PepsiCo sues Indian farmers for illegally cultivating licensed potato variety

Source: Xinhua | 2019-04-28

PepsiCo, the snack food and drinks maker, has sued Indian farmers for cultivating a specific protected licensed variety of potato, infringing its patent, the company said on Friday.
At a hearing held in Ahmedabad court in Gujarat state Friday, PepsiCo submitted that the matter can be settled if the farmers refrain from using the registered variety or choose to obtain license from it for continuing the cultivation. Reacting to this submission, the farmers' counsel said that it will seek instructions from his clients by the next hearing date, due on June 12.
Farmers were sued for cultivating the potato variety used in the Lay's potato chips manufactured and sold by PepsiCo India. Theses potatoes are cultivated and supplied by 24,000 farmers in 10-12 states of the country on contractual basis.
This specific variety of potato is registered under The Protection of Plant Varieties and Protection of Farmers Rights Act 2001. The PepsiCo counsel had submitted that the farmers were illegally growing, producing and selling it without permission of the company in violation of its statutory right granted to it under the act.
Earlier this month, the Ahmedabad City Commercial Court had issued an ex-parte ad-interim order restraining the farmers from growing the potato variety after PepsiCo filed case against four farmers.
As per a study, potato chips market in India is estimated at 370 million U.S. dollars and expected to grow at 9.7 percent at a compounded annual growth rate till 2023.