KARACHI, Sept 10: Speakers at a meeting on Monday urged farmers to switch over to traditional farming to increase their earnings, as the usage of chemical agricultural input had affected the land yield.

They were speaking on the first day of a two-day meeting titled “National Engagement on Food Security” organized by Shirkat Gah. They said that multinational companies had worked systematically to get the land addicted to modified seeds.

They said that owing to official policies made under the influence of these huge companies, the crop patterns had changed and farmers were forced to sow cash crops rather than food crops. Hence, while land owners made money, a large number of poor peasants starved.

Dr Shahid Aziz of the Sungi Development Foundation said that in the past, farmers employed the use of local seeds and cultivated various varieties on smaller pieces of land, which was good from the biodiversity point of view. There was less pest attack, and the harvest was good. With most of the input like manure etc being produced at the farm, the input was cheap and the profit was greater.

He said that under the onslaught of the big corporations, mono-culture crops were encouraged and chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and new seeds were introduced, which initially showed good results, but gradually, the land became addicted to these chemicals, and every subsequent season the amount of input increased and produce decreased, affecting the land. He said that a large variety of endemic seeds was lost in the process.

Dr Shahid said that results in other countries were positive, as a large number of small farmers in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had returned to organic farming and were earning many times more than what they used to earn when they used chemical input. He urged the government to give assistance and incentives to the farmers who want to switch over to organic farming.

Mushtaq Gadi of Sungi said that records show that the land under cultivation in the upper Indus area (between Mianwali and Rajanpur) in the early 1900s — before the modern irrigation system — was almost 65 per cent. But if the land affected by water logging and salinity is deducted, the cultivable land becomes almost the same.

He said that the international financial institutions gave billions of rupees to construct dams, barrages, and canals, and now, after the land has been affected by water logging and salinity, billions are being obtained to put the drainage system in place.

Gadi said that as the end result was the same, why were loans worth billions taken out? The level of poverty was increasing, and many of the poor masses in the rural areas were not able to feed themselves, and had moved to urban areas, which created other socio-cultural problems and increased poverty there as well.

He said that inaccurate figures were presented — showing more benefits and less losses — while the projects were underway, as was clear from the Chashma Right Bank Irrigation project. Initially, its cost was shown as $30 million. But now, it was around $330 million. Earlier it was said that there would be no displacement, but now over 20 villages were to be affected.

He said similarly, out of the Rs55 billion Mangla Dam Expansion project, over Rs22 billion are to be spent on resettlement, which shows the displacement of a great number of people. He said that theweaker section of the population suffered, while the stronger section made money.

Dr Aly Ercelawn of PILER said that owing to the construction of dams and barrages on rivers, less water was coming downstream the Kotri Barrage to the deltaic region, and it was affecting the mangrove forests, which were nurseries to many commercially important marine species, seriously affecting the economy of the fishermen community.

He said that earlier, the government had listened to the fishermen’s grievances and had banned deep sea fishing by multinational firms. But when a neighbour applied pressure, the deep sea fishing policy was restored. He said that owing to the modern equipment used by deep sea vessels, the catch of small fishermen declined.

Dr Aly said that traditional fishermen carried out sustainable fishing, while deep sea vessels were wiping out the local fish stock as they and done in other areas like Central America, Bangladesh and the Far East.

Former Sindh Education Minister Anita Ghulam Ali, Najma Sadeque of the Green Economics and Globalization Initiative also spoke. Uzma Gilani highlighted the issues being faced by the peasant.