Agriculture Minister stresses on implementation of National IPR policy

NEW DELHI: Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh distributed the Genome Savior Award 2012-13 awards at a function organized by Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Authority in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Speaking on the occasion,  Radha Mohan Singh said PPV &FRA can also make efforts by initiating necessary action to commercialize the prominent farmers varieties registered with the Authority, which can play vital role in increasing of production. The Government has in May, 2016 announced National Intellectual Property Rights policy to promote a holistic and conducive ecosystem to catalyse the full potential of Intellectual Property for India’s economic growth and socio cultural development in general and growth of seed market in particular.

Singh stressed that the PPV&FRA will be restructured, upgraded and modernized to implement the National Intellectual Property Rights  policy with regard to plant varieties. The Authority will make more efforts to improve Intellectual Property(IP) creation, management, utilization of IP in plant varieties and also collaborate with Indian Council of Agricultural Resurces (ICAR) Institutes, State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) and National Seeds Association of India (NSAI)..

The Union Minister pointed out that the Indian agricultural research system is one of the strongest in the world. The challenge before us is to develop new and  improved varieties suitable to various agro climatic regions and also to counter the biotic and abiotic stresses while improving productivity in a sustainable manner,he added..

The Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Parshottam Rupala and Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Sudarshan Bhagat were also present on the occasion.