Seed Health Management for Better Productivity - Govind Ballabh ...

(Seed Health Management for Better Productivity)which- i) has been traditionally cultivated and evolved by the farmers in their fields; or ii) is a wildrelative or land race of a variety about which the farmers posses the common knowledge.An application for registration can be made by any person claiming to be the breeder of thevariety, successor of the breeder, assignee, any farmer or group of community of farmers, anyperson authorized for the above mentioned categories or any University or publicly fundedagricultural institution claiming to be the breeder of the variety. However, an application of farmervariety filed by any farmer or group of farmers or community of farmers has to be endorsed by anyone of officers viz. District Agricultural Officer, District Tribal Development Officer, DirectorResearch of the concerned state Agricultural University, Chairperson/Secretary of the concernedPanchayat Biodiversity Management Committee.All the varieties will be registered with PPV&FR Authority. DUS guidelines for 35 cropshave been prepared by ICAR while guidelines for 12 crop species have been notified by PPV&FRAuthority in the gazette. PPV&FR Authority has established testing centres for each and everycrop species. In the first phase which has started in May, 2007, the registration of varieties will bedone for 12 crop species of cereals and legumes. The registration will then extend to 35 cropswhich includes cereals, pulses, oilseeds, vegetable and two flower species. DUS guidelines arealso being prepared for medicinal and aromatic plants, spices, ornamentals and forest trees forwhich task forces have been constituted by the PPV&FR Authority.Indian PPV&FR Act allows farmers to save, use, sow, resow, exchange, share or sell hisfarm produce including seed of a variety protected under this Act, but it prohibits that the farmershall not be entitled to sell branded seed of a variety protected under the Act [Sec. 39, 1(iv)]. Thefarmers have been given the right to register farmers varieties themselves [Sec. 39,1(i)], right toclaim compensation for under performance of a protected variety from the promised level [Sec.39(2)], benefit sharing for use of biodiversity conserved by farming community [Sec. 41]. Accordingto the concept of benefit sharing, whenever a variety submitted for protection is bred with thepossible use of a landrace, extant variety or farmer’s variety, a claim can be referred either onbehalf of the local community or institution for a share of the royalty [Sec. 41(1)] (Anonymous,2003). In the Act a provision of compulsory license has also been put. According to this, after theexpiry of three years from the date of issue of certificate of registration of a variety, any personinterested can claim in an application to the authority alleging that reasonable requirements of thepublic for seeds or other propagating material have not been satisfied or that the seed or otherpropagating material is not available to the public at a reasonable price and pray for the grant of acompulsory license to undertake production, distribution and sale of the seed or other propagatingmaterial of that variety [Sec. 47(1)] (Anonymous, 2003).The Act had laid down the norms for registration of plant varieties, fee structure, provisionsof opposition, DUS testing of material, etc. If any farmer or association of farmers is applying forregistration of a plant variety then this category is not required to pay any fee for either registrationor DUS testing. However, for the registration of farmer variety a farmer has to pay the fee for- 54 -