Tomer Biran, a legal consultant specialising in varietal protection, outlines the best approach in a fast-growing market like India where varietal rights cannot always be taken for granted
Some of the fastest-growing opportunities in fresh produce sit in markets that are new to the variety owners eyeing them. India is a good example: demand for premium crops is climbing, import duties on some fruit have been cut, and categories like blueberries are forecast to grow by double digits each year.
Here is the catch I would want any breeder or IP holder to see before they ship a single plant: the plant variety right you rely on in your home country may work very differently in a market like India, and in some crops it may not be available at all.
India is not a member of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), the global convention that many in the fresh produce trade take for granted. Instead, India runs its own system under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, and that has real consequences. Protection is granted crop by crop, and only for the species the government has formally notified. The list grows over time – 10 more species, including avocado and dragon fruit, were added in 2026 – but if your crop is not on it, there is no variety right to register, whatever its commercial value.
The rights that do exist come with strong farmers’ rights: broadly, a farmer may save, use, exchange and even sell the seed of a protected variety, provided it is not sold under the variety’s brand. A licensing model lifted straight from Europe can quietly assume a level of control that simply is not there.
None of this makes India a bad market; it makes it a different one, and one you have to read before you act. So the first move is not to file, it is to find out: is my crop notified, what does the local right actually grant, and what does it withhold?
Where the statute is thin, the commercial structure has to do the work the law will not. The businesses that enter markets like this successfully tend to do the same few things. They choose a small number of partners they can genuinely trust; they write control into the contract rather than hoping for it, including who may propagate, where the harvested material may be sold, and the right to audit; they make legitimacy the profitable path for licensees; and they use the export-market lever, since plants grown without authorisation can often be reached once it crosses into a country that does protect the crop.
The thread through all of it is that where you enter, what you can protect, and how you commercialise are one decision, not three. Settle them together, before the first plant is in the ground, while you still have something to withhold. Retrofitting control once growers are established and fruit is moving is expensive, and often impossible.
This is not legal or financial advice. Every situation is different, so please check your own facts, and take advice on them before you act.
Tomer Biran is managing partner at Greenstone and former group general counsel at BerryWorld. He advises fresh produce businesses on the commercial and legal strategy of varietal development, protection and growth. Read the full analysis here.
