Currently, there is news that preparations are being made to give 15 lakh acres
of land to a friendly country. This news has been circulating for a few months in
the context of the declining economic situation of the country and a large aid
received from friendly countries. During the Musharraf era, the Corporate
Farming Act was approved, which said that “The government is authorized to
sell or lease unlimited agricultural land in all four provinces of the country of any
country, to a foreign country, an individual, or a company for agricultural use on
easy terms and attractive concessions”. During the Musharraf era, there was a
lot of work on this, and under this law, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture
identified 9.1 million hectares of cultivable land in the four provinces of the
country, which was not under cultivation. However, during the Musharraf era, it
could not be done. Then the governments of the People’s Party and ML-N also
announced this program, but even then, it could not be implemented. Now
again the news is circulating that 15 million acres of land will be provided to the
friendly country where they will grow crops that are used as food in their
country with the help of modern agricultural equipment, seeds, and fertilizers.
There will be crops whose harvesting, cutting, and transportation will be the
responsibility of this friendly country. What Pakistan will get in return has not yet
been decided, or it has been decided but not made public for some reasons.
Such projects were first launched in several African countries. The practice of
corporate farming is that the investment agreement guarantees that they have
a right to the entire production that they can export in whole or in part. They can
sell in the local market if they want but they will not be bound to do so. The
cruel thing is that the farmers, who are employed by carport farming companies
in Africa, cannot even take a single grain of wheat or other crops home
because they are salaried employees and before working for them, they had
accepted all these conditions in their contract. The second major misfortune is
that they cannot buy the wheat or crops even from the market because the
owner has the right to sell the entire crop to another country at a good price.
The third important thing is that things that are cultivated here are often not
even needed by the local country. The quality of this crop is the food quality of
their own country or where the crop will be exported. If any request is made
from them for the local market, the prices are charged in foreign currency
according to the export quality. So they remain beyond the reach of the local
public. Here it is necessary to think that the expensive pattern of farming that
will be used on our land under modern formulas will gradually weaken the
productive capacity of the land day by day to such an extent that by the time
this lease contract expires, this land will become a headache and local people
will not be able to afford the cost of expensive modern formula. According to
Islamic law, the land belongs to Allah and should be used by the local people. It
is the duty of the state to use the land for the welfare of the people. If we look
at Pakistan, the land is the property of the state and not of the government.
Keeping these two aspects in front, it can be said that the government itself is a
tenant and has no right to sell the land to anyone. From the point of view of
justice and in the light of the country’s facts, the first right on these lands
belongs to the landless farmers. (English translation of Muneer Ahmed Baloch-Dunya Daily)
https://dunya.com.pk/index.php/author/munir-ahmed-baloch/2023-10-