Hyderabad: The Agriculture Production Commissioner (APC), & Secretary of Agriculture and Cooperation, Govt. of Telangana C. Partha Sarathi, advised the Agriculture and Horticulture University scientists to encourage farmers to register their crop varieties under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Authority (PPV&FRA) at the meeting organized in Agriculture University here on Saturday. C.Parthasarathi inaugurated the Regional workshop on Farmers’ Rights was jointly organized by Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU), PPV&FRA, ICAR-ATARI Zone X and ZoneXI. While speaking at this workshop Mr. Parthasarathy said that, there is a need to create awareness among farmers’ on rights of plant varieties protection and to achieve this vigorous awareness campaigns should be organized in villages. He also said that, scientists & Agriculture department officials should encourage registering large number of farmers for intellectual property rights for claiming their developed and growing varieties.
The Dr. B. Rajender, Joint Secretary, Seeds & Chairmen PPV&FRA, Ministry of Agriculture and farmer’s welfare Government of India was attended as Guest of Honor and spoke on this occasion. He said that, PPV&FRA is giving cash incentives to encourage the community participation in registering of more farmers for crop varieties under PPV&FRA. About Rs. 10 Lakhs would be given to the community for propagating the awareness on farmer’s rights among the farmers in that particular area and Rs. 1.5 lakh cash incentive will be given to individual farmer who shows to register more number of crop varieties which he developed in his field. PPV &FRA is organizing similar kind of workshops in various parts of Country to create awareness on farmer’s rights to register intellectual property rights. He also said that the Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India is decided to open PPV & FRA office in Hyderabad to cater the needs of the farmers in state.
The Dr.V. Praveen Rao, VC, PJTSAU has delivered the presidential address and emphasized the need to start a separate knowledge portal on how to register plant varieties and characteristics of varieties, application forms and procedures etc., Further, he suggested there should be frequent update in portal on the varieties register in other states as well. Before begins this regional workshop The Dr.B.Rajendar along with C.Partha Sarathi, Dr.V.Praveen Rao, Dr.RC. Agarwal inaugurated the Agro-biodiversity exhibition beside the University Auditorium. Dr.RC.Agarwal, Registrar General, PPV &FRA, Dr.Y.G.Prasad, Director, ATARI, Zone X, Dr.T.Pradeep, Director of Research, PJTSAU and 400 to 500 farmers from five southern states, Krishi Vignana Kendras, DAATTC’s, several other scientists from university and ICAR Institutes were participated.
