In the 1990s, I followed and reported upon the evolution of three legislations - the Biodiversity Act, the Plant Varieties Protection and Farmers' Right Act (PVPFRA) and the amendments to the Patents Act. There was much public discussions for these three legislations.

India had decided to develop its own biodiversity legislation after signing and ratifying the Convention on Biological Diversity. Similarly, with the World Trade Organisation coming into being in 1994, India had to change its intellectual property regime in line with the WTO.

This meant that the Patents Act had to be modified. Caught in between conserving the country's biodiversity, (including agricultural biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge, and the new intellectual property regime was the needed to protect farmers' rights.

There was an opportunity - the option for India to develop a 'sui generis', or of its own kind, legislation to protect agricultural plant varieties and also farmers' rights. India opted to use this and developed the PVPFRA in 2001.

The development of these three legislations went through multiple layers of drafting and public discussions - in institutions, with farmers and finally through a parliamentary committee. This resulted in the three Acts that continues to have multiple stakeholder acceptance.

There were multiple national governments involved. Starting with the Congress-led government of Narasimha Rao to the two United Front governments and the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Compare this to the speed at which the three farm laws were passed.

Also read the piece in @MongabayIndia by @journomayank and me on the environmental roots of the #FarmersProtest - https://india.mongabay.com/2020/12/environmental-issues-in-agriculture-a-silent-reason-behind-farmers-protests/