Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers Rights Act

Introduction
India is among the first country in the world to have passed legislation granting Farmers' Rights in the form of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001 (PPVFR). India's PPVFR Act not only upholds farmers' rights to save, use and exchange seeds and propagating material but also attempts to enable farmers to claim special forms of intellectual property rights over their varieties. The Act grants plant variety protection on new varieties (largely modelled on UPOV), extant varieties and essentially derived varieties. Extant varieties include farmers' varieties, varieties in the public domain and varieties about which there is common knowledge. India has enacted protection of plant varieties and Farmers Rights Act (PPV & FR Act) to deal with the demands of seed industry and Farmers concerns. The protection of plant variety and Farmers’ Right Act was passed by the Indian Parliament in 2001. Rules were notified by Department of Agriculture and co-operation (DOAC) in 2003. The PPV & FR Act covers all plants of agriculture, medicinal, commercial, fodder and forest importance.

Objectives of the PPV & FR Act
a)    To recognize and protect the rights of farmers in respect of the contribution made at any time in conserving, improving and making available plant genetic resources for the development of new plant varieties.
b)    To accelerate agriculture development in the common protect plant breeders rights, stimulate investment for research and development of plant variety.
c)    To facilitate the growth of seed industry to ensure the availability of high quality seeds and planting material to the farmers.

Rights provided under PPV & FR ACT
Exclusive rights have been given to the developer of plant varieties for extracting monetary benefits out of registered varieties. Farmers and researchers have been exempted from certain restrictions which are otherwise imposed by the holder of the breeders rights for the use of registered varieties.

Plant breeders’ rights
Plant breeder rights, also known as plant variety rights (PVR) are intellectual property rights granted to the breeder of a new variety of plant. PBR can be granted only to breeder or legal owner of a new variety.

Breeders of a registered plant variety can produce or reproduce the following materials
1.    Condition the material for propagation
2.    Offer the materials for sale.
3.    Market the material.
4.    Import the material.
5.    Export the material.
6.    Stock the material for any purposes described above.

Requirements of PBR protected variety
It should be (i) new, (ii) distinct, (iii) uniform and (iv) stable. 'New' means, the variety should not have been previously exploited commercially. 'Distinct' means, it should be clearly distinguishable from all other varieties known at the date of application for protection. 'Uniform' means that all plants of the variety should be sufficiently uniform. 'Stable' means that the variety can be reproduced and multiplied without losing its characteristics and uniformity.
Registration is essential to get legal rights. There is no protection without registration. The registration consists of following steps:
i)    Filling application in the prescribed form
ii)    Payment of prescribed processing fee along with application.
iii)    Examination of the application by the experts, and
iv)    Issue of protection certificate, if application is found to meet the desired requirements.

Farmers Rights
Nine rights can be said to have been given to farmers under the Act including: the rights to save, exchange and (to a limited extent) sell seeds and propagating material, to register varieties, recognition and reward for conservation of varieties, benefit sharing, information about expected performance of a variety, compensation for failure of variety to perform, availability of seeds of registered variety, free services for registration, conducting tests on varieties, legal claims under the Act, and protection from infringement.
Farmers have been recognized as breeds, conservers, preservers and cultivator of tradition varieties. The act provides rights to farmers to save, use, sow, resow, exchange, share or sell his farm produce including seed of a variety protected by PPV&FR Act. Farmers cannot sell branded seed of a variety protected under the act.
A farmer, who has bred or developed a new variety, shall be entitled for registration and protection of his variety like a breeder. The registration process consists of the following steps:
i)    Filing of application. The application is to be filled in the prescribed form and should be submitted in the office of the registrar of plant variety protection and Farmers’ Right Act. The application should contain all the desired documents and information
ii)    Examination of the application. The application is examined by experts in the registrar office. If found correct, it is advertised for opposition. Three months time is given for filing opposition.
iii)    Registration. If there is no opposition, and the registrar and Authority are satisfied, the variety is registered and the registration certificate is issued to the breeder, farmer or other owner of the variety.
Duration of protection of plant varieties
Trees and vines  - 9 years initially and maximum for 18 years    
Other crops  - 6 years initially and maximum for 15 years
The protection is valid only in the country where the variety has been registered.
Martina
SMS (Genetics and plant breeding)
KVK, Tuensang