Latest news with #PakistanKissanRabitaCommittee
Business Recorder
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Business Recorder
Concern raised over land grabbing, corporate farming
LAHORE: The Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (PKRC), Anjuman Mazareen Punjab (AMP) and Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP) jointly raised their concerns over the alleged state sponsored push for corporate farming, widespread land grabbing, and the forced eviction of peasants from lands they have cultivated for generations. Across Pakistan's countryside, an aggressive drive for 'corporate farming' is pushing long settled peasant families off the land they have tilled for decades. Under the Green Pakistan Initiative, the state has already marked 4.8 million acres for private investors; nearly 900,000 acres have been leased out, backed by police deployments and debt recovery notices designed to terrorise farmers into surrender. At the once barren but now fertile Muhammad Nagar Seed Farm (Arifwala) alone, officials are trying to hand 27,000 acres to corporations — despite a century of peasant labour that made the soil productive. Similar assaults are under way at Rakh Ghulama Farm (Bhakkar), Ahsanpur Farm (Kot Addu) and other peasant farms in Punjab, while the same pattern of land grabbing is emerging in Sindh and other regions of Pakistan, said the representatives of the above mentioned organizations. The press conference was addressed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Junior, Dr Ammar Ali Jan (General Secretary, HKP) and Mehr Ghulam Abbas (President, AMP), who collectively condemned government policies that enable private companies and investors — often backed by security forces — to seize agricultural land. 'We reject this model of corporate land capture being promoted in the name of 'development' and the Green Pakistan Initiative,' said Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Junior. 'It is nothing but a land grabbing that threatens the livelihoods, dignity and food sovereignty of millions of rural families.' Dr Ammar Ali Jan added, 'This system is designed to serve capitalist elite, not the people. The government is using force, bogus notices and fabricated arrears to evict those who turned barren land fertile through generations of hard work.' Mehr Ghulam Abbas stated, 'In Muhammad Nagar, Arifwala and other seed farms, peasants face police threats and eviction orders. We are resisting - and we will continue to resist. These lands are ours and we will not surrender.' The organisations demanded an immediate halt to all corporate farming leases, withdrawal of police from contested farms, cancellation of fabricated debt notices, dissolution of coercive 'public private partnerships' on agricultural land, and revival of the Punjab Peasant Committee with genuine farmer representation. They called on Parliament to draft a Comprehensive Agrarian Reform and Food Sovereignty Act that enshrines peasant rights, guarantees gender equal land ownership, sets living wages for farm labour and places food for people above export profits. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Business Recorder
28-06-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
Global economic reforms demanded
LAHORE: Farmers, workers, women, climate justice and civil society groups arranged a march in front of the US embassy near Lahore Press Club to demand major reforms to the global economic and financial system. The march was arranged in time for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) in Sevilla, Spain, where world leaders will meet from June 30 to July 3 to address the financing needs of the developing world. The protest was organized by the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (PKRC), Labour Education Foundation (LEF), Tameer-e-Nau Women Workers Organisation, Joint Action Committee, and allied groups as part of worldwide protests held simultaneously in Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, and Latin America. Protesters in Lahore carried placards and banners with slogans - cancel the debt, deliver climate justice, tax the rich, not the poor). Participants denounced the global financial order, which, they argued, deepens inequality, sustains debt traps, and leaves developing countries like Pakistan to bear the brunt of financial crises, rising inflation, and climate disasters caused by industrialized nations. They called for the cancellation of illegitimate and unsustainable debts, urgent delivery of climate finance in the form of public, grants-based funds instead of loans, and for the establishment of democratic, multilateral frameworks under the United Nations to address both debt and international tax injustice. Speaking at the demonstration, Saima Zia of Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee highlighted the severe impacts of this global injustice on Pakistan's farmers. 'For decades, the people of Pakistan — especially small farmers — have paid the price for a global financial system that benefits the rich and powerful. Rising debts and climate disasters have made our lands barren and our livelihoods unsustainable. It's time for our government and the international community to side with the people, not with profiteers. Cancel the debt, and pay for the climate damage you caused.' Khalid Mehmood, Director of Labour Education Foundation, stressed how these crises have deepened exploitation of workers in Pakistan. 'Every new IMF loan means harsher conditions for workers, wage freezes, privatization of public services, and rising inflation. Debt cancellation and a just global financial system are not abstract demands — they're a matter of survival for Pakistan's working class. We reject this unequal financial order and demand climate and economic justice now.' Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Business Recorder
11-06-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
Agri resources: PKRC urges govt to abandon corporate farming
LAHORE: The Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (PKRC) termed the '2025 Economic Survey' a wake-up call and called upon the government to abandon corporate farming and military control over agricultural resources and redistribute public agricultural lands among landless farmers, especially women and youth in plots of up to 12.5 acres. PKRC General Secretary Farooq Tariq, while commenting on Economic Survey of Pakistan 2024-25, said according to the survey, the agriculture sector recorded a meagre growth rate of just 0.56–0.6 percent in the past year - the lowest in the last nine years. Without the moderate growth in livestock (4.72%), fisheries (1.42%), and forestry (3.3%), the dismal performance of major crops would have dragged the overall sector into even deeper decline. The most staggering drop occurred in major crops, whose collective production fell by 13.49 percent. Cotton suffered a massive 30.7 percent decline with its cultivated area shrinking by 15.7 percent. Cotton ginning was also declined by 19 percent, compounding the crisis. Wheat production declined by 8.9 percent, primarily because the government, despite earlier promises, refused to purchase wheat from farmers at PKR 3,900 per 40 kg, leaving growers in despair. Other critical crops like sugarcane, rice, and maize also registered declines ranging from one percent to 15 percent. In December 2024, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz claimed that wheat had been cultivated on 16.5 million acres—achieving 82 percent of the province's target. However, ground realities have proven otherwise. All major farmer organizations had already criticized the government's failure to procure wheat at the promised support price and warned that growers were abandoning wheat cultivation. Instead of acknowledging its policy failures, the government blames climate change: erratic monsoons, delayed sowing, and extreme heat. But the reality is that the government's neoliberal agricultural policies have failed miserably. By exposing farmers to the whims of the free market and refusing to implement meaningful protections, these policies have caused a steep drop in production, Farooq Tariq added. He said for the first time, the survey admits that cultivated area has decreased - especially for cotton and wheat. This has had a direct impact on national food security. Agriculture contributes 23–24% to Pakistan's GDP and provides employment to 37 percent of the workforce. A crisis in this sector affects the entire economy. Suggesting ways to strengthen the agricultural sector, PKRC General Secretary also proposed a ban on new canals, particularly those impacting the Indus River system, legal implementation of Minimum Support Prices (MSP), starting with wheat at PKR 4,000 per 40kg and a ban on private wheat imports and strengthening PASSCO for public procurement. He also called for accountability for the wheat crisis, including arrest and investigation of hoarders and speculators, regulation of agricultural markets to prevent price volatility, rejecting IMF and WTO policies that undermine farmers; rebuilding public procurement systems and ensuring real access to interest-free loans for small farmers, while excluding agri-businesses and banks from subsidies. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
