UMERKOT, Dec 2. An annual peasant conference has demanded land reforms and asked the government to ensure peasant rights.

The conference held here on Sunday at the town of Nabisar in Umerkot district was organised by Green Rural Development Organisation and Hari Mazdoor Tanzeem (HIMAT). More than 600 delegates from districts of Tando Muhammad Khan, Sanghar, Matiari, Larkana, Badin, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Umerkot attended it.

Videos, tableaux, theatre performances and songs were presented portraying the plight of peasants and workers.

Folk singers Aziz Ashraf, Sodho Jogi and Chaniser Bhagat performed on the occasion, and local poets also presented their poems about the issues of peasants and farm workers.

Chairman of the Green Rural Development Organisation Dr Hyder Malookhani urged the government to provide relief to the farming community by giving reasonable subsidy on the prices of seeds, fertilizer and pesticides. He demanded fixation of prices of agricultural commodities much prior to harvesting of crops and provision of free-of-cost plots on ownership basis to peasants and agricultural labourers for construction of their houses.

He demanded of the government to write off the agricultural loan in the flood and rain-hit areas and register all the tenants in Khasro because it certified that he was tenant on the said land.

Low rates of chilli and cotton were causing debt bondage, he said, adding that delayed start of sugar mills caused decrease in wheat sowing, which would result in serious food security threat to small growers and tenants, Dr Hyder said.

Renowned writer Arbab Nek Muhammad said the government should abolish large landholding system and the surplus land should be distributed among landless peasants through land reforms. Men and women workers should be paid equal wages. Wages for picking cotton, chillies and vegetables and harvesting of rape mustard, fennel and other crops should be raised.

Social activist Amub Bheel said that every year hundreds of peasant families were sold out in other districts after sowing wheat. Hindu peasants were being discriminated in aid distribution but the government had never taken the issue seriously.

He demanded introduction of technology about raising agricultural crops through water saving devices in the water scarcity areas. He said forced labour was an inhuman and illegal practice and laws against it be implemented and bonded-labour fund should be released for rehabilitation projects.

He said the land distributed among Hindu women peasants was encroached by influential landlords.

He said that due to unfair water distribution, every year a lot of small growers went bankrupt.

Peasant activist Shahaida said unskilled farm workers were paid less wages and urged the government to ensure payment of Rs8,000 per month to them as announced by the Sindh CM on May 1, 2012.

She said accounts of peasants were mostly manipulated and demanded that the accounts should be cleared honestly at the time of harvesting of each crop, and small growers and land owners should be given agricultural loans on easy terms and conditions on instalments.