CV News\/ Friday, May 03, 2019<\/p>\n
Gujarat potato farmers sued by PepsiCo have rejected the top multinational corporation\u2019s (MNC\u2019s) announcement that it would withdraw cases against them under certain terms and conditions, asserting that Indian farmers\u2019 seed freedoms are non-negotiable. Talking with media in Ahmedabad, one of the four potato farmers, Bipin Patel, flanked by half-a-dozen farmer leaders, said, \u201cWe learn from media that they will withdraw cases against us, but this should be unconditional.\u201d
\nChhabilbhai Patel and Vinodbhai Patel, also present on the occasion, added that they should be paid compensation for the harassment they were subjected to even though the law is very clear on the subject, regretting, while the Gujarat government is learnt to be negotiating with PepsiCo, it has still not talked to them.
\nAccording to them, the court proceedings came as a shock to them, including the amount of damages that the company was claiming \u2013 Rs 1.5 crore each. It was clearly trying to intimidate and harass us. Its real intention might have been to wipe out competitors from the market, but it chose to harass farmers, they added.
\nFarmers\u2019 rights leader Kapil Shah of Jatan Trust, coordinator of the new body formed to fight against PepsiCo, Beej Samprabhuta Forum, insisted, \u201cThere cannot be any tampering with the legal rights contained for farmers in the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Act, 2001, which surpass the breeders\u2019 right, in the name of ‘long term and amicable resolution of all issues around seed protection\u2019.\u201d
\nShah said, PepsiCo seemed to take a step backwards only after the news of the MNC suing the farmers \u201cgripped national attention\u201d, with \u201cIndian and global citizens taking to social media with loud boycott calls against PepsiCo\u201d after around 200 activists and social workers \u201cwrote to concerned government authorities to intervene and protect farmers\u2019 rights\u201d on April 24.
\nClaimed Shah, \u201cPepsiCo is already on the backfoot, opting for an out-of-court settlement.\u201d On April 27, Gujarat\u2019s Deputy Chief Minister stated that the government would implead in the case. On May 1, there was news of government trying to get an out of court settlement going. On May 2, PepsiCo spokesperson put out a statement saying that the company will withdraw the cases.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CV News\/ Friday, May 03, 2019 Gujarat potato farmers sued by PepsiCo have rejected the top multinational corporation\u2019s (MNC\u2019s) announcement that it would withdraw cases against them under certain terms and conditions, asserting that Indian farmers\u2019 seed freedoms are non-negotiable. Talking with media in Ahmedabad, one of the four potato farmers, Bipin Patel, flanked by […]<\/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":[3,7],"tags":[18,80],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paUKPQ-3pX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13141"}],"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=13141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13142,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13141\/revisions\/13142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}