India’s famous Basmati rice is likely to get intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in the home country as the final hearing pertaining to the case is slated to be held next week at Chennai based Geographical Indications (GI) registry.
Official sources told FE that the Chennai-based Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) is slated to hear the claims of all the parties—commerce ministry, exporters, farmers organisation for three consecutive days during November 3-5 prior to giving a judgment on GI certification to Basmati rice.
“The GI for Basmati rice would boost our export potential,” a commerce ministry official said.
The GI tag for aromatic long grained Basmati rice got delayed as 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) subsequently 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, 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.