Giving land to MNCs for corporate farming opposed

[LahoreEstate]

Sunday, July 05, 2009
Our correspondent

Islamabad

Giving land to multinational companies (MNCs) in the name of corporate farming would create a disaster in the country not only leading to exploitation of our land by foreigners but also put extra demand on water distribution system which is already an acute political and technical problem in the country.

This was stated by participants of a two-day retreat of Sustainable Agriculture Action Group (SAAG) organised by Green Circle Organisation at the auditorium of South Asian Free Media Association here Saturday morning. SAAG is a grouping of 35 NGOs working in different fields of agriculture, environment, sustainable development, forestry and bio-diversity.

Qamar Mohyuddin from Lok Sanjh said that multinationals are coming as monsters which would devour our resources and the decision of corporate farming by MNCs must be reversed. GM Ghanjera from South-Asia Partnership Social Action Programme observed that an acre of arable land is given to generals for just much less than the rate of goat, ie, Rs300 in southern Punjab and Sindh. Another participant said that Britishers doled out big chunk of lands to buy loyalties of local influentials. The issue of Okara Military Farms also came in the discussion where the lease of the lands ended but the lands are not being returned to the Punjab government or farmers and efforts are being made to trap or buy the activists opposing the grabbing of the land.

On the issue of BT Cotton, Shoaib Aziz from ActionAid said that multinationals used cultural means and lottery to promote seeds of its varieties in India which initially were pest resistant but later local resistance developed but by that time seeds of local varieties were no longer available. He said that same is the situation in Multan and Muzaffargarh now. He said that BT varieties increases pH value of land and first year bumper crop was followed by less and less yield in the following years. He said that when these varieties are being banned in the West, we are introducing them. He lamented that our high-ups including Finance Advisor Shaukat Tareen tried to favour the Monsanto, an MNC. He said that Indian growers are ready to provide data to Pakistan and we must share experiences of India with our farmers, media and bureaucrats in particular. He said that due to decline in production, Pakistan had to import cotton.

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=186551