The conflict between Seed Bill and PPVFR Act of India
2009
S.B. Ravi
The Indian seed policy and related laws and regulations are stand-alone domestic devices for setting and enforcing national seed standards. This policy brief is an analysis of the complementarities and contradictions between the legislation governing seed trade and seed-related IPRs in India.<br /><br />The paper notes that about 70% of the country's seed system in India is managed by farmers’ traditional practices, yet new seeds offering better profits to farmers have lately become an important technology component of modern agriculture. Correspondingly, the government devised a plant variety protection law that balances the interests of breeders and farmers.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the document underlines the conflict between the “Seed Bill 2004” and the “PPVFR Act 2001”. The author notices that the contradiction arose because the Act has extensive provisions on farmers’ rights due to the internalisation of CBD (the Convention on Biological Diversity) principles, apart from the requirement of the TRIPS agreement.<br /><br />The paper concludes that it is important to consider not only the implementation of effective and farmer-friendly plant variety protection laws, but also the avoidance of possible conflict between seed and plant variety protection laws.<br /><br />Recommendations, besides lessons for other South Asian countries, are as follows:<br /> the protection of traditional rights of farmers is an issue that should be given priority while drafting seed laws any responsible legislative and enforcement process should not ignore the interests of farmers seed laws should provide for the conservation of every commercialised new seed it is important to devise mechanisms that enable farmers, among others, to save, exchange, reuse and sell seeds, and to obtain ownership over their varieties investment in R&D should be expanded and the consultation process with relevant stakeholders, including farmers and their organisations, should be institutionalised
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