African Centre for Biodiversity

13/08/2026

É provável que o Marco Normativo, a Estratégia e o Plano de Ação da UA para os Sistemas de Sementes Gerenciados por Agricultores (SGPA) sejam adotados na Cúpula de Sementes da União Africana (UA), a ser realizada em Eswatini, em outubro. Neste momento crucial para a futura governança dos sistemas de sementes gerenciados por agricultores (SGPA), este resumo destaca uma grave assimetria jurídica e política.

Os instrumentos da UA relativos aos SGPA parecem estar abertos à defesa de causas. No entanto, o Anexo sobre Proteção de Variedades Vegetais da Zona de Comércio Livre Continental Africana (ZCLCA) poderia ser utilizado para promover os direitos dos criadores, a aplicação da proteção de variedades vegetais (PVV) e regras harmonizadas de propriedade intelectual (PI), caso os governos nacionais utilizem o Anexo como modelo para as leis nacionais de PVV e como ponto de referência para as políticas relativas aos SGPA.

O que está em jogo é muito importante: os SGPA serão protegidos como sistemas autônomos, liderados por agricultores e detentores de direitos, ou serão tornados mais visíveis para serem registrados, submetidos a controles de qualidade, digitalizados, monitorados, explorados e incorporados aos mercados formais de sementes e aos regimes de propriedade intelectual?

Nesta conjuntura crítica, a exigência é clara: proteção, não absorção; soberania de sementes, não cercamento; autonomia dos agricultores, não controle corporativo e tecnocrático. Exortamos a sociedade civil, os pequenos agricultores, as mulheres guardiãs de sementes, os pastores, os movimentos de agroecologia e as redes de soberania alimentar a se engajarem coletivamente.

Leia mais aqui: https://t2m.io/whose-seed-whose-sovereignty_webpost_PT

12/08/2026

Le Cadre politique, la Stratégie et le Plan d’action de l’UA en matière de FMSS devraient être adoptés lors du Sommet de l’Union africaine (UA) sur les semences à Eswatini en octobre. À ce moment charnière pour la future gouvernance des systèmes semenciers paysans (FMSS), cette note d’information met en lumière une grave asymétrie juridique et politique.

Les instruments de l’UA en matière de FMSS semblent encore ouverts au plaidoyer. Cependant, l’annexe de la Zone de libre-échange continental africain (ZLECAf) sur la protection des obtentions végétales (POV) pourrait être utilisée pour faire valoir les droits des obtenteurs, l’application de la POV et des règles harmonisées de propriété intellectuelle, si les gouvernements nationaux utilisent l’annexe comme modèle pour élaborer leurs lois nationales sur la POV et comme point de référence pour les politiques relatives aux FMSS.

Les enjeux sont de taille : les FMSS seront-ils protégés en tant que systèmes autonomes, gérés par les paysans, porteurs de droits, ou rendus plus vulnérables à l’enregistrement, au contrôle de la qualité, à la numérisation, à la surveillance, à l’extraction et à l’intégration dans les marchés formels des semences et les régimes de propriété intellectuelle ?

À ce moment critique, les revendications sont claires : la protection, pas l’absorption ; la souveraineté des semences, pas le contrôle ; l’autonomie des paysans, pas le contrôle corporatif et technocratique. Nous exhortons la société civile, les petits exploitants, les gardiennes de semences, les obtenteurs, les mouvements d’agroécologie et les réseaux de souveraineté alimentaire à s’engager collectivement.

Pour en savoir plus, veuillez cliquer ici : https://t2m.io/whose-seed-whose-sovereignty_webpost_FR

12/08/2026

Dear friends, colleagues and comrades,

As we reflect on the first half of 2026, we do so at a moment of profound uncertainty, but also of profound possibility. Across Africa and the world, communities are confronting interconnected crises: ecological breakdown, deepening inequality, extractivism, corporate concentration and control, food insecurity, democratic erosion, and the growing consolidation of power through digital technologies.

Yet amid these challenges, we continue to witness extraordinary resistance, courage, and imagination.

We hope the stories shared in our mid-year newsletter will not only inform but also inspire renewed commitment to the work ahead.

Read more here: https://acbio.org.za/news/2026-mid-year-newsletter/

05/08/2026

05/08/2026

The AU FMSS Policy Framework and Strategy and Action Plan is likely to be adopted at the African Union (AU) Seed Summit in Eswatini in October. At this pivotal moment for the future governance of farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS), this briefing delineates a serious legal and political asymmetry.

The AU FMSS instruments appear to be open to advocacy. However, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Annex on Plant Varieties Protection could be used to push breeders’ rights, plant variety protection (PVP) enforcement and harmonised intellectual property (IP) rules, if national governments use the Annex as a template for domestic PVP laws and as a reference point for FMSS policy.

The stakes are high: will FMSS be protected as autonomous, farmer-led, rights-bearing systems, or made more visible to be registered, quality-controlled, digitised, monitored, extracted from, and incorporated into formal seed markets and IP regimes?

At this critical juncture, the demand is clear: protection, not absorption; seed sovereignty, not enclosure; farmer autonomy, not corporate, technocratic control. We urge civil society, small-scale farmers, women seed custodians, pastoralists, agroecology movements, and food sovereignty networks to collectively engage.

