Why in the News?
The Union Agriculture Minister has confirmed that the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 (PPV&FRA) will be amended, with the Centre incorporating inputs from farmers, scientists, civil society, and industry.
About the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act (PPV&FRA), 2001:
- Overview: India’s sui generis legislation protects the rights of plant breeders, farmers, and local communities while promoting innovation and conserving agrobiodiversity.
- TRIPS Compliance: Designed as an alternative to restrictive Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) models, recognising farmers both as cultivators and as breeders with equal legal standing.
- Key Features:
- Institutional Framework: Established the PPV&FR Authority, National Register of Plant Varieties, and the National Gene Bank for long-term conservation.
- Farmers’ Rights: Allows farmers to save, use, sow, resow, exchange, share, and sell seeds of protected varieties (except branded seeds) and register their own varieties.
- Breeders’ Rights: Grants exclusive commercialisation rights over registered varieties, subject to benefit-sharing and statutory limitations.
- DUS Testing: Registration based on Distinctness, Uniformity, Stability, with protection of 15 years for annuals and 18 years for trees and vines.
- Compulsory Licensing: Ensures public access where breeders fail to provide seeds at fair prices or adequate quantities.
- Community Benefits: Provides for benefit-sharing, recognition of traditional varieties, and safeguards against unfair claims on farmer-developed seeds.
- Scope of Varieties: Covers new, extant, farmers’, and essentially derived varieties.
What are the Proposed Amendments?
- Redefinition of ‘Variety’: Broadened to include combinations of genotypes and vegetative propagules such as tubers, bulbs, rhizomes, roots, synthetic seeds, and tissue-culture plants, aligning with the Seeds Bill 2019.
- Expanded Definition of ‘Seed’: Includes all planting materials and vegetatively propagated parts to harmonise India’s seed laws.
- Clarifying ‘Breeder’ and ‘Institution’: Updated to formally recognise both public and private bodies as legitimate breeders.
- Strengthening DUS Testing: Adds trait-based descriptors, greater transparency, and safeguards against misuse seen in cases like njavara paddy.
- Defining “Abusive Acts”: Introduces penalties for selling varieties with identical denominations or misusing breeder rights to gain monopolistic control.
- Community Seed Rights: Ensures that community-developed and traditional varieties cannot be appropriated by private entities.
- Protection Against Misappropriation: Prevents registration of varieties already tested or conserved by farmers without disclosure or consent.
- Farmer Compensation: Strengthens mechanisms for compensating farmers when registered varieties underperform compared to breeder claims.
- Global Alignment: Follows negotiations under the International Plant Treaty (MLS), especially on in situ conservation and equitable sharing of genetic resources.
| [UPSC 2014] In the context of food and nutritional security of India, enhancing the ‘Seed Replacement Rates’ of various crops helps in achieving the food production targets of the future. But what is/are the constraint/constraints in its wider/greater implementation?
1. There is no National Seeds Policy in place. 2. There is no participation of private sector seed companies in the supply of quality seeds of vegetables and planting materials of horticultural crops. 3. There is a demand-supply gap regarding quality seeds in case of low value and high volume crops. Select the correct answer using the code given below. |