Intellectual Property Disparities In Agrarian Communities - Identifying Farmers Conundrum

Author: LawSphereX

Category: Intellectual Property

Published: 2026-08-23T20:21:35.108035+00:00

Updated: 2026-08-26T17:11:04.579+00:00

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DISPARITIES IN AGRARIAN

COMMUNITIES: IDENTIFYING FARMERS CONUNDRUM

Judith Melbha S, Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University

ABSTRACT:

Farmers face a lot of conundrums as the Intellectual Property Rights started evolving. The introduction of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) brought in several protection and framework to the innovations, creativity, and modern inventions, which also includes Agricultural Innovations. The protection to these modern innovations suppresses the Agro based farming, which causes great hindrance to the farmers. There must be a balance between these human innovations and the traditional based farming, so that it doesn’t affect the poor farmers. So, it is important to shed light on the conundrum faced by the Farmers and provide valuable suggestions for the protection and the growth of these farmers by striking a balance between the modern technology protected under the intellectual property rights and the traditional method of farming.

This Article mainly highlights the dilemmas faced by the Agrarian Communities and the partiality they face due to the rise of Intellectual property Rights. Keywords: Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS, Agrarian Community, Modern Technologies, Farmers Conundrum.

Introduction: Intellectual Property Rights are rights granted to a person or an organisation for the innovation, creativity and the invention which is new to the public and has commercial benefits. This gives the owners with monopoly rights over a product for about 20 years. 1 As, these innovations also include modern agricultural technologies and innovations, it creates a great conundrum to carry on farming in a profitable way. As the farmers and their traditional way of farming are being overshadowed by the giant manufacturers at large. 2 As the Agrarian communities are practicing their age-old traditional farming methods at large using their skills and knowledge and passing on to the next generations, these giants overpass their traditional methods using a simple way. The imbalance in the intellectual Property Rights creates a great hindrance to many communities.

The problems faced by Agrarian communities has become a worldwide concern. It is very crucial to protect the traditional method of farming by the Agrarian communities, despite the rise of innovations and creativity. Because these rise in technology and providing IP protection to this property might cause an impact on the livelihood of the farmers. 3 There is a lot of way in which the Agrarian communities face disparities. Firstly, the intellectual property rights are very much partialized to the big sectors and people who do business only with the motive to earn profit and does encourage traditional old practices only to an extent. The farmers and the Agrarian communities have brought up the farming for centuries. But due to this partial act, there skills are being greatly overshadowed by the profit-making sectors.

On the other hand, farmers do not have any awareness or knowledge on Intellectual property rights, which makes it even difficult to understand about the inventions and technology. As the farmers live in a rural community it is very hard for them to get access to resources and to know a lot of information regarding the Intellectual property and technology. They are not much aware of the legal frameworks, as it ends up in exploitation or misuse of their inventions. Farmer: 1 WIPO, Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge, https://www. wipo. int/tk/en/. (Last Visited June 28, 2024). 2 Parayil, Govindan, “Patents, developing countries, and indigenous knowledge: Conflicts and opportunities”, https://doi. org/10. 1016/S0048-7333(02)00095-8. (Lat visited June 28, 2024).

3 Gupta, Anil K, “Intellectual Property Rights in Indian Agriculture”, 37 JSTOR 46, 47 (2002).

According to Section 2(k) of the Farmers Rights Act, 20014 a farmer is a person who cultivates the crops by directly looking upon the cultivation, cultivating the land on his own, through any other person. He also jointly preserves any wild varieties or traditional varieties with other persons. The Act also provides definitions on various right relating to farmers such as farmers variety, extent variety, benefit sharing, breeder etc. Socio-economic Consequences: Farmers face a lot of socio-economic challenges due to the disparities in the Intellectual Property Rights. The disparities arising due to the intellectual property may negatively impact the livelihood of the farmers, makes it hard for them generate income, thus by affects the overall livelihood of the farmers. The main source of income for a farmer comes from cultivation of crops.

