Focus: Prelims, GS-III Environment and Ecology
Why in news?
The J&K administration issued the certificate of geographical indication (GI) registration for saffron grown in the Kashmir Valley.
Details
- Saffron crop suffers both decline in its production as well as shrinking of the land under cultivation.
- With the GI tag, Kashmir saffron will acquire more prominence in the export market and would help farmers get the best remunerative price.
- With the completion and inauguration of the state-of-the-art Spice Park, these measures will prove to be the game changer for Kashmir saffron.
- The GI certification would also stop adulteration prevalent in the trade of Kashmir saffron.
- Kashmir saffron faces stiff competition from Iranian saffron, which has captured over 90% share of the world market.
GI Tag
- A geographical indication (GI) is a name or sign used on certain products which corresponds to a specific geographical location or origin (e.g., a town, region, or country).
- India, as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), enacted the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 has come into force since 2003.
- GIs have been defined under WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement as: “Indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a member, or a region or a locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographic origin.”
- The GI tag ensures that none other than those registered as authorised users (or at least those residing inside the geographic territory) are allowed to use the popular product name.
- Darjeeling tea became the first GI tagged product in India.
- GI protection systems restrict the use of the GIs for the purpose of identifying a particular type of product, unless the product and/or its constituent materials and/or its fabrication method originate from a particular area and/or meet certain standards.
-Source: The Hindu
