Seed and Nutritional Security: Shadows of Food Security

The battle of ‘Right to Food’ symbolises various disjunctions in the Indian food security system. The system recognised utility, availability, stability, and accessibility of food as the four major pillars of food security. The said pillars are perplexed with the concept of nutritional and seed security. The hunger index reports on the food crisis highlight the loopholes in TPDS & agriculture sector. Several positive efforts, namely, the green revolution with modernised tools & biotechnology techniques and computerised TPDS, were made for inclusive development however, diminutive efforts have been made towards the modernization of the agriculture sector. It predominantly connotes that technology and agriculture are the pillars of the Indian food security system. To flourish a solid foundation for food security System, biotechnology has projected a positive contribution of Intellectual property in the agricultural sector. Further, WTO, CBD, IITPGRFA & UNDRIP affirm equitable benefit to genetic resources and traditional knowledge of farmers as their human right. Conclusively, enforcement of the provisions of the PPVFR Act, 2001and, the Patent Law for the protection of transgenic plant varieties (GM), seeds, and plants varieties would curb the existing unfair competition in the seed industry. The paper observes that the UPOV Convention and TRIPS certainly give primacy to industrial IPR over legal recognition to farmer’s rights & community rights; they simultaneously pose serious threats to the TPDS and the conservation of biological diversity nutrition in the modernized agricultural sector. The author aims to analyse whether the rationalized and structural reforms for the regulation of traditional knowledge, smallholders’ access to resources, and informal seed breeding systems would combat nutritional food insecurity.