Latest Resources
30 October 2024
Artist Gallery: Helen Day
Helen (Wallace) Day is a South African-based muralist and fine artist whose work can be found both locally and internationally. She was commissioned for several paintings that featured on the covers of various ACB publications. Educated at the National School of the Arts, her style of artwork is impressionistic, always evident of bold colourful brushstrokes […]
23 October 2024
Artist Gallery: Vanessa Black
Drawing, painting and photography have been life-long interests of Vanessa Black; as a way to make sense of the world but also to share delight in its beauty. Black added depth to the ACB’s advocacy through her extensive artwork on an earlier iteration of our website, as well as illustrating the covers of several publications. […]
26 January 2023
Zimbabwean smallholder farmers show us the way towards alternative food systems
– by Dr Stephen Greenberg These reflections come from attending a farmer exchange in October 2022, hosted by the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) and Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) Zimbabwe, in collaboration with Towards Sustainable Use of Resources Organisation (TSURO) and Community Technology Development Organisation (CTDO). The 35 participants, including farmers, non-government organisations […]
15 July 2020
Small scale farming organic African herbs and crops
Uncle Wiz is a shining example of a thriving small scale farming and food distribution business that not only farms without chemicals but also focuses on and promotes indigenous food crops. Owners Wisdom and Mpumi Edward live in south Johannesburg and farm on land in Vanderbijlpark. Not only do they grow many indigenous African crops […]
17 May 2019
Neoliberals capture South African smallholder farmer support policy
Ideological and factional divisions and contradictions between neoliberals, ‘patrons’ and progressives have manifested in South Africa’s smallholder farmer support policy. This was evident at a national stakeholder consultation held by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) in April 2019. The policy is meant to support marginalised producers. But it has been thoroughly captured […]
30 October 2018
Reflections on ITPGRFA, UPOV 1991 and South Africa
Recently the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) held national consultations on whether South Africa should accede to two international agreements related to seed: The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA, or the Treaty) and the International Convention on the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) 1991. The […]
12 March 2018
Insights into our food system: Why did catering indigenous local food at the National Seed Dialog...
On December 2017, the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) hosted a National Seed Dialogue and Celebration at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. The event brought together farmers and civil society organisations from eight provinces, as well as from across the region, to celebrate the work that small-scale farmers do as custodians of seeds, and to share […]
22 January 2018
Art, Seed Sovereignty and Activism: Weaving New Stories
Preparing for the National Seed Dialogue and Celebration, hosted by the African Centre for Biodiversity, smallholder farmers, activists and government officials are crowded into the atrium of the Women’s Jail at Constitution Hill and a drum is beating. A performer, Simo Mpapa Majola, dressed in blankets, is praying and singing and imploring the audience. He […]
25 August 2017
Seed capture in South Africa: A threat to seed freedom but the seed movement is fighting back
Simangele Siko, a member of the central committee at Izindaba Zokudla, in her thanks to ACB after the workshop said, “The farmers have got power, immense power, but you have just unearthed the power!” Who can claim to own a seed? In these kernels lie the genetic wisdom of millions of years, co-created within specific […]
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 […]