India’s two-decade journey with Geographical Indication tags has shown limited out-come and there is an urgent need to simplify the registration processes to ensure that the protection mechanism helps producer communities
Geographical Indication (GI) is a form of certification that recognises unique products based on their origin, which is often attributed to agro-climatic variations and traditional cultivation practices. This certification is also extended to non-agricultural products, such as handicrafts, based on human skills, materials and resources available in certain areas that make the product unique. Consumers prefer genuine products, and GI provides the assurance of authenticity while also promoting community development.
Trade reforms, legal protection and consumer acceptance are necessary to commercialise local products and gain premium prices in domestic and international markets. Empirical evidence from many developing and developed countries shows that GI helps economic enhancement at the producer’s level. But this is not true to the same extent in India, perhaps due to flaws in the GI registration system and market inefficiencies. Therefore, India’s journey of over two decades—the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Rules was enacted in 1999—with GI has had limited outcomes and re-quires more popularisation to achieve its full economic potential.
This article seeks to provide a perspective on the efforts and attention towards GI from national and international lenses and draw policymakers’ attention to this issue.
Compared to other nations, India lags in GI registration. Till December 2023, Intellectual Property India received just 1,167 applications, of which only 547 products have been registered, as per the GI Registry. This means the application acceptance ratio is only about 46 per cent, which indicates that regulations are quite strict. It took over a decade for the famous Alphonso mango to receive GI registration due to dis-putes over geography.
Germany leads in GI registrations, with 15,566 registered products, followed by China (7,247), as per 2020 data with the World Intellectual Property Organization. Globally, wines and spirits comprise 51.8 per cent of registered GIs, followed by agricultural products and foodstuffs at 29.9 per cent. In India, handicraft (about 45 per cent) and agriculture (about 30 per cent) comprise the majority of the GI products.
At the level of the World Trade Organization (WTO), GI is governed under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Article 22 (1) of TRIPS defines GIs as “indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a member, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographic origin”. In many EU nations, GI is classified in two basic categories—Protected GI (PGI) and Protected Destination of Origin (PDO). India only has the PGI category.
Since India’s GI Act was framed more than two decades ago, it is time to amend it, along with the GI application forms and application processing time. This should be accompanied with suitable institutional development. There is also a need to help producers benefit after the registration process since they are often clueless on how to proceed after getting a GI tag.
The definition of “producers” also lacks clarity, which results in the involvement of intermediaries who share the benefits that should go only to the producers. Health, social wellbeing and welfare policies for artisans and labourers in the non-farm sector have also not received required attention from the policymakers. The government should bolster support to the GI workers in this regard.
Since its inception, there has been significant controversy among the WTO member countries on accepting GI as an intellectual property. There have been disputes on various GI products, such as Darjeeling tea and Basmati rice, which were claimed by one country as their property and legally challenged by another. The reason is that though WIPO promotes and develops intellectual property rights, GIs receive limited attention compared to patents, trademark and copyrights. An analysis of WTO’s annual reports published over the past 22 years shows that the multilateral organisation’s focus has been majorly on maintaining a national register for GIs, with little attention on promoting GIs or bilateral agreements. There is an urgent need to promote GIs among participating nations, securing farmer and consumer interests, with discussions on subsidies and free trade agreements. Special trade agreements can facilitate GI trade be-tween countries.
Though academic attention on GI has not been enough across nations, a recent push is evident. Bibliographic assessment through literature review of academic research, with results analysed through software, shows that a total of 138 articles could fall under GI research since 2017. These are related to producers (48.5 per cent), consumers (44.2 per cent), marketers (5 per cent) and entrepreneurs (2 per cent). An analysis of publication trends over the past two decades reveals that the number of publications was below 15 from 2002 to 2016. However, there has been a recent increase, with 29 articles published in 2020. The highest number of articles published (35) was in 2021.
Analysis of country-wise publication trend shows clear dominance by European countries like Italy (48), Spain (28) and France (20). India has had very limited publications, numbering about seven.
The government should incentivise GIs at the initial juncture—at the producers’ level—to boost the numbers. Emphasis should also be on amendment of laws to clearly dictate exclusion of “non-producers” from benefiting from GIs, and ensure direct benefits to producers. It is also important to use technology, focus on skill-building and digital literacy among GI producers, manufacturers and labourers to ensure they can keep pace with modern trends and consumers’ requirement.
The government’s One District One Product scheme should be integrated with GIs through the involvement of food producer organisations. Promotion of GI-based products requires special emphasis on marketing and branding, which can be resolved to a certain extent by developing market outlet schemes. This can be integrated with the existing schemes to establish exclusive gramin haats (rural markets). These platforms would also be centres of tourist attraction and provide easy purchase option of GI products to visitors.
But the foremost thing is establishment of testing laboratories at such markets to ensure that consumers have faith in the quality of these products. The National Agriculture Market—eNAM—an online trading platform for agricultural com-modities in India, must carry a separate tab for GI-based products to provide an easy interface to all buyers and sellers.
There has been a rise in the number of startups in recent years, which should be aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Connecting GIs with such startups and linking their performance with that of SDGs will ensure that they contribute to social development, while also provide attention to GI products.
Government agencies, trade and producer associations should integrate to organise more exhibitions for popularisation of GI-based products with the use of various types of media. India’s embassies should also promote GI-based product to encourage growth in the foreign market. The government should make efforts to ensure that the international tariff regime for GI products is favourable to our products. Developing nations can also make a case for special attention to GI products in the global market at WTO. The “vocal for local” initiative can also be enhanced by accelerating GI protection.
GI is a powerful tool for protecting traditional knowledge, culture and can boost socio-economic development. However, there is a need to increase income of producers by establishing pre- and post- registration GI-promotion mechanisms. More commodities should be brought under the GI umbrella. Subsidies for grow-ers and promotion at national and international fairs are necessary. State-level attention from stakeholders is also crucial to protect producers’ and consumers’ interests.
Mohit Sharma is an assistant professor at the School of Agribusiness and Rural Management, Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar
This was first published in the January 16-31, 2024 print edition of Down to Earth
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