An appraisal of “farmers’ rights” under the New Plant Variety Protection Act of Bangladesh : Is it a success story?

The intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection for plant varieties is a mandatory obligation on the member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Bangladesh, a least-developed country (LDC) in South Asia, recently enacted the Plant Variety Protection Act 2019 (BPVPA) as per the mandatory requirement under art.27.3(b) of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This article makes a critical examination of the “farmers’ rights” provisions of this IPRs legislation in the light of TRIPS, the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA).