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Corporate Farming
Government Policy Package for Corporate Agriculture Farming
Roshan
Malik
Government Policy Package
for Corporate Agriculture Farming (CAF) is a matter of great
controversy within the government circles, civil society
organizations and small farmer groups. Its advocates claim
that the policy will bring foreign investors, latest machinery
and new methods of cultivation in the country. This will not
only enhance agricultural production but the improvement in
quality as well.
According
to the policy, government has declared CAF as industry which
will enjoy
sufficient credit facilities available with the banks for
corporate entities. There will be no upper ceiling on land
holding by providing legal cover to investors by amending Land
Reform Act 1977 Section 7 of MLR 115 and Section 8 of MLR 64.
The state land may either be sold or leased for 50 years and
extendable for 49 years to interested investors. There will
not be any customs duty on the agricultural machinery imported
for CAF. There is also an exemption of duty on transfer of
land for corporate agriculture companies.
Land
Reform Act 1977 will have to be amended by including
definition of Corporate Agriculture Farming in Article 2 as
well as to incorporate verdict by Shariat Appellate Bench of
the Supreme Court in 1991 which allows the state to acquire
any land any where in the country. While CAF policy is one
step ahead from that of the verdict. It is designed for the
investor’s convenience while ignoring landless poor farmers
to be provided the state owned land.
CAF
is a model for wealthy countries that wish to pursue
industrial agriculture. It denies the interest and needs of
billions of small vulnerable farmers who do not live in that
world. After World War II, developed countries provided huge
subsidies to their agriculture sector to overcome the food
shortage.
But
the situation in our country is very different. Agriculture
sector is not developed upto their standards. The abolition of
subsidies, domestic support, imposition of GST on fertilizers
and increase in power tariffs are already pushing the farmers
to the wall. But CAF policy will further aggravate their
problem. The policy provides more privileges to Corporate
Farming Investors in order to allure foreign investment. Since
the countries are starting out from very different levels of
development, the result of competition would always favour the
rich.
More
than 45% of our population’s source of income is from
agriculture sector and 93% of them are small farmers, having
very meager resources to afford hi-tech machinery for
cultivation. The invasion of corporate farming investors
equipped with latest machinery and capital will leave the
small poor farmers far behind to compete in cost and method of
production. Similarly, corporate firms will be more interested
in cash crops instead of food crops. Therefore it may promote
monoculture cropping system which is a direct risk to our food
security. The local resources will be no more in the hands of
small farmers and their food security will be on stake because
their production will be no more competitive in the market.
The farmers will either get jobs without labour laws or mass
exodus to the cities which is already a challenge for town
planners. This will further enlarge the vicious circle of
poverty at national level.
The
advocates of CAF claims that there will be increase in
production and economic activity . In the last two years
Pakistan had bumper wheat production
but many people and cattle died from hunger. It shows
that our food distribution mechanism needs to be addressed
seriously. That is why the poverty genie is out of bottle
instead of the policies and assistance provided by the
International Financing Institutions (IFIs).
CAF
policy is capital oriented rather than labour conducive. It is
more based on the imported latest agricultural implements by
bringing the tariffs to zero percent. It is completely
ignoring the nascent domestic industry producing agricultural
implements in Mian Chanu and Okara. It should have been better
to consult the domestic industry before exempting the customs
duty.
In
CAF all the issues revolve around state land. Although Supreme
Court’s verdict
gives the state a right to acquire land, but it does not mean
that the land would be sold or leased to foreign companies.
The local communities, the besieged tenants, the landless
poor, the vulnerable downtrodden should be given the
culturable wasteland owned by the government. It will bring
them out of the poverty trap and provide them better
livelihoods.
Implementation
of CAF policy will result into the massive eviction of
indigenous communities living in Balochistan, Cholistan,
Greater Thal and riverine areas.
They are already drought ridden and their vulnerability
will be further increased when they will be pressurized to
evict the land for corporate masters. For instance, the
displaced communities from mega-projects are still unable to
resettle. The harassment of tenants in Punjab is another
glaring example of corporatization of agriculture sector. They
have been tilling the land for the last hundred years. Now
they are being besieged, harassed and killed by the government
to evict the land.
The
culturable wasteland in Cholistan (Bahowalpur, Rahimyarkhan,
Bahawalpur) is 6.6 million acres and 1.2 million are its
inhabitants. Since 1978 only 350000 acres were allotted to its
30000 applicants while 5784 applications are still pending.
All the people who were allotted the lands are now in better
economic conditions as compared to majority of the poor
landless Rohailas (inhabitants). The allotment of the land is
banned regardless of the promises and commitments of the
successive governments to allot the land to the landless
Rohailas. It
seems that government wants to bring these Rohailas and people
in other parts of the country to the same fate as of tenants
in Peeroval and Okara.
It is all
because of weak policies. On one hand our country is a
signatory to United Nation Convention to Combat
Desertification (UNCCD) and report submitted in April 2002 by
the government to UNCCD secretariat says that the state owned
lands will be distributed among the poor to reduce poverty.
Similarly, in Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, government
clearly said that the state owned land will be distributed
among the poor to bring them out of vicious circle of poverty.
Same was the case in the referendum campaign in which the
President Gen. Musharraf said in his public meetings that the
land will be distributed among the landless and tenants to
improve their livelihoods and provide them better economic
conditions. Either it is lack of coordination within the
government departments or the armtwisting by the corporate
sector, CAF policy has been approved by the cabinet. It is
quite evident that the policies are further widening the gap
between the two halves, and this disparity brings anarchy in
the society.
Either
North’s evaluation mechanism lacks or it intentionally
ignores the realities and same is the case with our policy
architects. It is necessary for us look the realities on
ground. CAF was developed in the North by huge subsidies
provided by the government to agriculture sector. While we are
introducing the policy in the perspective trade
liberalization. That is why the poverty is uncontrollable in
our country despite the sweet coated assistance of
International Financial Institutions.
Therefore
it is necessary to capacitate the small poor farmers by
providing them support so they may be able to compete with the
MNCs. Otherwise CAF will be boon for MNCs, challenge for
feudal lords (if they don’t join the MNCs) and bane for
small farmers and they will be unable to take part in
agriculture production. The author is working in Sustainable
Agriculture Action Group (SAAG), a network of civil society
organization and farmer groups. The author is also doing
PGD-WTO/IPRs
from International Islamic University Islamabad.
Office:
SAAG Secretariat
SDPI, 3- UN Boulevard
Diplomatic Enclave
Islamabad
Ph# 2278134
Fax# 2278135
E-mail: saag@sdpi.org
Residential Address:
Roshan Malik
H# 8, Main Road
I-8/2, Islamabad.
Ph# 4441944.
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