Status of Farmer’s Varieties under Plant Varieties Registry

India’s PPV&FR Act, 2001 has the provisions of Plant Variety Registration for various kinds of varieties as New, Essentially Derived Varieties (EDV), and Extant. Farmer Variety comes under the purview of the Extant Variety category. Farmer Variety (FV) has been defined under the Section 2(l) of PPV&FR Act as a variety which-(i) has been traditionally cultivated and evolved by the farmers in their fields; or (ii) is a wild relative or land race of a variety about which the farmers possess the common knowledge.

According to the information updated on Authority’s website (here), 55 applications have been filed under the extant variety category as farmer variety till 22 November, 2010. Authority has been issued the certificates for the three rice varieties as (i) Tilak Chandan (ii) Hansraj and (iii) INDRASAN. The remaining varieties are under the process, if they satisfied the criteria formulated by the authority then certificate can be issued.

Under the farmer’s variety category, Rice is the crops for which highest no of applications were filed and certificates issued. The details about the crop wise applications as follows;

S.No.	Crops	Applications
1.	Rice (Oryza sativa)	39
2.	Wheat (Triticum astivum)	6
3.	French bean / Kidney bean (Phasealues vulgaris)	5
4.	Bengal Gram(Cicer arietinum)	2
5.	Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan)	2
6.	Jowar (Sorghum bicolor)	1

In the year of 2009, highest no of applications were filed. The detail about the year wise filings as follow;

S.No.	Years	Applications
1.	2006	0
2.	2007	2
3.	2008	5
4.	2009	44
5.	2010	4

As the India’s Plant Variety Protection Law has the unique provision of Farmer Variety (FV) compare to most of the countries in the world. It will help the farmer community to establish their right under the provisions of said Act & Rules, and enjoy the proprietorship and other benefit.

Please contact for further clarification, if required;

Onkar Singh,

onkar.singh9999@gmail.com