July 15, 2002	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 4, 1423

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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.