Latest Resources

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, […]

6 October 2014

Running to Stand Still: Small-Scale Farmers and the Green Revolution in Malawi

According to ACB lead researcher, Dr Stephen Greenberg, “small-scale farmers are using shockingly high levels of synthetic fertilisers at great financial costs to themselves and the public purse. Rising soil infertility is a feature of farming systems reliant on synthetic fertiliser. We found that farmers are increasingly adopting hybrid maize seed, encouraged by government subsidies […]

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 […]

27 July 2004

SA biosafety regulators in bed with industry on GM potatoes?

The South African government has approved a United States funded project that will soon see genetically engineered potatoes sprouting in six secret locations in African soil. Similar potatoes were first grown in the United States but were withdrawn from the market due to consumer resistance. Read more.