fatman17
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Fighting over basmati
The cold war between India and Pakistan over basmati seems to be unending. The latest blitz is in the form of the legal notice served on the commerce and industry ministry by the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan for notifying super basmati, hitherto that countrys deemed monopoly, as an Indian basmati variety and hence eligible for export to the European Union at zero duty. What has irked Pakistan is the signal that is implicit in the Indian move, that it is challenging Pakistans exclusive control over the supply of this variety, which is in great demand in export markets because of its superb quality. There is no denying that the super basmati variety of Pakistan has, in some ways, outdone the prime Indian export variety, Pusa Basmati-1, which at one stage commanded nearly 60 per cent of basmati exports. As might have been expected, New Delhi has lost little time in replying to the notice and contesting Islamabads allegation that India is usurping its basmati variety.
As is widely known, the truth is that the seeds of super basmati rice were originally sourced from Pakistan but worked upon and engineered at the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agriculture University to evolve the variety that is now being grown in India and shipped abroad as Indian super basmati. As such, the commerce ministry is well within its rights to include it in the list of scented rice varieties eligible for export as basmati. What is hard to understand is why there is no recognition of the fact that basmati is a part of the common heritage of both countries, and that there are several basmati varieties that have been grown in both countries for many years, and exported as well. The most authentic traditional variety, Basmati-370, is a good case in point. Both countries have used this as one of the parents for evolving new basmati varieties for export as well as for domestic consumption. Indeed, much of the germplasm of the long-established varieties of basmati was left in Pakistan at the time of Partition because it was in the possession of the agriculture college at Lyallpur, now in Pakistan. Surely that should not debar India from accessing that material or using it for breeding purposes, though Pakistan seems to think otherwise.
This perhaps explains why Islamabad is not keen to accept the Indian offer of joint registration of basmati as a Geographical Indication. Meaningful bilateral cooperation in this field will make it much easier to subvert the bids being made constantly by other countries to appropriate the basmati brand for their own commercial use. Though India has been fighting legal battles to thwart such attempts and has applied for the registration of basmati as a Geographical Indication, the lack of joint initiatives makes its task tougher as this rice legitimately belongs to Pakistan as well. It is, therefore, in the interest of both countries to stop squabbling over this issue and instead to open a joint front for guarding this premium rice against bio-piracy by third countries. Indeed, even when it comes to exports, the two countries would gain by cooperating with each other instead of competing to undercut each other and thereby yielding the advantage to importers in other countries.
The cold war between India and Pakistan over basmati seems to be unending. The latest blitz is in the form of the legal notice served on the commerce and industry ministry by the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan for notifying super basmati, hitherto that countrys deemed monopoly, as an Indian basmati variety and hence eligible for export to the European Union at zero duty. What has irked Pakistan is the signal that is implicit in the Indian move, that it is challenging Pakistans exclusive control over the supply of this variety, which is in great demand in export markets because of its superb quality. There is no denying that the super basmati variety of Pakistan has, in some ways, outdone the prime Indian export variety, Pusa Basmati-1, which at one stage commanded nearly 60 per cent of basmati exports. As might have been expected, New Delhi has lost little time in replying to the notice and contesting Islamabads allegation that India is usurping its basmati variety.
As is widely known, the truth is that the seeds of super basmati rice were originally sourced from Pakistan but worked upon and engineered at the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agriculture University to evolve the variety that is now being grown in India and shipped abroad as Indian super basmati. As such, the commerce ministry is well within its rights to include it in the list of scented rice varieties eligible for export as basmati. What is hard to understand is why there is no recognition of the fact that basmati is a part of the common heritage of both countries, and that there are several basmati varieties that have been grown in both countries for many years, and exported as well. The most authentic traditional variety, Basmati-370, is a good case in point. Both countries have used this as one of the parents for evolving new basmati varieties for export as well as for domestic consumption. Indeed, much of the germplasm of the long-established varieties of basmati was left in Pakistan at the time of Partition because it was in the possession of the agriculture college at Lyallpur, now in Pakistan. Surely that should not debar India from accessing that material or using it for breeding purposes, though Pakistan seems to think otherwise.
This perhaps explains why Islamabad is not keen to accept the Indian offer of joint registration of basmati as a Geographical Indication. Meaningful bilateral cooperation in this field will make it much easier to subvert the bids being made constantly by other countries to appropriate the basmati brand for their own commercial use. Though India has been fighting legal battles to thwart such attempts and has applied for the registration of basmati as a Geographical Indication, the lack of joint initiatives makes its task tougher as this rice legitimately belongs to Pakistan as well. It is, therefore, in the interest of both countries to stop squabbling over this issue and instead to open a joint front for guarding this premium rice against bio-piracy by third countries. Indeed, even when it comes to exports, the two countries would gain by cooperating with each other instead of competing to undercut each other and thereby yielding the advantage to importers in other countries.
