“After discussions with the government, the company has agreed to withdraw cases against farmers. PepsiCo filed the lawsuits in an Ahmedabad court last month, asking it to restrain the farmers from growing the potato variety. PepsiCo obtained rights to grow the FC5 variety of potato under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV & FR) Act, 2001 in 2016. In a statement late last month, PepsiCo India offered farmers to become part of its collaborative potato farming programme. “The company was compelled to take the judicial recourse as a last resort to safeguard the larger interest of thousands of farmers that are engaged with its collaborative potato farming programme.

Source: Mint May 02, 2019 13:16 UTC