Plant variety protection and farmers' rights in India and Indonesia

Plant variety legislation in the developing world has been mushrooming over the last two decades. This chapter examines two examples drawn from two very large lower middle-income economies with similar concerns and policies in relation to agriculture. Plant variety rights overlap and are often confused with other intellectual property rights and with seed laws and biodiversity laws. In methodological terms, a combination of fieldwork, statistical analysis and analysis of secondary sources is essential. The chapter’s findings are based on fieldwork with anthropologists in Indonesia and on statistical material made available by the Plant Variety Protection Centre of the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority in India. The chapter shows the desire to establish a national seed industry and foster rural development in both countries, whereas it seems that farmers so far have gained little from these new forms of intellectual property protection.