SUKKUR: Representative organisations of farmland owners and peasants held demonstrations in several Sindh towns on Friday, demanding that the Sindh government fix the support price of sugar cane at Rs200 per 40 kilogramme and that of Erri-9 paddy at Rs1,000 per 40kg.

In Sukkur, peasants and farm owners demonstrated outside the press club under the banner of the Sindh Progressive Committee (SPC), a conglomerate of different peasant organisations and political parties, to press for their demands.

SPC convener Latif Dino Shaikh, peasant leader Shah Murad Indhar and others who led the protest said the Sindh government had miserably failed to resolve their problems.

They said that they shed their sweat all day and night on their farms to get a better yield but once the crops finally went to the market they were offered such low rates that it did not even cover their production expenses.

They said that they were compelled to borrow to make both ends meet and pay cost of farm inputs because of extremely low rates. On the other hand, capitalists and traders were making huge profits at their expense, they said.

They demanded that the Sindh government fix rates of sugar cane at Rs200 per 40kg and Erri-9 rice at Rs1,000 per 40kg.

In Khairpur, activists of the Sindh Hari Committee and other peasant organisations complained that they had suffered great losses because of low rate of sugar cane.

They said while speaking at a rally of growers and peasants at the press club that they did not often get in time what little the mills committed to pay for their hard earned crops.

They said the situation was forcing them to quit sowing sugar cane and complained that no one paid any heed to their problems. Many of the tube-wells installed under the government’s Salinity Control and Reclamation Programme (SCARP) had fallen into disuse and shut down while the few still functioning were watering only the land of influential landlords, they said.

They said the electricity meters of the tube wells were kept running to allow unscrupulous officers to get budget for them and swallow up the amount.

They warned they would protest throughout the district but added disappointingly that they were sure beforehand that nobody would listen to them.

In Hyderabad, the SPC workers staged a demonstration outside the press club to condemn injustices against farmers by mills and factory owners.

SPC leaders Imdad Qazi of the Communist Party of Pakistan, Dr Bakhshal Thalho of the Awami Workers Party Sindh, Jeay Sindh Mahaz general secretary Akbar Khoso and Awami Jamhori Party leader Nazir Qureshi said that the Sindh government was openly supporting capitalists and factory owners.

They said the government last year had notified support price of Rs182 per 40kg of sugar cane but did not pay it to growers. The situation was not different this year as well, they complained.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2015