After years of intense discussion, India and Pakistan finally seem to be getting their act together, for jointly registering Basmati, under Geographical Indications (GI).
The last joint meeting, with officials from the commerce ministries from both the countries, which would formulate a common definition of Basmati, prior to submitting the application for GI registration, would be held in September.
?We are formulating a common definition of Basmati rice after a series of discussions held with all the stakeholders from both the countries. By December, we hope to file the joint application for GI registration,? Asit Tripathy, chairman, agricultural and processed food products export development authority (APEDA) told FE. Both the countries have sorted out the contentious issues regarding the production area, chemical characteristics, aroma etc for Basmati.
According to Tripathy, the new definition of Basmati would include farmers of the Indo-Gangetic plans of undivided Punjab, Haryana, Uttaranchal and Westen UP, having exclusive rights over cultivating basmati rice.
In the absence of a geographical indication registration, many private companies have been unsuccessfully trying to register their products as Basmati. Basmati, an aromatic long-grain variety of rice, grown in the Gangetic plains in India and Pakistan, commands a price, higher than the other varieties in the international market.
APEDA has been mandated to define the GI for basmati internationally. GI registration is given to products with a reputation that can be attributed to its place of origin or the area where it is manufactured, like Darjeeeling tea, Kancheepuram silk, Mysore agarbathi and Champagne. After filing and getting a registration at the GI office in Chennai, both the governments would initiate the process for registering in all the major export markets like Africa, the Middle East and the European Union.
A commerce ministry official had said that India and Pakistan jointly own the Basmati variety of rice, as it is a ?common heritage?. After the GI registration for Basmati is done, it would bring in huge benefits to Basmati exporters from both India and Pakistan.
India?s Basmati rice exports have been rising consistently since the last decade. The exports from India rose to Rs 3548 crore during 2007-8, from Rs 2482 crore achieved during the previous year. In terms of volume, the export of basmati rice has gone up from 7.71-lakh tonne in 2003 to an estimated 14-lakh tonne in 2008. The land for cultivation of notified and non-notified basmati varieties, however, has grown by a mere 2.8% in these years.
The products like Darjeeling Tea, Kancheepuram silk, Mysore agarbathi, Madurai songudi, Coimbatore wet grinder and Mysore sandalwood soap have already been granted GI registration. The government has also decided to amend the APEDA Act to enable the agency to provide GI protection to agro-products. This amendment has been cleared by the Cabinet and would be presented to the Parliament soon.
According to the fourth advance estimate of crop production, released recently by the ministry of agriculture, rice production in 2007-08 would be 96.43 million tonne, almost one million tonne over the 95.6 million tonne projected in the third estimate in April.