Farmers can use, reuse and share. Only, they can’t brand and market: PPVFRA Chairperson

We started thinking about protecting plant varieties and farmers rights after signing up the

TRIPS Agreement. We committed that we would protect the intellectual property. One way of protecting is patenting, granting protection in the form of copyright and in the form of design, patent, and so on. But one issue which was bothering and the government discussing was about the intellectual property concerning plant varieties.

Plant varieties are not patented in our country. In some countries like the USA, plant varieties can be patented, but we said that we cannot patent it, but we can protect it. But we have to have a law, which is as per our country’s requirements. So in 2001, we enacted this law using which we should be able to take the plant variety.

But while doing so, we should also think about our small and marginal farmers who are custodians of biodiversity. They are maintaining biodiversity for ages. How do we protect their interest? So granting rights to the plant breeders and researchers went hand in hand with granting rights to the farmers. Farmers could be plant breeders.

They could be agents of conserving biodiversity for centuries. This coexistence doesn’t exist in other countries. Our approach is much appreciated. This was the background of the introduction of the act in 2005. Protection started effectively from 2007.

If we assign a registration to you for a variety, that’s is yours. You own it. You are the owner of the variety. We have registered 7,770 varieties so far. Of these, a majority (53.8 per cent) belong to farmers.

We are protecting the interests of farmers. Farmers themselves are registering. That is the reason their numbers are higher. We are protecting the interest of the farmers by registering their varieties. At the same time, we are also registering varieties of public institutions and private companies. It’s a win-win for everybody. The effort continues.

There has been a surge in the number of registrations in the last one year. Of the 7,770 registrations, about 2,500 were registered in the last 15 months alone.

But I must say that, given the dimension of diversity we have, and the number of farmers we have, we still have a long way to go. We have a large number of farmers, and varieties are yet to be registered and captured.

Your amrapali, and totapuri (mango varieties) are not registered. You have n number of farmers’ varieties are not registered yet. Some varieties maybe belonging to more than one farmer, or a community.

Communities, individual farmers, scientists, and companies. A State can register or an individual farmer can register, depending on who to whom it belongs, say a village. People can contest the claims. We are publishing (the applications) for three months.

We do two years of testing before ascertaining a claim and assigning a certificate. We check against our database. We publish in a journal called Plant Variety Journal, which is equivalent to the Gazette of India.

The person can go to a district sessions court and lodge a petition with the proof that the material belongs to him or her.

Out of the total, about 25-30 per cent of registrations are done by private companies. They are attempting to protect their best material. It is up to them. Nothing prevents them from coming and getting their varieties registered. If they have more, they should get them registered.

Our biodiversity and farmers’ varieties and germplasm, of them are preserved and described. Some of them are not. If you don’t describe it and tomorrow if someone takes it and uses it, we have no way to claim or counterclaim.

If you have documentary evidence, you can have counterclaims. If you don’t have it, it is gone. We need to document our biodiversity as much as possible and see that everything in black and white. This is the country’s property, and we have a sovereign right to it. Every country has a sovereign right to its biodiversity. If you don’t have documentary evidence, you don’t have any rights. 

 It is not just farmers, even researchers don’t know. That’s the reason we are doing these awareness campaigns. Similarly, we are going to different parts of the country and inviting farmers to these meetings. Going to universities. Awareness programmes are being conducted in different parts of the country for different stakeholders. 

 You can keep everything free. Anybody can use it. No restrictions for farmers - they can store, use, and reuse. Even if it is protected by a company, they can still use it. They can share. Farmers are given that right in the act, which is significantly different from acts in other countries. But they can’t brand it and sell it. They can’t do marketing and business. That’s not their material.