The current climatic conditions are posing challenges to the farming as it has to face the changing climate and threats from biotic and abiotic factors. However, the India’s rich biodiversity is at rescue and is helping in the development of varieties tolerant to adverse climate, poor soil conditions, pests, diseases, insects, weeds etc. As per the Convention on Biological Diversity 1992, all the plant varieties are national sovereign resources and with a sui generis system of protection in India under the Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 (PPVFRP), the plant breeders and farmers have been given rights for conservation, improvement and re-use. The farmers can claim for rewards from Gene Fund if genes from their local varieties are used for the production of improved material for commercial purpose. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture’ article 9.2 refers to farmers’ participation in levels of decision making on matters related to the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. However we see that the farmers/communities are seldom consulted in sharing the country’s germplasm and there is no seek of prior consent from the farmers/communities from whose locations, the germplasm might have been collected. While, the exchange of knowledge and tools should be a way of life in agricultural research for attaining sustainable food security, we see that under the IPR regime, the free progress of science and innovation is hampered and the fruits are not accessible to the public. Hence, it is proposed that the concept of ‘Commons’ is introduced as ‘Agricultural Biodiversity Commons’ which would make all the germplasm accessible to all members of the society for using, sharing and improvement without seeking any royalty from each other and the resources are held in common. In the material transfer agreements when ‘Commons’ is introduced stating the licensing terms as, ‘the improved materials should be shared with public for further use and development and there shall be no ‘private’ but only ‘common’ resources’, the crop improvement would be in the hands of the commons (public) and sustainable food security for the community could be achieved. The BiOS (Biological Innovation for an Open Society) initiative of Cambia is sharing the enabling technologies with the largest community of innovators under ‘Protected Commons’.