Latest Resources
1 December 2020
Multiple shocks and the Ebola and COVID pandemics in West and Central Africa: extraction, profite...
Veuillez cliquer ici pour le français. We are pleased to present the first discussion paper in our “Multiple Shocks in Africa Series”. The tragic story of the Ebola pandemic in West Africa, and the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in particular, is not just one of disease emergence. It is fundamentally […]
29 May 2020
Profiteering from health and ecological crisis in Africa: The Target Malaria project and new risk...
Cliquez ici pour le français The ACB shares this research paper with you, of the wave of ‘Trojan horse’ second-generation genetic engineering strategies targeted at, inter alia, malaria in Africa, at a time when the COVID-19 crisis is fracturing the myth that global health expertise is the domain of North America and Europe. Global health […]
29 May 2019
ACB’s Commentary on An Africa-Europe Agenda for Rural Transformation: Report by the Task Force Ru...
The European Union (EU) is in the process of defining a new set of priorities in the African agricultural and food sectors, through the proposed implementation of the EU-Africa Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs. Their Task Force for Rural Africa published a report with draft recommendations, which is oriented towards promoting the capitalist transformation […]
30 April 2019
Oxitec’s failed GM mosquito releases worldwide: Forewarnings for Africa and the Target Malaria pr...
A decade ago, genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes were first released globally, in the Cayman Islands, by UK-based company Oxitec. Further releases followed in Malaysia, Panama and Brazil. In a public relations whitewash, Oxitec has repeatedly claimed that the experiments successfully wiped out nearly 90% of the Aedes aegypti mosquito population, which is one of the […]
4 June 2018
The debate on GMOs in Africa rages on, this time in Tanzania
A heated public debate on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) ensued during a seminar organised by MVIWATA – a network of smallholder farmers – in Morogoro, Tanzania. The meeting took place on 12 May 2018 and was attended by more than a hundred people, including parliamentarians and high-level government officials. The event, which was intended only […]
1 September 2017
WEMA Project shrouded in secrecy: open letter to African governments to be accountable to farmers...
The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project promises to develop drought tolerance in maize for the benefit of small holder farmers, but is really a project designed to facilitate the spread of hybrid and genetically modified (GM) maize varieties on the continent. WEMA involves five African countries: Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. […]
25 April 2017
Objection to commercial release of MON87460 X NK603 X MON89034 (triple stacked involving drought ...
In this objection, ACB raises numerous concerns with the application by Monsanto for the commercial release of the triple stacked event. Drought tolerance is a highly complex genetic trait that cannot be addressed by single gene insertions, as shown by the lack of data backing up the applicant’s claim that this GM variety shows “improvements […]
6 July 2015
GM and seed industry eye Africa’s lucrative cowpea seed markets: The political economy of cowpea ...
The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has today released a new report titled, GM and seed industry eye Africa’s lucrative cowpea seed markets: The political economy of cowpea in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Malawi. The report shows a strong interest by the seed industry in commercialising cowpea seed production and distribution in West Africa, […]
31 May 2010
ACB’s objection to Monsanto’s commodity clearance application for Smartstax
On 20 April, Business Day carried a public notice of Monsanto’s application to the South African GMO registrar for permission to import Smartstax maize, arguably the world’s most controversial and risky commercially grown GMO. While the majority of commercially grown genetically engineered crops contain at most 3 foreign genes, Smartstax contains eight, 6 of which […]
28 September 2009
Patents, Climate Change and African Agriculture: Dire Predictions
Uncertainty and apprehension often afford opportunity to the cunning. This is certainly the case with climate change. The multinational seed and agrochemical industry see climate change as a means by which to further penetrate African agricultural markets by rhetorically positioning itself, even if implausibly, as having the solution to widespread climate concerns. Their so-called “final […]