Latest Resources

12 February 2021
SAN Petition to Stop ReconAfrica’s Drilling operations in the Okavango
Indigenous Peoples and Africans are under threat from Recon Africa and Big Oil and Gas Development Permits have been issued to prospect, drill and ultimately extract oil and gas over 8.75 million acres of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia and Botswana extending to the south eastern banks of the Okavango River and Okavango Delta. The […]

10 September 2018
Report from SADC regional farmer speak out on farm input subsidy programmes
Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) and African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) jointly hosted a meeting of farmers and civil society organisations (CSOs) in August 2018 to share views and experiences on farm input subsidy programmes (FISPs) and public sector support for agroecology in the region. About 140 participants from Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, […]

28 May 2018
Biosafety Indaba eSwatini: Unclear motives following approval to cultivate Bt cotton, despite dis...
The news that the Swaziland Environmental Authority (SEA) had authorised the importation and commercial release of Bt cotton seeds came as a huge shock to the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB). It meant that ACB had to reconsider its earlier acceptance of an invitation by SEA to attend a National Biosafety Indaba on 22 May […]

18 July 2017
GM Cotton push in Swaziland: Next target for failed Bt cotton
This paper examines the application of the Bt cotton field trials currently underway in Swaziland. This is situated within the broader wave of GM application and trials across the continent, along with the weakening of national biosafety regulations, as part of the GM push across Africa. This paper is based on research on the Swaziland […]

30 August 2015
AFAP in Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania—for profits or people?
The chemical fertiliser push in Africa and its implications for smallholder farmers is not receiving enough attention in current discourses concerning Green Revolution policies and practises in Africa. Yet chemical fertilisers are big business on the continent, where its adoption is strongly supported by African governments through subsidy schemes and regional organisations such as NEPAD, […]

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, […]

21 April 2010
Force-feeding South Africans: Monsanto’s Smartstax 8 gene GM maize coming to a store near you!
Monsanto has made an application to the South African GMO authorities for permission to import Smartstax maize, one of the most controversial and risky GMOs ever produced for commercial use. The ACB recently published a report featuring Smartstax titled ‘The stacked gene revolution: A biosafety nightmare’. We pointed out that while the majority of commercially […]

11 February 2007
Swaziland – GMO Legislation
OVERVIEW We have been approached by civil society groups in Swaziland to provide comments on the Draft National Policy Document, “Creating an enabling environment for the safe use of biotechnology and its products in Swaziland” and the Biosafety Bill, 2005. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)/World Food Programme (WFP) crop and food supply […]

11 February 2007
Ghana – GMO Legislation
Ghana – GMO Legislation Read here.