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MULTAN: Corporate farming cast away
MULTAN, July 14: Leaders of small growers, tenants and right
activists cast away the government initiative of the Corporate
Agriculture Farming (CAF) here at a media seminar.
The seminar was organized by the Sustainable Agriculture
Action Group (SAAG), a coalition of civil society
organizations and farmer groups.
Those who spoke on the occasion were Mushtaq Gadi of Sungi, Dr
Christopher John of the Punjab Anjuman Mazareen, Zafar Lund of
Nirak and Roshan Malik of SAAG.
The speakers opined that the CAF initiative was a threat to
food security, land-holdings of small growers, ecology and
bio-diversity of agriculture and what they said sovereignty of
the state.
After introducing the CAF, they said, there would be no upper
ceiling for land-holdings and labour laws for the people
working on big farms. There would be no duty on the import of
agriculture equipment for corporate farms thus giving an
opportunity to Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and feudals
to maximize profits.
They feared the CAF was an attempt to do away with the land
reforms legislations which was not only in violation of the
article 253 of the constitution but also against the decisions
of apex court and Federal Shariat Court which limited the
private appropriation of land.
It was said that 93 per cent of the rural population belonged
to small growers. Over and above, the landless tillers were
already living in miserable condition due to the official
agriculture policies formulated by the elite class of
agriculturists.
Small farmers would have no option but to sell their meagre
land-holdings at throw away prices to the corporate firms,
speakers said. The decision to lease out state lands to
powerful TNCs would also result in a massive eviction of
indigenous communities living in Balochistan, Cholistan,
Greater Thal and riverine areas of the country.
The government has already failed in resettling thousands of
affected people who were displaced for mega developments
projects like the construction of dams. They demanded that the
government should first give preference to such displaced
communities while allotting state lands instead of further
inflating financially the already rich TNCs.
The TNCs, they said, would ultimately deprive the local people
of decision-making and resource allocation at all levels in
the agriculture sector.
They alleged that harassment of landless tenants of state
lands in the Punjab was a glaring example of the unjust and
corporate-centred policies of the present government.
The seminar demanded an immediate end to the victimization of
the state land tenants in Punjab and urged the government to
grant them proprietary over their tenancy lands.
Courtesy Dawn
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Pakissan.com;
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