The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act was passed by the Indian Government in 2001. After India became signatory to the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPs) in 1994, a legislation was required to be formulated. Article 27.3 (b) of this agreement requires the member countries to provide for protection of plant varieties either by a patent or by an effective sui generis system or by any combination thereof. Thus, the member countries had the choice to frame legislations that suit their own system and India exercised this option. The existing Indian Patent Act, 1970 excluded agriculture and horticultural methods of production from patentability. The sui generis system for protection of plant varieties was developed integrating the rights of breeders, farmers and village communities, and taking care of the concerns for equitable sharing of benefits. We attempt here to critically analyse the provisions of legislations for their effective implementation.

PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES (PGRs) are the foundation for the development of a food and nutritionally secure society. In addition, plants have many uses, including feed, fiber, medicine and industrial applications. PGRs were treated as the ‘heritage of mankind’ and were shared freely among nations, till the concerns for conservation of biological diversity were raised by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which