Food Sovereignty Ghana organized a capacity building and skills sharing workshop on 27-28 February to discuss the Biosafety Law, the Plant Breeders Bill and the Plant and Fertilizer Act (seed law). Civil society organizations, smallholder farmers, the media, scientists and concerned members of the public attended the meeting. Here are the thoughts that came out of the meeting

A team of top scientists appointed by the government to give an opinion on homosexuality is unanimous that this sexual orientation is natural and has existed in Africa and everywhere in the world since time immemorial. It is strange for President Museveni to claim he relied on this expert report to assent to the draconian anti-gay bill

Does creating conditions for all members of the society to access health, including homosexual people, of necessity undermine religious and moral aspirations of the Kenyan society? Is criminalization of homosexuality a theological necessity? There are options for resolving this seeming fundamental misunderstanding between the religious leaders and homosexual persons

The FAO draft principles have little local basis and less community future. That is why they are very likely to be employed to obscure the power imbalances that exist to deepen industrial control of the means of agricultural production - and that is why these will not be acceptable as a measure of food growers' and food consumers' rights

Africa was seen by Leopold II as a ‘magnificent African cake’ and still is considered as such by new foreign interests. Between the Chinese and the Japanese it seems the Japanese, like the West, seeks to ‘contain’ China’s influence in Africa. The Chinese aspire to a win-win-South-South cooperation and the restoration of Asia and Africa’s dignity

Some of the men who apparently revered him were amongst those who would eventually betray Cabral to imperialist forces. He was not the first nor the last victim in the long line of treachery, which stretches backward along the road to African decolonization

In the glaring rays of the

Rising Sons and Daughters of the

Global Poor and

Dispossessed

Revealed stinging

Infectious Mosquitos

On the flesh of an

Unjust

Marauding and

Violent giant

As years increased and

High levels of

Global

Deceptions

Larceny and

Injustices are revealed

Attacking Mosquitos multiplied

Weakening and overwhelming

The giant and its surrogates

Till they were no more

Collapsed by Mosquitoes

Whose bites can only

Be healed by

Truth

Justice and

Reparations.

Food Sovereignty Ghana is calling for an open debate on the issue of GMOs to set the record straight as well as to generate answers and questions in order to inform the Ghanaian public, instead of attempting to impose GMOs on people without their knowledge or consent

The International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, known as UPOV 91 is dangerous to African farmers. It will force farmers to buy patented corporate seeds and agrochemicals from the same corporations. The consequences will not only be debt for farmers but a harmed ecosystem

It is not far-fetched to suggest that a significant part of Obama’s special assignment in Africa in 2013 was to clear the way for American bio-tech companies to move along the path of least resistance. Tanzania under Kikwete is an important foot soldier in that broad strategy

Commercial interests, rather than health and scientific interests, are driving the push for genetically modified organisms. People in Africa need to know the truth about GMOs and resist their introduction

The country's latest crisis is not a natural disaster, but may be the result of corruption and incompetence

Ghana is on the verge of starting to test Genetic Engineering (GE) of seeds. It will poison Ghana's and Africa's food supply as well as co-opt and contaminate its land and water. African farmers must be free to maintain their own forms of agroecological farming

Statistics show that the numbers of people living with HIV and dying of AIDS/TB in Haiti has decreased dramatically over the past 10 years due to a policy directed at prevention based on education and increased access to treatment. But there are other very grim realities excluded from the official reports

The young man articulated the frustration, fragility, despair and aspiration of so many young-black-men. He spoke for the many who strive to better their life by attempting to gain the ability to negotiate with a system that has socialized, marginalized, and institutionalized them with a misrepresented identity

There is much to celebrate among young people of Africa. Despite some serious setbacks, the results are encouraging and the prognosis is good, very good

The Media Institute of Southern Africa's (MISA) Malawi Chapter is calling upon the National Assembly and the Police to act on Parliamentary Chief Security Officer, Youngson Chilinda, for assaulting photojournalist Thoko Chikondi

In all my years in the United States and there are a few cultural tendencies I still have not been able to get used to: bagels, children talking back or ‘sassing’ their parents, and public acts of defaming a parent or sibling

Contrary to some media reports, Haiti is far from being on the road to recovery. The situation of women’s access to healthcare is particularly terrifying

There are many interesting metaphors of food in the African political discourse to express the changing dynamics of power