Indian Carver cheated: Intellectual dishonesty

05Jan07

68-yr-old Dadaji Ramaji Khobragade is a Indian Buddhist farmer with a grouse. Ten years ago he shot to fame for breeding a variety of rice called Hmt which went on to become one of the highest yielding varieties in the region.It even became popular in neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. In Maharashtra it is grown in over 6,88,000 hectares reports NDTV.

 Dadaji Khobragade, HMT Rice Variety Developer

” When my neighbours took it to the market to sell it, the traders could immediately tell this was different variety and asked for its name. One of the farmers was wearing an Hmt watch and decided to call the rice variety that. Eversince it been called Hmt rice”.

Grassroots innovation like Khobragade’s are classic example of necessity being the mother of invention. And yet he is a bitter man today. While the seeds he helped develop sell for as much as 1500 rupees a quintal he’s got nothing. Leave alone money even recognition seems to be taking its time finding him.

By 1994 when Hmt became a rage with paddy farmers as far as Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The local agricultural university took 5 Kgs kg of HMT seeds from Khobragade saying that the rice station wanted to experiment with it. In 1998, the university released a new variety in the State called Pkv hmt after the researchers say they “purified” the seed they had obtained from Khobragade.

Sharad Nimbalkar, Vc Punjabrao Krishi Vidyapeeth says”The original seed may have come from Khobragade but now it is entirely the University’s intellectual property.”

In a tragic twist of fortunes. Khobragade has fallen on hard time. He has to work for daily wages to support his seven-member family but his grassroots research has helped fellow farmers.

Dadaji Khobragade, Rice Variety Developer says “I have worked very hard to develop this new variety of paddy. I though this will help me and my family economically. But today we lead a hard life due to poverty.”

Bhimrao Shende, Neighbour says ” In 1990 we all had haystack roofs… Now we have pucca roofs and better homes and our village’s economic condition has improved because of his high yield producing seeds”.

Khobragade has not lost hope. He showed us his six new varieties of rice. Each of them carefully framed and labelled. One of them is called Drk after himself. He’s asked the government to convince the university to allow him to claim royalty for his variety of rice.

Pic1: D R Khobragade indiginious research thesis, who is going to hear him?

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