Hot potato

Pepsico has unfairly targeted Indian farmers

PepsiCo’s move to sue four Gujarat farmers for alleged illegal cultivation of its registered potato variety has boomeranged. PepsiCo India Holdings, which owns the proprietary rights for the FC-5 potato variety, used for making its Lay’s brand of chips, alleged that these farmers were unlawfully growing the variety by obtaining the seed from the licensed farmers of Punjab. Though the Ahmedabad city commercial court has passed an ex-parte ad-interim order restraining the farmers from growing this strain, the backlash generated by the lawsuit seems to have unnerved PepsiCo, forcing it to offer an out-of-court settlement. Unsurprisingly, farm unions, farmers’ rights