seed and soil fertility […]
16 May 2012
South Africa’s Seed Systems: Challenges for food sovereignty
The African Centre for Biosafety and Trust for Community Outreach and Education, have the pleasure of sharing with you, our new study, which provides an overview of the structure of the seed system in South Africa, the types of seed in use and their pros and cons, the legislative and policy environment, and the role […]
16 February 2011
Response to the Environment Green Paper 2010
The ACB has submitted comments on the Department of Environmental Affairs’ National Climate Change Response Green Paper. Read here.
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 […]