Farmers face a lot of difficulties such a slack of compensation, not providing with fair and equitable benefit sharing if their innovations, new plant varieties are not protected properly. This is one of the reasons which negatively affects the socio-economic wellbeing of farmers. 5 Secondly, the disparities in intellectual property rights affects the market opportunities of the farmers as well as prevents them from having a socio-economic stability. Farmers are not provided with enough IP protection which wear away the trust of potential buyers and people who invest in the products and innovations of Farmers. It also affects farmers bargaining power and their market influence. 6 Farmers are not very much aware of their IP rights which results in exploitation by the middlemen as well as the multinational companies, as they take advantage over the farmer’s limited knowledge.

Technology Adoption and Transfer of Knowledge: Technology transfer is nothing but sharing up of technology, scientific findings by the developed countries to the developing and the underdeveloped countries. Technology transfer

4 Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act, S 2(k), 2001.

5 Baize, Revisiting the Intellectual Property Regime for Agricultural Innovation, 2014

https://www.grain.org/es/article/entries/4921-revisiting-the-intellectual-property-regime-for-agriculturalinnovation (Last Visited June 29, 2024). 6 Agricultural and Rural Development, https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture (Last Visited June 29, 2024).

is regulated under Article 7 and Article 8 of the TRIPS Agreement. As Article 77 talks about the objectives of this agreement. It also involves the promotion of technological innovations and creates a balance between the intellectual property right owners and the public at large. Article 88 of the Agreement states that the developing countries must disseminate knowledge to the developing countries which can be achieved through various measures that involve providing technical guidance. Article 669 of the TRIPS also provides special provisions to the least developed countries which involves incentives to the least developing countries by adding them special rights and provisions relating to technology transfer. Adoption of Technology and transfer of Knowledge plays a very vital role in the protection and development of the Agrarian communities.

As the Agrarian communities have passed on their knowledge from generation to generation historically. It is crucial to transfer the knowledge to individuals and organisations to extend the benefits arising out of new discoveries and innovations. Diffusion of innovation must be there as it greatly influences the productivity and the economic growth of the farmers. Modern Agro technology will allow the farmers to know about the soil, whether its suitable for farming or not and helps to maintain the soil of the land. Many modern technologies relating to farming has come today like drip irrigation allows the farms to pour water directly to the plant roots avoids any leakage or wastage of water compared to the farmers age old flooding method.

Also, many weather tolerance crops, which would stand tall for all the climatic conditions which might help the farmers with crop losses, thereby reduces lose to the farmers. These modern Agro technologies can also widely help in getting more economic benefit to the farmers. By using these modern technologies, the farmers can leverage themselves to make more market opportunities, increase their income, and improve their product quality. Though there are a numerous advantage in the development of modern agro technologies, it still does face challenges. Some of the drawbacks are that farmers don’t get that much financial support to get weather resistant crop varieties, they also have only limited awareness and knowledge, not much support from the government and the policy makers, it also causes cultural and social barriers.

So, these barriers include no sufficient economic support to the small-scale farmers, not providing them with strong policy reforms and lack of farmer training programmes.

7 Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Art 7, 1995.

8 Id, Art 8.

9 Supra note 7, Art 66.

Challenges faced in TRIPS: The TRIPS Agreement under the World Trade Organisation provides minimum standard of protection to the intellectual property right holders. Though a lot of underdeveloped countries and developing countries are facing a lot of challenges due to the implementation of TRIPS, particularly the farmers in the Agrarian communities. One of the main challenges faced by these communities are the high financial standards of Modern Agro based technology, which is not affordable to the farmers. Because as lot of these Genetically modified seeds would have undergone several Research and Development, to get patent protection. So, its higher than the financial limit in the developing countries. And the cost of patenting an innovation can be very high, leading to restriction in the use of these technologies in the Agrarian communities.

Before TRIPS, technology transfer was not subject to stricter laws and regulations. As the technology transfer was only favouring the receipting countries, but not the developing countries. But, after the implementation of TRIPS Agreement, technology transfer has become more stringent to abide by the rules and regulations. Though the TRIPS has brought in Stringent Regulations, it only has brought mixed impacts. As the intellectual property rights were considered as more robust, it became hard for the developing and underdeveloped countries to get access to the technology. Before and after TRIPS of implementing strict regulations for technology transfer is still a matter of debate which is yet to be sorted.

