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Govt to ratify plant genetic resources treaty

BS Agriculture Editor

The Union Cabinet has approved the ratification of two global conventions on plant genetic resources and plant variety protection.

This will remove some major lacunae that have helped other nations to unduly exploit Indian agricultural wealth. Besides, India can now claim to have in place an intellectual property rights regime compatible with international norms.

The international treaty on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, which the government on Friday decided to ratify, will facilitate Indian plant breeders access to plant germplasm of other member countries for breeding better crop varieties.

It will also enable India to claim compensation for the benefits being derived by other countries from the use of plant genetic resources conserved by Indian farmers over the centuries.

The other measure approved by the Cabinet today pertains to India's accession to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants Convention of 1978 (nicknamed UPOV after the French name of the organisation).

This will enable the Indian plant varieties to get international standard patent protection in all the member countries. By protecting the legitimate rights of a plant breeder pertaining to the varieties bred by him, this convention will facilitate greater domestic and foreign investment in plant breeding.

Both these measures were essential to legitimise at international level the sui generis law on plant varieties brought in India recently. The kind of protection this legislation provides to plant breeders and, more so, to farmers could not be justified without ratifying the two treaty.

Though the UPOV convention on plant varieties protection was revised and updated in 1991, but the 1978 version of the UPOV was better suited to the Indian conditions.

After joining the UPOV, India will not have to enter into bilateral agreements with other countries for protecting its plant varieties.

The vast community of Indian plant breeders will now be able to protect their varieties in all the countries that are members of UPOV with minimum formalities and costs. The international treaty on plant genetic resources, on the other hand, is a major global instrument that allows conservation and inter-country sharing of the plant germplasm for sustainable development of agriculture and food security.

The benefits accruing out of such use, however, have to be shared.

Besides, the treaty recognises the role the farmers have played over the centuries in the conservation and development of plant genetic resources.

Indeed, India had played a crucial role in drawing up the treaty in its present form which was approved by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in November 2001.

This is essentially a compromise between the Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992, which affirmed the sovereign rights of the nations over their biological resources, and the views of India, the FAO and many other countries that the natural resources are a common heritage of all mankind and, thus, should be shared for mankind's welfare.

The treaty envisages a multilateral system for facilitating access to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture as well as for equitable sharing of the benefits.

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