Discuss how India's Access and Benefit-Sharing mechanism under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 operationalises the Nagoya Protocol. Evaluate its effectiveness in agricultural supply chains.

The Nagoya Protocol (2010) puts into practice the CBD's third objective: fair and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resources. India applies it at home through the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (amended 2023). The Act is supported by the BD Rules 2024 and the ABS Regulations 2025 [1]. The design is sound, but it works only partly in farm supply chains.

How the BD Act operationalises Nagoya

• Prior informed consent: the Act sets up a three-tier NBA–SBB–BMC structure. The NBA approves access by foreign entities, and SBBs regulate commercial use by Indian entities [2].
• Mutually agreed terms: Section 21 lets the NBA decide what fair and equitable benefit sharing means in each case [1].
• Compliance checkpoint: Section 7 entities need an NBA Certificate of Registration before they seek IPR, and PIB reports that IPR filings rose after this change [3].
• Benefits reach providers: 85–90% of ABS money is passed to SBBs, which pay it on to beneficiaries [4].

Effectiveness in agricultural supply chains

Strengths

• Revenue: the seed sector was the largest contributor to the ₹21.26 crore realised in FY 2025–26 [5]. Agriculture has given about ₹87 crore in total [1].
• Area-based method: three seed companies used pearl millet, jowar, maize, rice and bottle gourd. Their produce came through traders, so the original seed providers could not be traced. The NBA therefore split ₹1.04 crore among 27 SBBs and 2 UTBCs by area under each crop [1].
• Targeted precedents: ₹67 lakh went to Dapur BMC, Maharashtra [6], and ₹10.40 lakh was shared across 24 districts [7].

Limitations

• Thin and misdirected: the 19 smaller recipients averaged about ₹1.5 lakh each. Sharing by area rewards big producer states rather than the tribal and hill pockets that keep landraces (traditional local varieties) alive [1].
• Money held up: ₹266 crore has been realised but only ₹145 crore disbursed [4]. This release also stops at SBBs and does not reach BMCs [1].
• Narrower scope: the 2023 amendment exempts codified traditional knowledge. The JPC warned this could deny benefits to most local knowledge holders and that penalties might be too small to deter companies [8].
• DSI (Digital Sequence Information) gap: breeders can use genetic data without buying any seed. That leaves no physical trade for this model to follow.

Way forward Keep origin records in People's Biodiversity Registers. Set time limits for passing money from SBBs to BMCs, and publish the money pipeline every year. Link penalties to company gains, as the JPC asked [8]. At COP 17, press for a working DSI fund.

Together these steps would turn ABS from a fallback into a real tool for Nagoya and KMGBF Target 13. That is in line with Article 48A and community-centred conservation.