Activists say the fight to establish farmers’ right to seeds will continue
Ahmedabad: The battle of a multinational-versus-farmers over potato seeds came to an end on Friday, with PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt Ltd withdrawing cases against nine farmers filed in two Gujarat courts.
On Friday, PepsiCo sought an early hearing in the cases of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) infringement and applied to withdraw the law suits. It had filed cases against four potato farmers in the Commercial Court in Ahmedabad and against five farmers in the district court of Modasa (Sabarkantha).
The development comes after the American food multinational faced public anger and global embarrassment for slapping a ?1 crore lawsuit against the farmers for allegedly growing the FL2027 or FC5 variety of potato. PepsiCo claimed exclusive rights to the variety under the PPV&FR Act, 2001. The variety is used to make its popular Lay’s chips.
Please click here to read more.