By: Adeel Alvi
SHIKARPUR: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek district Shikarpur held its 2nd District Convention regarding issues surrounding ‘Industrial Agriculture and Agricultural Land grabbing’. The convention was attended by small and landless farmers from across the district.
Highlighting the impact of corporate agriculture on farmers and agriculture workers, Ali Gul, a PKMT member, said that Pakistan is an agro-based country and 70% of the population is directly or indirectly involved with agriculture. Across the country, our farmers produce a huge variety of crops and it is because of their efforts that we are ranked as the top ten producers in the world for the production of wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane, maize, vegetables, meat and milk. However, a handful of capitalists and feudal lords have monopolistic control over the production in the agriculture sector. Corporate agriculture is the key culprit behind the inequitable ownership over resources and it has completely eroded our traditional agricultural practices and industrialized the agriculture sector.
Hakim Gul, another PKMT member, said that Shikarpur is historically associated with trading. Shikarpur has a population of over 12 lacs. Over the past few years, agricultural land grab has been carried out under the pretext of establishing housing societies in riverine areas and cities both. Farmers are forced to sell their agricultural land and government officials, powerful feudal lords and capitalists are complicit in committing in these crimes against farmers. Gul voiced a pressing concern.
Shaukat Ali, another PKMT member also highlighted that Pakistan is the fifth largest milk producer in the world. Milk is an integral component of people’s diets. However, in recent years, fodder shortage is causing a rapid decline in Shikarpur’s milk production.
aim is to profit from their hegemonic control over the dairy and livestock sector. However, participants of the convention demanded that Put an end to neoliberal agricultural laws and corporate control of the food and agriculture sector that disadvantages local farmers, small producers while allowing corporations and landlords to reap super-profits. Ensure that farmers are not displaced from local/indigenous land especially from forest land and that no further land grabbing of resource grabbing is carried out under the pretext of development. Prioritize just, equitable and genuine land reforms that allow land redistribution to landless farmers, including women agriculture workers so as to ensure food security and food sovereignty for all farmers. Put an end to local and foreign private investments in the dairy and livestock sector and implementation of policies that favor small livestock and milk producers.
