Push for Awareness of the “Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act”
18 Aug 2006
In 2001, India enacted the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PVPFR) Act to protect plant breeders’ and farmers’ rights to cultivate, sow, exchange, and sell their agricultural produce including seeds. The Act is designed to encourage farmers to cultivate and breed new seed varieties; the varieties registered under this Act are protected from misappropriation.
Although the legal IP framework is in place, the registration of seed varieties lags behind, perhaps because awareness of this Act has not become widespread. At a recent workshop on the “Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PVPFR) and Seed Sector,” S. Nagarajan, the chairperson of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority, emphasized the importance of raising awareness of this Act, and expressed the need for the Indian seed industry to step up to a new intellectual property rights (IPR) framework.
Currently, the bureaucracy involved in the registration process might be a deterrent to the registration of seed varieties.
Source: Bv Mahalakshmi. Patent issue: Indian seed growers need awareness. The Financial Times. August 15, 2006
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