Latest Resources
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 […]
25 January 2010
GM Cassava update from the African Centre for Biosafety
During 2006, the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) submitted an application to the South African GMO Authority, the Executive Council: GMO Act, for permission to conduct field trials of GM Cassava. The ACB and the international NGO, GRAIN, submitted comprehensive objections to the application on 8 September 2006, widely supported by local and international groups and […]
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 […]
12 August 2009
Watchdog lodges Complaint against South African govt for breaking international GMO Treaty
Press release: African Centre for Biosafety 12 August 2009 The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) is a South African NGO deeply concerned with biosafety in South Africa and on the African continent. It campaigns against GMOs in food and agriculture. The ACB has today lodged a complaint to the Compliance Committee established under an international […]
10 August 2009
Pirating African heritage: the pillaging continues – Media release
The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB), a non- profit activist organization based in South Africa, has today released a report documenting 7 new cases of suspected biopiracy involving legally untenable patents/patent applications. Some patents have already been granted and others are still pending in Europe and the USA in respect of African resources ranging from […]
13 July 2009
Comments on Nigeria’s Draft Biosafety Bill
An Act to Provide for the Management of Biosafety and other related matters, 2007 Environmental Rights Action (ERA) (Friends of the Earth, Nigeria) has approached the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) to provide them with our comments on the latest draft of their country’s biosafety bill. The ACB has in the past, provided formal and […]