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PepsiCo, which owns brands like Pepsi, Lays, Gatorade and Quaker Oats, is reportedly seeking damages of 10 million rupees ($143,000) from each farmer.
“PepsiCo is India’s largest process grade potato buyer and amongst the first companies to work with thousands of local farmers to grow a specific protected variety of potatoes for it,” an India-based company spokesperson told CNN Business on Thursday. “In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety.”
The spokesperson did not comment on the damages the company is seeking.
Farmers’ associations and activists in India called on the Indian government to step in and take action against PepsiCo. In a letter to the government published earlier this week and shared with CNN Business, they said the farmers’ rights to grow and sell trademarked crops are protected under India’s agricultural laws.
“We believe that the intimidation and legal harassment of farmers is happening because farmers are not fully aware of [their] rights,” the letter said. The letter also claims PepsiCo sent private detectives to the accused farmers posing as potential buyers, secretly recording video of them and taking samples of the potatoes.
PepsiCo did not comment on those allegations.
The company’s actions are “against food sovereignty” and the “sovereignty of the nation,” said Kapil Shah of Jatan, one of the advocacy groups helping to defend the farmers.
“We will fight it out, no matter how big the company,” Shah said. “Pepsi has made a huge mistake.”
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