Submitted by Ronnie Hall on
Webinar link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAN3cYNMNmY
On 11th July 2025, the African Technology Assessment Platform (AfriTAP), in collaboration Group on Erosion, Technology, and Concentration (ETC Group) and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), held an online webinar on “Understanding Biodigital Technologies: A Global Overview and Impact on Food Systems.” The session was led by Jim Thomas of Scan the Horizon, who unpacked how rapidly evolving biodigital technologies are reshaping food systems and what this means for Africa.
Emerging issues from the discussion underscored the urgent threat posed by unregulated biodigital expansion, particularly in Africa where data protection laws remain weak and poorly enforced. Participants were brought to the fore on the looming dangers of “data colonialism”-a pattern not new to the continent. Just as land and resources were historically grabbed to serve external profit interests, now data, genetic resources, and even life itself are being captured and commodified by powerful corporations. Alarmingly, undersea cables are landing in Africa at the same coastal sites once used in the transatlantic slave trade, marking a haunting continuity of extraction.
“We are witnessing a new scramble for Africa - not for land, but for data,” cautioned Jim Thomas. “Without strong, informed regulations, we risk a future where Africa’s biodiversity, knowledge, and even people’s lives are mined for profit.”
You can read a blog about the webinar, written by Faith Gikunda and Barbara Ntambirweki of AfriTAP and ETC Group at the assess.technology portal website: https://assess.technology/regional-platforms/afritap-webinar-exposes-the-growing-threat-of-biodigital-technologies-to-africas-food-sovereignty/
Art: Chief Nyamweya, Freehand Animation Studio, Kenya