About 200 farmers\u2019 leaders and activists, in a letter to Dr KV Prabhu, chairperson, Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers\u2019 Rights Authority (PPVFRA), and Dr R C Agrawal, registrar general, PPVFRA, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India, have demanded that PepsiCo immediately withdraw all the legal suits it has slapped on many potato farmers in different districts of Gujarat.
\nThe Indian subsidiary of the US MNC, namely PepsiCo India Holdings (PIH) Pvt Ltd has filed cases of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) infringement through 2018-19 against farmers whom it claims are using its potato variety FL 2027\/FC5 without permission.
\nReleasing the letter in Ahmedabad, senior farmer rights activists and leaders Ambubhai Patel of the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), Badribhai Joshi of the Gujarat Khedut Samaj, Kapil Shah of the Jatan Trust, Sagar Rabari of the Khedut Ekta Manch, and Vinay Mahajan of Loknaad demanded that the Government of India and the Gujarat government should step in \u201cimmediately to protect farmers\u2019 rights as already enshrined in relevant laws of the country, particularly the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers\u2019 Rights (PPV&FR) Act, 2001.\u201d
\nWhile Sagar Rabari warned of \u201cdire consequences\u201d if PepsiCo did not withdraw the case against the farmers, answering questions, Kapil Shah said, though they had come to know about PepsiCo\u2019s law suit on April 15 through a media report, they did not protest against the MNC because they did not want to interfere in Gujarat state assembly elections. \u201cWe are non-political, and did not want to be misunderstood\u201d, Shah added. \u201cBesides, we had to make preparations on the issue.\u201d
\nBelonging to the Sangh Parivar, BKS\u2019 Ambubhai Patel said they had written a letter to the Gujarat government \u201cprotesting against the move\u201d on April 20, three days before the polls took place in the state. However, the BKS decided not to make public the letter for \u201cpolitical reasons.\u201d
\nFrom information gathered so far by the farmers\u2019 leaders, at least nine cases have been filed by PepsiCo India against potato farmers of Banaskantha, Sabarkantha and Arvalli districts, and some of these cases date back to 2018. These are amongst the first cases of alleged IPR infringement against farmers in India in a post-World Trade Organization (WTO) world.
\nThe letter demands \u201cimmediate intervention\u201d from Union agriculture minister Radhamohan Singh, Union minister of state for agriculture Purushotham Rupala, Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani and state agriculture minister RC Faldu.
\nText of the letter:
\nThis is to bring to your urgent notice our serious concerns and facts around legal suits that are going against farmers on the matter of plant varietal rights.
\nThese are being filed by PepsiCo, a US multinational company against potato farmers in Gujarat, with regard to alleged infringement of its rights under PPV&FR Act, 2001. For us, this is a matter of concern with regard to this set of farmers who have been sued and intimidated, as well as others who could be similarly bullied by seed and food corporations through vexatious litigation in the assertion of plant breeder rights.
\nWe are aware of at least 9 farmers, belonging to Sabarkantha and Aravalli districts of Gujarat having been sued by this MNC\u2019s Indian subsidiary, which is PepsiCo India Holdings (PIH) Pvt Ltd. A crucial next hearing is coming up on April 26, 2019 at the Commercial Court in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, after an ex-parte interim injunction order has been passed against the farmers, upon the company making a case for \u201cirreparable losses\u201d.
\nThe cases are specifically with regard to a particular potato variety with a denomination of FL-2027, reportedly known as FC-5 potato, for which the company claims to have obtained exclusive PVP rights in India in 2016 (valid till 2031) from the Authority. PIH is making out infringement cases with its own interpretation of Section 64 of the PPV&FR Act.
\nAs per the information that we have gathered so far, these farmers are small farmers holding around 3-4 acres on an average, and had grown a potato crop from farm-saved seed after they accessed the potato seed locally in 2018. At this point of time, it is not clear if the farmers were aware of what they had grown and even if they did, that is immaterial when it comes to the statutory rights that they have, as we show later in this letter.
\nPepsiCo apparently got a tip-off that the farmers were growing \u201cits registered variety\u201d of FL-2027 and in a completely unacceptable manner, hired a private detective agency to pose as potential buyers in front of the sued farmers, to take secret video footage and collect samples from farmers\u2019 fields sans disclosing its real intent.
