Implementing Farmers’ Rights In Paddy Varieties Under The Protection Of Plant Varieties And Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001: An Empirical Study Of Government Officers In Udupi District
Dr. Sunil Sudhakar Varnekar, Research Scholar, Alliance, School of Law, Alliance University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Dr. Upankar Chutia, Associate Professor, Department of Law, Dayananda Sagar University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
ABSTRACT
Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001 (PPV&FR Act) presents a unique Indian approach to plant-variety protection that includes farmer/community-friendly protections, compensation protections, conservation protections and positive rights for farmers and communities. While the text of the statutes and judicial interpretation are important, the realisation of those rights also requires the administrative institutions that interpret the national law into farmer facing processes. This paper explores that aspect in the light of an empirical study of twelve officers of the government of Udupi district, Karnataka analysed with the PPV&FR Act, international rules governing plant genetic resources and recent case law in India. The officer evidence shows a consistent gap in implementation which included insufficient governmental support being provided for implementation (66.7% of officers), with only some or very few records of traditional paddy varieties being kept by the officers (91.7% of officers) and that there was a need for more farmer training (100% of officers) and stronger implementation (100% of officers). Similarly, the majority of the respondents (66.7%) considered the Act as less effective at the district level in protecting the rights of the farmers. Further exploratory chi-square analyses show that there are strong relationships between overall awareness of officers and department involvement (χ2 = 24.000, df = 4, p < .001); between perceived farmer awareness and reported registration of varieties of paddy (χ2 = 12.000, df = 2, p = .002); and between difficulty in registering the variety and ease of perceived procedural process (χ2 = 12.000, df = 2, p = .002). Due to the limited number of officers and the small number of officers in the contingency cells, it is important to consider these inferential results with caution and as mainly signals for implementation. The paper contends that a major legal issue is not that there is no legal rights, but that these rights are converted into accessible registration, documentation, outreach, conservation and remedial pathways. It suggests a district level implementation architecture comprising of officer legal training, legal literacy at a local level, facilitation of mobile registration, systematic documentation of traditional paddy varieties, coordinating between institutions and measurable implementation indicators.
Keywords: Protection Of Plant Varieties And Farmers’ Rights Act; Government Officers; Administrative Implementation; Farmers’ Rights; Plant Variety Registration; Paddy; Udupi; Traditional Varieties; Legal Awareness; Empirical Legal Studies.
