By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 1 Apr: Navdanya has been conserving and rejuvenating the unique basmati heritage of Doon Valley since1991. On 1st of April 2023, Navdanya celebrated three decades of protecting Dehradun’s famous Basmati heritage along with 150 farmers from Dehradun at Navdanya Biodiversity Conservation Farm. The farmers also took a pledge for making Doon valley an organic basmati producing valley of Uttarakhand. The 150 Navdanya organic farmers gathered at the Navdanya Biodiversity farm to celebrate 30 years of Navdanya‘s contribution towards biodiverse conservation and ecological natural organic farming and to renew the commitment to protect the rich biodiversity of the region and grow poison free healthy food.
It may be recalled that for three decades Navdanya has worked with women farmers and rural communities of Uttarakhand in service of the rejuvenation of the rich biodiversity of our state, the promotion of organic farming and conserving the rich biodiversity Dehraduni Basmati. The seed keepers and organic farmers of Dehradun who have conserved the original basmati were recognised and honoured by Dr Vandana Shiva, founder and chief functionary of Navdanya on this occasion for their commitment towards protecting Dehradun as the Dehraduni Basmati valley.
India is the land of Akshat, the whole grain rice. India is the Vavilov genre for rice diversity and its farmers have evolved over 200,000 rice varieties, including hundreds of fragrant varieties. Navdanya’s community seed banks have conserved more than 4000 varieties of rice from different parts of India. The living Seed Bank in Doon Valley grows more than 750 varieties of rice every Kharif season.
In addition, the farmers today also celebrated Navdanya’s victory against Basmati Biopiracy by Ricetec company in Texas. In 1994, the new IPR laws embodied in the TRIPs agreement of WTO unleashed an epidemic of the piracy of nature’s creativity and millennia of indigenous innovation. On 8th July 1994, RiceTec Inc, a Texas based company, filed a generic patent on basmati rice lines and grains in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) with 20 broad claims designed to create a complete rice monopoly patent which included planting, harvesting collecting and even cooking. On 2nd Sept (Patent No. 5663484) was granted by the USPTO to Ricetec. Though RiceTec claimed to have “invented” the Basmati rice, they accepted the fact that it has been derived from several rice accessions from India. RiceTec had claimed a patent for inventing novel Basmati lines and grains.
In 1998, Navdanya started a campaign against Basmati biopiracy (Patent No. 5663484) of RiceTec. As a result of protests, on 14 August 2001, Navdanya achieved another victory against biopiracy when the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) revoked a large section of the patent on Indian Basmati rice by the US corporation RiceTec Inc. These included: the generic title of the RiceTec patent No. 5663484, which earlier referred to Basmati rice lines, the sweeping and false claims of RiceTec having ‘invented’, traits of rice seeds and plants including plant height, grain length, aroma which are characteristics found in our traditional Basmati varieties and also the claims to general methods of breeding which was also piracy of traditional breeding done by farmers and our scientists (of the 20 original claims only three narrow ones survived).
Through the citizens’ actions, the Navdanya could win three biopiracy battles and have thus contributed to the defence of farmers’ rights, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. Navdanya’s focus on collective, cumulative innovation embodied in indigenous knowledge has created a worldwide movement for the defence of the intellectual rights of communities.
The Navdanya also played a role towards ensuring that Indian Patent Laws prohibit patents on animals, plants and seeds (art 3j) to ensure that no patents are granted for Biopiracy of of India’s indigenous biodiversity and traditional knowledge.
