Latest Resources
7 February 2010
A profile of Monsanto in South Africa
Monsanto is a globally dominant company in the agrochemical, seed and agricultural biotechnology sector. It has been active in the agrochemicals market in South Africa since 1968, and now owns almost all traits used in the South African GM crop market. Thanks to the purchase of local seed companies, Sensako and Carnia, in the late […]
7 February 2010
Bilateral biosafety bullies: How corporations use bilateral trade channels to weaken biotech regu...
Across the world, the use of bilateral trade instruments to prise open markets for genetically modified (GM) crops is escalating. To expand business overseas, the biotech industry needs stronger intellectual property rules and weaker biosafety standards. Bilateral trade deals are an effective way to do this. This report looks specifically at how the world’s grain […]
2 February 2010
Ground-breaking’ victory for community against drug giant
From the Cape Times Newspaper – January 28, 2010 Edition 1, a small Eastern Cape community are elated after taking on a German pharmaceutical giant over a patent to produce extracts from two local plant species – and winning. “This is the first time that a patent is challenged successfully by Africans. It ends Schwabe’s […]
5 January 2010
Status of de facto moratorium on GM commodity clearance/import applications in SA
The South African government has granted a large number of commodity import permits over the years, enabling millions of tons of GM maize, soya and canola to be imported into South Africa. However, during September/October 2005, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), a member of the Executive Council (EC): GMO Act, raised several concerns […]
17 November 2009
Ongoing Concerns about Harmonisation of Biosafety Regulations in Africa
The paper is a response to concerns raised by the African Union’s Biosafety Unit about assertions made in an earlier briefing in June 2009 regarding the African Union’s biosafety harmonisation processes. In this briefing the Ms Swanby on behalf of the ACB salutes the initiatives taken by the AU in the biosafety discourse on the […]
15 October 2009
South African Govt rejects GM potato
In a damning and ground breaking ruling, South Africa’s GM body, the Executive Council (EC), has rejected attempts by the Agriculture Research Council (ARC) to bring GM potatoes to the South African market. The EC cited no less than 11 biosafety and socio economic and agronomic concerns for rejecting ARC’s commercial release application. These support […]
29 September 2009
GM climate craze seizes African food
Media Release by the African Centre for Biosafety Johannesburg 1 October 2009 The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has today released a report exposing the patents and players involved in appropriating key African food crops to produce genetically modified (GM) climate crops. According to the report, biotechnology is being used to identify ?climate genes? in […]
25 September 2009
Africa is heading for an ecological disaster
Genetically Modified (GM) crops, already used extensively in South Africa, are being promoted by the biotech industry through their philanthropic conduits such as the Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet foundations as the principle solution to food insecurity in Africa. The industrialistion of African agriculture that this would entail is more likely to exacerbate […]
11 September 2009
African heritage crops threatened by South African GMO decision
An Appeal Board established by the Minister of Land Affairs and Agriculture has overturned a landmark decision by a South African GMO authority on 15 June 2006, to refuse the experimentation of sorghum, a prized African heritage crop. The Council for Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR), has now been given the go-ahead to proceed with the […]
8 September 2009
Biotechnology, seed and agrochemicals: Global and South African industry structure and trends
Biotechnology, seed and agrochemicals global and South African industry structure and trends. Click here to read the publication.