India’s famous Basmati rice is set to get intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in the home country. With its exporters supporting the Centre’s view that Madhya Pradesh can’t be deemed part of the Indo-Gangetic plain, decks have been cleared for Basmati’s entry into the coveted Geographical Indications (GI) Registry. GI protection in India would lead to similar recognitions in other countries, which means India’s competitors would be barred from using the Basmati tag.
India’s basmati rice exports, which had touched a record Rs 29,000 crore in 2013-14, fell to Rs 27,600 crore in 2014-15, due to a decline in shipments to Iran.
Official sources told FE that Chennai-based Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) is slated to hear the claims of all the parties for three consecutive days during July 8-10 for granting GI certification to basmati rice. The GI Registry, in a directive issued on December 31, 2013, had asked the Centre if Madhya Pradesh could be included in the definition of traditionally basmati-growing geography, inviting strong reactions from the commerce and agriculture ministries, which thinks the state’s claim is unjustified.
Even as the issue was pending with the GI Registry, the Madhya Pradesh government had moved the IPAB. The Agricultural and Processed Foods Export Development Authority (Apeda) has now told the IPAB that MP’s claim is invalid. Under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, Apeda is designated to be the custodian of GI rights for farm produce.
“Considering the Madhya Pradesh case for inclusion in basmati growing region would amount to playing with rights of those farmers who have been traditionally growing basmati in Indo-Gangetic plain,” a commerce ministry official said.
Leading agricultural scientists have also opposed Madhya Pradesh’s attempt to be included in basmati-growing regions, by stating that it would adversely impact the ‘quality’ of basmati rice and sully its global repute. “Claiming rice grown in Madhya Pradesh as basmati is not correct as we have developed seed varieties keeping in mind agro-climatic zones of the Indo-Gangetic plain,” KV Prabhu, deputy director, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), and a well-known rice breeder, had recently said.
In 2009, Apeda under the commerce ministry had applied to the GI Registry asking for exclusive (commercial) use of the basmati tag for the grain varieties grown within the boundaries of the Indo-Gagentic plain in Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and 26 districts of western Uttar Pradesh and two districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
GI ascribes ‘exclusivity’ to the community in a defined geography rather than to an individual as in the case of trademarks and patents.
Madhya Kshetra Basmati Growers Association Samiti and a leading basmati rice exporter, LT Foods, along with Madhya Pradesh’s department of farmer welfare and agriculture development, had approached the GI Registry jointly in 2013.
During 2008-10, India and Pakistan had initiated steps to register basmati under GI as ‘joint heritage’ for protecting its premium market abroad. But that bid did not fructify due to opposition to it within Pakistan.
In the absence of GI, many private companies have been unsuccessfully trying to register their products as ‘basmati’, which commands a premium in the global market. The IARI has developed Pusa 1121 basmati rice variety, which is grown in more than 60% of basmati rice areas.
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