Latest Resources
19 June 2012
Agent Orange Maize to Enter South Africa
ACB has chosen to use the AVAAZ platform to run our petitions. Please click here and sign the petition and spread the word.
9 January 2012
ACB comments on biofuels mandatory blending
The African Centre for Biodiversity hereby lodges its objections and comments to the draft regulations regarding the mandatory blending of biofuels with petrol and diesel. Read here.
9 March 2011
Alert to anti-GM activists in Egypt, India, Mexico and South Korea
South Africa’s GM maize flooding into your countries!!! The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has been monitoring the GMO landscape in South Africa since 2004. As recently as three years ago South Africa was importing millions of tons of GM maize from Argentina, used mainly in the animal feed industry. During 2010, South African maize […]
8 December 2010
Competition Commission rejects Pioneer Hi Bred seed takeover
Media Advisory from the African Centre for Biosafety Johannesburg, 8th December 2010. The African Centre for Biosafety applauds the decision of the Competition Commission not to approve the take-over of Pannar Seed, South Africa’s largest seed company, by the multinational corporation and seed giant, Pioneer Hi-Bred, a subsidiary of the DuPont chemical company. The ACB […]
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 […]
12 March 2010
Support our appeal to the minister for Environmental Impact Assessment of GM maize GA21
On the13th of December 2009, Syngenta published a public notice of their intent to apply to the GMO Registrar for a permit for the general release of genetically modified maize, GA21. Having obtained a ‘non-confidential-business-information’ version of Syngenta’s application, it is our contention that the application cannot be adequately assessed. The information provided is sketchy […]
7 February 2010
Bayer, Monsanto vie for South Africa’s sugar cane
Bayer, Monsanto vie for South Africa’s sugar cane Bayer is bank rolling the South African Association-Sugarcane Research Institute (SASRI) who have approached SA’s National Department of Agriculture for permission to conduct open field trials of GM sugarcane. SASRI also hopes to test a GM sugarcane variety using Monsanto’s Bt gene. Read here.
28 January 2010
Marketing of GE potatoes in South Africa imminent: African farmers face loss of markets and consu...
South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council (ARC) has developed a GE-insect resistant potato (SpuntaG2, which is a Bt potato) with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This potato now awaits safety assessment and general release approval from the national authorities. Read here.
5 December 2009
JENNIFER THOMSON’S GM Virus Resistant Maize
During 2007, researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT), particularly Professor Jennifer Thompson, in collaboration with Pannar seed South Africa, announced that they had developed transgene-derived resistance to the pathogen Maize-Streak-Virus (MSV). They also claimed to have developed the first maize with transgenic MSV resistance, heralding the first all-African produced genetically modified crop plant.[i] […]
9 November 2009
Response from the AU Commission Biosafety Unit to Briefing no. 9
In July 2009 The African Union Biosafety Unit communicated their concerns about the ACB’s briefing no.9, their letter can be viewed here. The original briefing can be viewed at here, The ACB’s response is titled On-going concerns about harmonisation of biosafety regulations in Africa, November 2009.