10 Another important challenge is that, to invent these Genetically modifies seed and other Agro based modern technology, it involves a lot of skilled labour and people who have knowledge in that field. Since, the Agrarian communities does not have many resources and no proper infrastructure and guidance regarding these technologies and intellectual property rights, it has become hard for them to sustain in this field. This makes a hindrance for them to understand TRIPS as it goes through a lot of procedures and regulations. TRPS Agreement has also made it difficult for the farmers to preserve their traditional knowledge and their biological resources. TRIPS mainly focuses on protecting the intellectual property rights, and lags to protect the traditional knowledge of the indigenous communities.

This results to not providing the indigenous communities with a fair and equitable benefit sharing. Additionally, TRIPS has very robust kind of framework, which is needed for patent

10 Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights of WTO, 1995.

protection, so it makes it a hurdle for the Agrarian communities to patent their own Agro technologies. These difficulties faced by the Agrarian communities due to the implementation of TRIPS has created hinderance to the developing countries as their main source of economic growth is Agriculture. TRIPS is one of the reasons for farmers suicide in developing countries. Patenting and Licensing of Agrarian innovations: Patenting of a product is very important to protect an invention for a period not to be infringed by others. It evens plays a vital role in the field of Agriculture, where it helps the inventors who has spent for Research and development and rewards them fairly. Though licencing and patenting inventions for the Agro based communities could be difficult.

11 Modern Agro technologies involves Genetically modified seed varieties, new crop variants, precision farming and even more. Despite these technologies it also needs nature’s involvement. As the patent examiners and experts don’t posses’ sufficient knowledge on this biological field, it becomes difficult for them to undergo the patenting and licensing process. This might lead to granting of patents to an overly weak inventions, thereby again affects the farmers. Granting of such weak patents can even result to biopiracy. As Agriculture has been passed on as a traditional knowledge from generation to generations, patenting these agro technologies would end up causing harm to the traditional old practices as well as affects the genetic resources.

12 Since plant varieties, biological methods are protected under different Acts like the patent Act, Trademarks Act, and the plant Protection Act, it can create a lot of confusion in patenting and licensing these processes. So, it is very crucial to spread knowledge, conduct workshops and take students to outreach program to guide these Artisan communities and spread awareness and educate them in a way they understand about the upcoming technologies which would help them to carry on their work and look upon their livelihoods in a better possible way. 11 Farmers Legal Action Group, Farmers Guide to Intellectual Property: Plant Varieties, Patents and More, https://www. flaginc. org/pdfs/FarmersGuideIP. pdf (Last Visited on June 30, 2024). 12 Ginsburg, J. C, & Wright, Patent quality from a legal perspective: Analysis, history and remedies, UILR 3, 871-919 (2015).

Case studies: In the case of Monsanto v. Schmeiser in the year 200413 a Canadian farmer without any motive grew Monsanto’s Genetically modified canola plants. The canola seeds were patented by Monsanto. Monsanto sued that the farmer has intentionally grew his canola seeds without any prior permission from Monsanto. On hearing the defendant argued that the seeds would have flown into his field through wind or cross pollination. It was later held by the court, even though the defendant has not intentionally grown the GM canola seeds, he has commercially benefited out of it, and it amounts to patent infringement. In the case of Bowman v. Monsanto in the year 201314, in this case Vernon Bowman who is an US farmer purchased the GM seeds which was patented by Monsanto from a grain elevator, and he replanted them. Monsanto sued against him stating that his patent has been infringed.

But bowman argued that according to the doctrine of exhaustion his patent rights have been exhausted once he sold his seeds, so it’s not a matter of infringement. The court ruled in favour of Monsanto as the case highlighted about the limitations of farmers’ rights. It also notified the importance of getting permission from the patent holder before replanting the seeds. In the case Canadian Seed Growers Association v. Monsanto in the year 201515, this case is about the controversy that was faced due to the Monsanto’s contract to the farmers to not reuse or replant his Genetically modified patented seeds. The Canadian Seed Growers Association argues that this provision is contradictory to the Canadian Breeders Rights Act. The federal court ruled in favour of Monsanto. The case of State of Punjab v.

