PPVFRA Marks 22nd Foundation Day With Saviour Awards

The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority held its 22nd Foundation Day together with the Plant Genome Saviour Award ceremony. Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Dr P.K. Mishra addressed the gathering and argued that farmers should be treated as custodians and innovators of the country’s agricultural biodiversity rather than as passive beneficiaries, and that their inherited knowledge needs to be tied to laboratory research, to dependable seed supply and to markets that pay.

Twenty-five years of a distinctive law

The occasion also marked twenty-five years of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001. Dr Mishra described the statute as unusual because it sets the rights of plant breeders alongside formal recognition of farmers as conservers, cultivators and developers of varieties. Close to half the varieties on the Authority’s register are farmers’ varieties. He also pointed to the benefit-sharing clauses and to the National Gene Fund as the machinery that returns value to the communities that keep genetic resources alive.

India’s scientific base

• The National Genebank at ICAR-NBPGR is the second largest in the world.
• Around 3,000 climate-resilient crop varieties have come out of the National Agricultural Research System.
• India has 22 agro-biodiversity hotspots; Koraput in Odisha was recognised by the FAO in 2012 as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System.

India’s voice abroad

Dr Mishra listed India’s work on farmers’ rights through the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, the Governing Body session India hosted in New Delhi in 2022 and the Global Symposium on Farmers’ Rights in 2023. He also mentioned the Indore Declaration adopted by BRICS Agriculture Ministers and the setting up of a Global Forum on Farmers’ Rights in Seed Systems.

From recognition to income

Calling for a move beyond honours, he asked for stronger community seed banks and field gene banks, and for farmers’ varieties to be linked with quality seed systems, Farmer Producer Organisations and bigger markets. In his words, an award honours a farmer once, while a seed chain, a market and a fair share of benefits sustain the farmer every season. Protecting agricultural diversity, he said, is a duty shared by farmers, scientists, universities, industry, the State and society.