Afterthought

THE government of India on November 11, 2005, notified the establishment of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Authority. This authority would implement the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act (PPVFRA), 2001. S Nagarajan, director of the Indian Agriculture Research Institute, has been appointed its first chairperson.

Though the PPVFRA got presidential assent soon after it was passed by parliament in 2001, it took the government four years to notify it. This unusual delay in its notification drew strong protests from farmer bodies and civil society organisations.

PPVFRA is the only seed related legislation in the world which recognises the rights of farmer's over their seeds along with the rights of seed breeders. Even as this Act awaited notification, the Seeds Bill was tabled in Parliament in December 2004. This bill is seen as infringing farmers' rights over farm saved seeds. A number of provisions in the proposed seed bill also encroach upon PPVFRA.

Some sections of the act relating to the establishment of the authority and its terms of reference have been notified; others are still in the pipeline. Provisions relating to registration of plant varieties' testing under distinctiveness, uniformity and stability guidelines are yet to undergo notification. The Act will be implemented at an all-India level by the established authority through state agricultural universities, and other centres of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.