Plant protection authority sets right its potato blunder

News: Recently, the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Authority revoked the registration of PepsiCo’s potato variety FL 2027. It was used in the manufacture of its Lay’s chips. 

This means that farmers can cultivate this variety freely without the threat of penal action for violating intellectual property rights (IPR). 

What is the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Act?

It was enacted in 2001 to comply with the World Trade Organization’s requirements on laws to protect IPRs (Intellectual property rights) in agriculture. 

Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Authority has been established under the act to grant Intellectual Property Rights to plant breeders, researchers and farmers who have developed plant varieties (new and existing). 

To remove the apprehensions of the farming community in India regarding the Act, the authority included a chapter that made the rights of farmers’ paramount over those of breeders. This chapter also promised to protect the traditional practice of reusing and sharing seeds. 

How is Indian law different from global practice?

Developed countries follow the framework laid out by the International Union for Protection of New Plant Varieties (UPOV), called the UPOV convention. 

This convention protects breeders’ rights and bars farmers from reusing saved seeds or exchanging them with other cultivators. India has not joined UPOV till date. 

Why PepsiCo registered FL-2027 as an extant variety instead of a new one?

Extant variety = variety of common knowledge

This was done to exploit a loophole in the Indian law.

Whereas the UPOV focuses only on registration of the newly bred varieties that meet specified standards, the Indian law even allows registration of the varieties that were once publicly available and were used freely by the farming community. 

Recently, Corporate entities and public institutions are registering more and more existing varieties to take leverage of this loophole. 

Source– This post is based on the article “Plant protection authority sets right its potato blunder” published in Down to earth on 15^th Dec 2021.