Farm ministry body testing 11,000 seed varieties for IPR certification

Farm ministry body testing 11,000 seed varieties for IPR certification

The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Right Authority (PPVFRA) under the agriculture ministry is conducting field testing and assessments of more than 11,000 new seed varieties of cereals, cotton, vegetables, oilseeds, flowers, spices and legume crops for ascertaining their uniqueness. The idea is to protect rights of plant breeders through the grant of intellectual property rights (IPR) certification and boost research and development of new seed varieties.

Kumble Vinod Prabhu, chairperson of the PPVFRA, said the statutory body has granted certification for more than 4,000 plant varieties to public and private sector institutions since its inception in 2009. Farmers have received certification for another 1,033 varieties.

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While breeders have the right to sell the PPVFRA-certified seeds to private companies through licensing arrangements, the farmers have the rights to use the seeds.

Of the 5,033 certificates, about 3,356 were granted to cereal varieties, mostly developed by public sector research institutions especially those under India Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), state agricultural universities and other institutions. As many as 507 certifications for unique plant varieties were issued in 2021 and another 186 so far this year.

“We have rejected 3,000 applications for certification following field testing on the claims for uniqueness,” Prabhu said.

The authority conducts the testing of all the varieties registered for certification at 22 locations to ascertain the unique traits. The unique characteristics of plant breeders were studied for two years before granting a certification by the PPVFRA.

Following India’s ratification of the WTO agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, the PPVFRA was created after Parliament passed the plant varieties and farmers’ rights Act.

According to standing committee on agriculture’s report on demands for grants (2021-22) released last year, there were around 540 private seed companies, including multinationals, operating in the country. Of this, about 80 companies have their own research and development programmes.

The public sector has a share of more than 53% and private sector has around 47% in the total formal system of seed supply, the Indian Council of Agriculture Research has estimated. Most of the varieties, especially in the cereals, are multiplied and marketed by private-sector companies.