Read more here: https://t2m.io/whose-seed-whose-sovereignty_webpost

31/07/2026

As governments and civil society prepare for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)'s COP17 and the first global review of collective progress under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM–GBF), we are pleased to share ACB’s fact sheet on Target 20: strengthen capacity-building, technology transfer, and scientific and technical cooperation for biodiversity.

We ask whether capacity-building, technology transfer, and scientific cooperation under the GBF are shifting power in favour of developing countries, public institutions, Indigenous peoples and local communities, small-scale farmers, women, youth, and civil society—or whether they risk reproducing long-standing inequalities through new technical, digital, and financial channels.

We hope this final fact sheet in the series, GBF-aligned NBSAPs to ensure just, sustainable futures for all life to thrive: the role of African civil society, will support advocacy, engagement with governments, preparation for CBD processes, and collective reflection on how Target 20 can be used to strengthen sovereignty, rights, agroecology, and democratic biodiversity governance.

Read fact sheet 10 here: https://t2m.io/NBSAPs_factsheet-10_target-20_post

Read the complete series here: https://t2m.io/GBF_NBSAPs_factsheetseries

24/07/2026

ACB has responded to the SAHRC’s call for submissions into an inquiry into data centres and human rights in South Africa,

We urge the SAHRC to call for national inventory of existing and proposed data centres and their linked infrastructure to be made, entailing full public disclosure of energy and water demands, mandatory human-rights and environmental due diligence, meaningful community participation, protection of food-producing land and rural livelihoods, and enforceable safeguards to ensure that low-income communities, farm workers, smallholder producers and under-serviced municipalities do not bear the costs of corporate digital expansion.

At stake is not whether South Africa should participate in the digital economy, but who benefits, who pays, who controls the infrastructure and data, and who bears the environmental, social, and human rights burdens. You can read the submission here: https://t2m.io/datacentres_SAHRC_post

09/07/2026

Recently, the ACB released a second round of results for South African staple foods, including infant products, tested for pesticide residues, along with an accompanying briefing paper, "What's really in our food?" ( https://acbio.org.za/corporate-expansion/whats-really-in-our-food-pesticide-residue-testing/ ), in which we interpreted the results and raised concerns.

Following the release, legal representatives from the Food and Drug Assurance (FDA) Laboratories, which we commissioned to conduct the testing, sent the ACB intimidating letters. Although they conceded that the analytical testing and the laboratory results were valid, FDA Laboratories demanded that the ACB immediately remove all references to the laboratory, remove all analytical reports and certificates, and cease publishing or attributing any interpretations of the data to them, under threat of urgent High Court proceedings.

ACB repeatedly asked the laboratory to clarify the claimed technical inaccuracies in our report, but the laboratory failed to engage meaningfully. Rather, FDA Laboratories opted to issue a press release, which was published by IOL today ( https://iol.co.za/news/2026-07-09-fda-laboratories-addresses-concerns-over-pesticide-residues-in-south-african-foods/ ). Although the journalist states ACB was contacted for a right to reply, we have no record of such an attempt. Here is our press release, where we seek to set the record straight: https://t2m.io/acb-engagement-with-fda-labs-rebuts-claims_post

Our objective remains: to foster transparent, evidence-based public policy discussions around food safety, pesticide regulation, and the public's right to know.

02/07/2026

À mesure que la gouvernance des semences est de plus en plus façonnée par les systèmes d’enregistrement, les régimes de certification, les plateformes numériques, les outils de traçabilité et l’extraction de données, la lutte ne concerne plus seulement les semences elles-mêmes, mais qui fixe les règles, qui possède les connaissances et qui contrôle les infrastructures sur lesquelles le futur des semences africaines repose.

Cette nouvelle note d’information de l’ACB souligne le risque que les systèmes semenciers paysans soient « reconnus » pour être ensuite transposés dans des systèmes de surveillance, de conformité et de détournement du marché. Alors que les textes continentaux sont encore en cours de formulation, c’est le moment de mener une intervention organisée. L’enjeu c’est de savoir si les agriculteurs restent gardiens, sélectionneurs, innovateurs et décideurs dans des systèmes semenciers existants, ou s’ils sont réduits à des fournisseurs de données et des sujets politiques au sein de régimes gouvernés par l’extérieur.

Pour en savoir plus, cliquez ici : https://t2m.io/Seeds-power-digital-futures-Africa-post-FR

22/06/2026

While Target 17 of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework marks an important recognition of biosafety within global biodiversity governance, its current implementation pathway remains far from adequate. Rapid advances in modern biotechnology are raising profound questions about precaution, uncertainty, irreversibility, transboundary impacts, liability, data governance, benefit-sharing, and the authority of communities and countries to determine their own technological futures. These questions cannot be reduced to a narrow technical risk assessment. They go to the heart of sovereignty, accountability, and public interest decision-making.

Fact sheet 9 in our series, GBF-aligned NBSAPs to ensure just, sustainable futures for all life to thrive: the role of African civil society, situates these concerns within the current processes of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol, with particular attention to synthetic biology and engineered gene drives. It also reflects on recent developments in Africa, including gene-drive-related research in Tanzania and the termination of Target Malaria activities in Burkina Faso, to show that biosafety governance is not an abstract regulatory matter but a deeply political terrain shaped by power, funding architectures, public trust, community consent, and contested visions of development.

Read more here: https://t2m.io/NBSAPs_factsheet-9_Target-17_post

View the full series here: https://t2m.io/GBF_NBSAPs_factsheetseries