Africa Harvest — founded by Kenyan scientist Florence Wambugu — supports policy development and scientific and institutional capacity building across East Africa and promotes the use of modern biotechnologies to help the region's farmers. The foundation's flagship project uses tissue culture technology to reproduce disease-free banana plants for distribution across East Africa.

It also runs a communication and advocacy programme to promote public acceptance of biotechnologies — especially genetic modification. The organisation publishes information about its tree-planting programme in Kenya and links to other African and international organisations working in biotechnology.

The African Journal of Biotechnology is a peer-reviewed online journal that publishes research in food, agricultural and industrial applications of biochemistry, microbiology, genomics and proteomics.

All articles are free to access and readers can also sign up to free email alerts containing the table of contents for each new issue.

AMMANET promotes using genetic marker-assisted selection (MAS) technologies to accelerate African plant breeding efforts and deliver food security and economic growth. Over 100 African scientists established the network in 2003, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation.

The network brings regional and international agricultural researchers together, publishing information about its activities and providing contact information of all its members. It also links to news, scientific articles and other useful resources on MAS.

AfricanCrops.Net — funded by the Rockefeller Foundations Biotechnology, Breeding and Seed Systems Programme and the Partnership to Fight Striga of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation — publishes a monthly newsletter with information on upcoming conferences, training programmes and funding opportunities. It also hosts a discussion forum where visitors can share experiences of issues such as crop improvement and molecular marker applications.

The website links to a wide range of documents and points to resources dedicated to specific African crops such as cassava, cowpea and sorghum. It also hosts an extensive collection of links to online databases, glossaries, bibliographies, search engines, genetic maps and statistics relating to African-focused biotechnology and plant breeding research.

The BioSafe Train project is an international collaboration of scientists aiming to build capacity for dealing with the challenges associated with implementing genetically modified (GM) crops in East Africa.

It publishes information on students' research projects that cover topics such as the environmental impacts of GM maize in Kenya, biodiversity in cotton fields in Uganda and the ecological risks posed by transgenic rice in Tanzania.

This website from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provides an overview of agricultural biotechnologies across different sectors in the developing world, and the FAO's activities in this area. It includes the FAO's biotechnology forum, which hosts email conferences on topics such as strengthening partnerships in agricultural biotechnologies to benefit smallholders in developing countries. The website also links to reports, online books, research studies, press releases and national biotechnology policy documents. A multilingual biotechnology glossary, as well as news and events, are also provided.

This organisation aims to encourage dialogue and the sharing of good practice by policymakers and opinion leaders on the future of agricultural growth in Africa. It covers topic areas such as climate change, land use, policy processes and science, technology and innovation. The website publishes free to access publications, lists of relevant events and fellowships, and online discussions on issues including small-scale agriculture. It also provides access to resources for policy engagement, such as policy briefs, and a regularly updated list of relevant organisations and websites.

HarvestPlus works towards reducing micronutrient malnutrition, or 'hidden hunger', by improving the level of micronutrients in staple food crops in Africa and Asia using bio-fortification. It focuses on iron, zinc, and vitamin A — recognised by the WHO as critical micronutrients — and on crops such as millet, wheat, rice and sweet potato.

The website details current activities through an online map and provides access to publications including abstracts, technical monographs, and working papers produced with 60 partner institutions.

This non-profit organisation aims to develop sustainable ecological farming in Africa and India. ICRISAT's mission is "to help empower 600 million poor people to overcome hunger, poverty and a degraded environment in the dry tropics through better agriculture".

ICRISAT's BioPower initiative aims to ensure that bioenergy research benefits the poor. Its activities include analysing bioenergy trends and understanding their repercussions for the poor, and enabling governments to formulate pro-bioenergy policies that benefit poor people.

PlantBio is a grant-making initiative from the South African Department of Science and Technology. It aims to develop a strong and sustainable plant biotechnology sector in South Africa by promoting new products and services, incubating commercial programmes and new businesses, building scientific capacity and developing human resources.

PlantBio prioritises technologies aimed at alleviating poverty and improving food security — for example, biofertilisers, plant breeding, tissue culture and genetic modification. The organisation encourages collaborating institutes to build national capacities and consolidate costs.

It publishes information on how to apply for funding and hosts a useful page of links to South African biotech investors, business incubators, funding agencies and service providers.

ACB is a nongovernmental organisation campaigning for strict biosafety regulations for genetically modified (GM) organisms in Africa.

It provides a useful overview of developments in African biosafety laws and applications of GM technology across the continent. It also hosts a large collection of related briefing documents and research papers and publishes a list of the GM field trial applications submitted in various countries together with the objections lodged against these.

The African Union Biosafety Project — a joint initiative of the African Union and the German Development Corporation — aims to help African countries meet their obligations under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and promotes adopting the African Model Law on Safety in Biotechnology as a common framework for biosafety regulation in Africa.

The project publishes basic information on its aims, objectives and management as well as documentation about its activities and meetings. It provides copies of the Model Law in four major languages and links to related websites.