Devan Modern Breweries ltd in the year 200416, addresses about the issues relating to farmers suicides and difficulties faced by farmers, how much they need the support of government to provide them with adequate mechanisms that would support them and the need for financial assistance. The supreme court highlighted the need for counselling to the farmers. The case State of Rajasthan & Ors. V. Basant Nehata, (2010)17 deals with the farmers rights to

13 Monsanto Canada v. Schmeiser, 2004 SCC 34, (2004) 1 SCR 902.

14 Bowman v. Monsanto Co, 569 US 278 (2013).

15 Canadian Seed Growers Assn v. Canada (Agriculture and Agri-Food), 2015 FC 912.

16 State of Punjab v. Devans Modern Breweries Ltd., (2004) 11 SCC 26.

17 State of Rajasthan & Ors v. Basant Nehata, (2010) 13 SCC 688.

have Agricultural lands and how Government is procuring these lands for public uses. The Supreme Court ordered to give fair compensation to those farmers whose lands have been acquired by the Government. Real challenges faced: These are few examples which represent the challenges faced by the farmers due to the disparities in intellectual property rights. The farmers do not get much support from the Government or the non-profit organisations which has led to the suicide of many farmers in the state of Vidarbha in Maharashtra. 18 As the farmers live in a remotely rural area where they have proper infrastructure to store their seeds, which could be affected by insects, no proper irrigation system which results in low market access, increasing the chances of impacting their livelihoods negatively.

Due to the involvements of many modern agro based technologies, there is a price inflammation on the seed they purchase, which affects them financially. And in most of the cases the farmers are exploited largely by the middlemen who purchases the crops for lower price from the farmers and sells it to the potential customers at a large price. So, then farmers only earn minimal profits. Many farmers reply on the traditional old seeds and the methods they used for generations to grow a crop. As most of them are not weather resistant, and weather resistant crops and seed which are patented is available at market now, the big industries are able to make more profit out of it. Though the farmers are still not able to afford for those seeds.

Conclusion: The difficulties faced by farmers due to the rise of intellectual property is a matter of concern, as big organisations are benefited a lot, leaving the farmers work at stake using their modern Agro Technologies. Though TRIPS Agreement provides utmost protection to intellectual property and innovations, many at times it fails to look upon the benefits of these Agrarian communities. The TRIPS Agreement must also focus on these farmers, provide them the rights to enjoy fair and equitable benefit sharing and allows them to access these technologies. 18 Farm Distress and Farmer Suicides in Vidarbha, Maharashtra: Causes and Mitigation Measures, IJMTSAT, 2017.

Many policy makers, Governments, profit and non-profit organisations must work along top spread awareness and education to the Agrarian communities about the development of technologies and intellectual property rights and can conduct workshops where they teach those community people to make their own Agricultural inventions and get protection for it and further teach them about the legal proceeding and make it easily accessible for them to file any suit against any infringement. Moreover, teaching the farmers about the intellectual property rights would help to safeguard their age-old method of farming and improves sustainable agriculture, helps in protecting the biodiversity and the ecosystem at large and further helps in the upbringing of the livelihood of the agrarian communities.

It is mandatory to bridge a gap in TRIPS in such a way intellectual property rights are easily available and accessible to the stakeholders. Suggestions: • The Government can involve in taking awareness programmes to the farmers and also conduct workshops to educate the farmers in the Agrarian community about the intellectual property rights and teaching how to protect the extinct plant varieties, their traditional knowledge, inventions and protection of Biodiversity as a whole. • The Government could bring in stringent Intellectual property rights, that would support the farmers and frame strong mechanisms in providing the farmers with fair and equitable benefit sharing, and could consider their age-old tradition as prior Art.

• It would be a great move made by the Government if they could provide regional seed banks, where they provide free seeds to the farmers and helps them to preserve the traditional seed varieties which they could exchange without any infringement. • Government could also provide awareness about Geographical Indications and collective marks which would grant them a legal protection for their authentic products and unique traditional methods. • The Government, policy makers and the international organisations can provide intellectual property policies which would protect the Agrarian communities. Amendments can be made in the existing intellectual property law and new laws could

be brought in where they address the issues relating to these communities and provide solutions at large. • Officers could be appointed to navigate intellectual property rights relating to the farmers. These officers must be dedicated enough to tech the Agrarian communities about patent filing and support them to negotiate in licensing Agreements. • By educating the farmers about their intellectual property rights, famers can secure compensation for their innovations and their traditional knowledge. This will help them to improve themselves economically and improve their livelihoods.