Training-cum-Awareness Programme

on

Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Right Act, 2001

1st March, 2011

A farmers training-cum-awareness programme on the ‘Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Right’ was organized by ICAR Research Complex for Goa in collaboration with Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority, New Delhi on 1st March, 2011 and was attended by about 120 farmers, scientists, developmental officials and members from various NGOs.

The training programme was inaugurated by Shri. Pratapsingh Rane, Hon’ble speaker, Goa Legislative Assembly, Govt. of Goa in the presence of  Dr. P. K. Singh, registrar, PPV&FRA, New Delhi; Shri. Satish Tendulkar, Director, Dept. of Agriculture, Govt. of Goa; and the programme was presided by Dr. N. P. Singh, Director, ICAR Research Complex for Goa. 

Chief Guest, Speaker Shri. Pratapsingh Rane who inaugurated the programme, said that many plant and rice varieties are on the verge of extinction and needs to be protected.

During the technical session, Dr. P.K. Singh, Registrar, Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmer Right Authority (PPV& FRA), New Delhi informed about the rules and regulations to claim the rights of farmers, researchers and other stakeholders. Dr. Vilas A Tonapi, Principal Scientist, Directorate of Sorghum Research, Hyderabad presented information on seed production techniques and DUS (Distinctiveness, Uniformity and Stability) guidelines.

Dr. N. P. Singh, Director, emphasized the importance of rules and regulations with respect to the plants varieties protection. He emphasized that, there is a scope for registering a lot of farmers’ varieties in Goa especially in rice, cowpea, green gram, coconut, cashew, mango, brinjal, chilli and bhendi.  He suggested that farmers should also educate other farmers in their villages with respect to these developments and hoped that farmers will think about registering their genetic material. Dr. Singh also assured that ICAR will facilitate the farmers in evaluating the materials received from the farmers for all the characters listed in the DUS guidelines by PPVFRA authority. 

Dr. K. K. Manohara, Scientist in Plant Breeding and Organizer of the training programme briefed the farmers about the land races and farmers’ varieties of rice. Dr. V. Arunachalam, Principal Scientist in Horticulture and Co-organizer of the training programme explained about the farmers’s varieties of horticultural crops of Goa who also proposed the vote of thanks. Farmers were asked to give information about the crops on which they are interested in registering and the special features of their crop variety.