ISLAMABAD: Cotton production is under multidimensional stress brought about collectively by several factors ranging from low yields to low government support, to outdated farming methods on many farms, to constant fragmentation of farmland from one generation to the next, to the palpable impact of climate change, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has stated in a report on Pakistan.

Titled Mapping of the cotton supply chain at the community level in Pakistan: A report on selected districts in Punjab and Sindh provinces, the ILO study has found that by and large, the cotton smallholder farmers, frameworks, and workers and businesses along much of the supply chain do not partake of the success and abundance of the cotton success story.

The report has described how the cotton supply chain at the community level is under strain. The cotton farms in Pakistan contribute significantly to the GDP, generate critical foreign exchange for the country, feed raw material to the critical textile and garment industry, provide livelihoods to millions in the cotton supply chain and enable it to be the fifth largest producer in the world.

Mapping of cotton supply chain shows policies do not always benefit the most marginalised farmers

Pakistan’s agriculture sector is critical to the country’s economic and human resource growth. Policies and initiatives, including social protection measures, are being introduced to support the sector further, but implementation is weak, according to the report.

Vulnerabilities

The ILO has mentioned in its report that policies and initiatives do not always benefit the most marginalised farmers and farmworkers. They continue to rely on dependency-inducing informal credit providers as they ponder and then switch from cotton to other more profitable crops, such as wheat and sugarcane following their peers.

These are the farmers who are not aware of or cannot afford farm inputs that would be best for their needs, who cannot afford to buy or rent farm machinery, whose young children are working on the farms, likely involved in child labour, and missing out on education.

These are the workers with inadequate income, no job security or work quality, no social protection, few skills and no capacity to protect themselves and their children from hazards at work.

These are the female workers with triple responsibilities (of motherhood, house-worker and farm-worker) who yearn to be trained and to be able to use farm machinery, to have equality and equity at work and in their lives. These are the human resources on the farm that carry much of the burden in traditional farming, according to the report.

The wide-ranging policies on input subsidies, quality seeds, certification, farm machinery, cess and subsidies, import and export of cotton, and crop support, among others, are contributing in varying degrees to improving cotton production.

However, the human infrastructure is often overlooked in research and discussions and so subsequently in policies and responses.

Among the key people factors creating the elements of human infrastructure is decent work, including fundamental principles and rights at work, employment and income opportunities, social protection, and tripartism and social dialogue. The report has found inadequacies in important specific supportive factors, such as literacy, education, skills, knowledge and information, affordable access to health services, and targeted community support particularly in the case of migrants and minorities.

The ILO has indicated a varying degree of awareness among the key stakeholders of the cotton production community about working conditions, fair and timely wages, support for childcare. Even so, there is either a lack of capability or negligence that leads to inadequacies in the human infrastructure.

The mapping data does not provide evidence of the promotion of fundamental principles or rights at work or their application at the community level in the cotton growing communities that were surveyed.

This also is the case for the textile and garment units surveyed in the cottage industry and the power loom industry units. Those in the export-oriented industry units that were surveyed demonstrated somewhat greater respect for and application of fundamental principles and rights at work.

Forced labour

The report has highlighted certain prevailing practices that make the workers vulnerable to conditions of forced labour. The practice of providing advance payments from informal sources to workers and farmers is reported as a common practice.

The findings confirm workers in the cottage industry and power loom industry units witnessed and experienced forced overtime and threats in case of non-compliance. This practice points to coercion, intimidation and threats and excessive or mandatory overtime, which are indicators of forced labour.

Although children were not among the key informants in the survey, there is evidence of their involvement in child labour. The mapping shows that for most of the surveyed farmers their perception of safety did not sync with their reality and neither with the fact that the present risks may likely become serious illnesses, or even incapacity, in coming years.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2025