Regulatory issues and threats for Africa

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ACB brings you a new discussion paper 

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Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Andean and African farmers condemn digital sequence information of potatoes from centres of origin – opens doors for biopiracy

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Thank you for supporting our continental campaign to ban glyphosate

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has produced a briefing paper in regard to a new and controversial genetic engineering (GE) technology to produce gene drive

A decade ago, genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes were first released globally, in the Cayman Islands, by UK-based company Oxitec. Further releases followed in Malaysia, Panama and Brazil.

Huge technical advances in molecular biology and big data biology are leading us towards a ‘forth industrial revolution’ with the ongoing development of novel genetic engineering techniques being reviewed by the UN Conventions for Biological Diversity, under the term ‘synthetic biology’.

Press Release from the African Centre for Biodiversity

Johannesburg, Thursday 5 April 2018

In this briefing paper ACB, TWN and GeneWatch UK discuss that genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes were exported from Imperial College in London to Burkina Faso in November 2016. They are currently in “contained use” facilities in Bobo-Dioulasso, and are being used in experiments by a research consortium called Target Malaria.

This paper provides an overview of the GM cotton push in in East and Southern Africa, within the context of the global and regional cotton markets.

The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project promises to develop drought tolerance in maize for the benefit of small holder farmers, but is really a project designed to facilitate the spread of hybrid and genetically modified (GM) maize varieties on the continent.

Simangele Siko, a member of the central committee at Izindaba Zokudla, in her thanks to ACB after the workshop said, “The farmers have got power, immense power, but you have just unearthed the power!”

OPEN LETTER TO AFRICAN BIOSAFETY REGULATORS Do not allow Africans to be used as guinea pigs for untested high-risk new GM technology The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa calls for an immediate ba

In this Alert, the ACB warns that the South African government received an application for the commodity clearance (import for food, feed and processing) of a ‘multi-stacked variety’ of genetically modified (GM) maize – MON87427 × MON89034 × MIR162 × MON87411, which represents the entry of the second generation of genetically modified organisms

On 7 April 7 2017 the South African government issued draft amendments to its regulations governing the legal limits for pesticide residues on food crops. The proposed amendments expose the gaps in regulations to date, despite the cultivation of herbicide-tolerant GM crops for almost two decades.

By Lim Li Ching, Senior Researcher, Third World Network Climate change is an urgent challenge facing farmers in Africa. As our world warms, many farmers are already experiencing devastating consequences, including storms, drought, floods, heat waves and extreme weather events.

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.

In this GMO Alert, the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) shares information that the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Senzeni Zokwana, has in February 2017, granted Syngenta SA a commodity permit to import genetically modified (GM) maize that is genetically engineered for enhanced ethanol production for the agrofuels industry