\nLater on, PepsiCo India Holdings got the samples tested in its own laboratory and also sent the same to ICAR-CPRI, Shimla and got reports confirming that the varieties being grown by the farmers are indeed FL-2027 or FC-5.
\nArmed with this information, and presenting an estimated damage of more than one crore rupees against each farmer, the MNC filed legal suits against 4 farmers in early April 2019 (and we came to know later on that similar cases were filed against 5 other farmers in another district in Gujarat last year and there could be more) and PIH even obtained injunction orders from the Court.
\nEverything about this entire operation is in fact against the law, and it is not the farmers who are violating the law, but the company. The PPV&FR Act has always been projected as a law to protect farmers\u2019 rights. The protection ought not be tied to only when farmers register their varieties with the Authority.
\nAs you know, the Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers Rights Act was enacted in India as a sui generis framework at the national level, after India had signed on to the WTO TRIPS in 1995.
\nAs is well known, the PPV&FR Act 2001 has upheld the apriori rights of farmers of the country, by explicitly stating under Section 39 (1) (iv) the following:
\n\u201cChapter VI
\nFarmers\u2019 Rights: Sec. 39 (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act
\n(iv) a farmer shall be deemed to be entitled to save, use, sow, resow, exchange, share or sell his farm produce including seed of a variety protected under this Act in the same manner as he was entitled before the coming into the force of this Act, provided that the farmer shall not be entitled to sell branded seed of a variety protected under this Act.\u201d
\nIt is important to note and underscore the importance of this qualifying statement, which says \u201cnotwithstanding anything contained in this Act\u201d which means that this clause is more important than clauses that provided exclusive rights to a registrant, and also that farmers are entitled to apriori rights and practices by virtue of the line on \u201c(protection) in the same manner as he was entitled to, before the coming into the force of this Act\u201d. Both these indicate that farmers\u2019 rights are squarely upheld by this Act and are non-compromisable.
\nFurther, even the caveat around sale of \u201cbranded seed\u201d of a registered variety which is protected under the Act is with regard to sale of SEED, that too in a branded fashion, which in the current case of Gujarat farmers is not even applicable.
\nThe legislative intent to safeguard farmers must be upheld through a harmonious reading of sections 28, 39 and 64. There is also Section 42 which deals with protection in the case of innocent infringement that can be operationalised and made real.
\nWe believe that the intimidation and legal harassment of farmers is happening because farmers are not fully aware of the rights contained in this statute. Also, in all PVCs granted to non-farmers, there has been no reiteration of such non-negotiable rights of farmers vis-\u00e0-vis the breeders. Plant Breeders Rights granted in India are meant to be unique and different from those granted anywhere else due to the farmers\u2019 rights orientation and provisions of the law.
\nIt is in this context that we urge the PPV&FR Authority, which as per Section 8(1) of the Act has the duty to protect the rights of farmers, to immediately take up the following:
\nPut out a public statement, which should also be made a Submission to the Commercial Court and High Court in Ahmedabad where the farmers are being sued, explaining the farmers\u2019 rights as enshrined in the PPV&FR Act 2001;
\nWrite to PepsiCo India Holdings, asking it to withdraw its false and untenable cases against the farmers;
\nProvide from the National Gene Fund the costs of legal suits that the farmers are having to face, until the time that the cases are withdrawn by PepsiCo;
\nMention on all Certificates of Registration, in the same manner as Section 47 (on compulsory licensing) is mentioned, Section 39 and other relevant sections too.
\nIssue a notification that no company can trespass into a farmer\u2019s field without due intimation of the local district agriculture office and the farmer\u2019s prior informed consent.
\nWe also recognise that farmers rights under the Act can be upheld better and bio-piracy prevented if Section 8 (c) of PPV&FR Act 2001 is operationalised fully in letter and spirit.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About 200 farmers\u2019 leaders and activists, in a letter to Dr KV Prabhu, chairperson, Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers\u2019 Rights Authority (PPVFRA), and Dr R C Agrawal, registrar general, PPVFRA, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India, have demanded that PepsiCo immediately withdraw all the legal suits it has slapped on many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paUKPQ-3mr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12923"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12924,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12923\/revisions\/12924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}