Organised by Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), the Conference resolved that they will not allow another “PepsiCo India Vs Farmers episode” to recur in India.
PUNE: Farmers’ movements have decided to put up a collective fight to ensure that farmers’ seed freedoms in India are not violated in any way, in a People’s Conference held here today.
Organised by Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), the Conference resolved that they will not allow another “PepsiCo India Vs. Farmers episode” to recur in India.
The Conference saw legal and IPR experts and farmer leaders re-examine the PepsiCo India legal cases against nine potato farmers of Gujarat and come up with an action plan to prevent any recurrences in future.
The Conference saw the participation of farmers’ leaders from different states of India, like Rakesh Tikait, Yudhvir Singh and Dharmendar Malik of Bhartiya Kisan Union, Badri Narayan Chaudhary of Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, Naresh Sirohi of BJP Kisan Morcha, Ashwani Mahajan of Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Chamarasa Patil of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, Kapil Shah of Beej Adhikar Manch, Kavitha Kuruganti, Ananthoo, Rohit Parakh and Ajay Etikala of ASHA, Soma Parthasarathy of Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch, Com. KN Ramachandran of All India Krantikari Kisan Sabha, Com. Ombir Singh of All India Agragamee Kisan Sabha, N Srinivas of Rythu Rakshana Vedika, Jacob Nellithanam and Krishna Prasad of Bharat Beej Swaraj Manch, Manojbhai Solanki of Akshay Krishi Pariwar etc.
The Registrar General of Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers’ Rights Authority Dr R C Agrawal shared about the implementation of PPV&FR Act 2001.
A release from ASHA said: “Large scale awareness building should be made the responsibility of the PPV&FR Authority to ensure that this episode does not recur again – this should cover the judiciary, legal fraternity, state government agriculture departments, researchers and plant breeders, registrants in the plant varieties registry, seed traders and others.”
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