23/04/03

Solving the riddle of basmati rice

By: Leena Chakraborty and Nitin Sethi

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<h1>Solving the riddle of basmati rice</h1>
<h4>By: Leena Chakraborty and Nitin Sethi</h4>
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<p>Basmati is a generic name for rice, not a traditional crop of India – this is what the US courts told India when it recently fought against a US-based company’s patent over three varieties of rice derived from traditional basmati.<BR><BR>One reason why India couldn’t prove otherwise was that a scientific definition of basmati remains elusive, despite numerous measures of its quality. <BR><BR>Furthermore, there has been a lack of political will in India in seeking a geographical appellation for basmati, which would make it easier to prevent companies selling their own derived lines of rice as basmati. <BR><BR>Source: <em>Down to Earth</em><BR><BR><a href="http://www.cseindia.org/html/dte/dte20011015/dte_life.htm" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full text</A></p>

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<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/features/solving-the-riddle-of-basmati-rice/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Basmati is a generic name for rice, not a traditional crop of India – this is what the US courts told India when it recently fought against a US-based company’s patent over three varieties of rice derived from traditional basmati.

One reason why India couldn’t prove otherwise was that a scientific definition of basmati remains elusive, despite numerous measures of its quality.

Furthermore, there has been a lack of political will in India in seeking a geographical appellation for basmati, which would make it easier to prevent companies selling their own derived lines of rice as basmati.

Source: Down to Earth

Link to full text