Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Monday, Jan 28, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Monday, Jan 28, 2002 |
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Life
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Letters Too rosy a picture?
The article, An act that sows success (December 17, 2001), on the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act presents too rosy a picture of this law. Will this Act, based as it is on the premise that intellectual property rights (IPRs) would provide incentives for rapid breeding of new crop varieties, and therefore enhance India's food security, actually help the millions of marginal and small farmers in India? Food security is a measure of not just total available food in the country, but of the access that poor people have to this food (including buying power), their security of tenure over land and water resources, their access to other natural resources, and immediate access to seed and livestock diversity. The Act does not help in meeting these requirements. Even the much-touted benefit-sharing clauses in the Act, are highly convoluted. Farmers will have to claim benefits from breeders who use their genetic material, rather than the breeder having to automatically share such benefits. How many farmers would even know what varieties are being registered (even despite the requirement to advertise the IPR application), and have the passport data with them, to make such claims? And even after they do, they have to go through a tortuous process to get benefits. Benefit-sharing is likely to remain a mirage under this Act in all but the most exceptional case. Worse, there is no benefit-sharing envisaged when farmers' knowledge is used more widely. Finally, there is no requirement to conduct environmental impact assessment of the varieties that are being considered for IPRs, despite the past history of new lab-generated varieties in the Green Revolution having caused large-scale displacement of traditional agro-biodiversity. So while there is a provision for the Authority to reject IPR claims on varieties that could harm "public interest'', how is this to be established without mandatory EIA provisions? Ashish Kothari Founder-member of Kalpavriksh, and coordinator of the Technical and Policy Core Group of the National Biodiversity. By e-mail
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