Akhtar Abbas is a small time farmer in Muzaffargarh who leases lands from feudal lords on a yearly basis to cultivate cotton and wheat. This year the worst floods in August destroyed his 12 acres of cotton, a few kanals of vegetables and flattened his house located near Muzaffargarh canal which acting as a flood channel inundated thousands of acres in Kot Addu and Muzaffargarh tehsil.

“I am still calculating the losses and I don’t know the extent of the loss yet,” said Akhtar Abbas, who has now cultivated wheat on his leased 12 acres and hopes that a bumper wheat crop might help him recover the losses.

“This year the prices of cotton had peaked to Rs5,000 per 40kg so I expected a good price for the cotton I cultivated. I thought it might earn me about Rs800,000 to one million,” he said. Instead Akhtar is heavily indebted to fertiliser and seed dealers in addition to Rs12,000 per acre of land that he has leased from a land owner for a year.

Being a lessee, Akhtar was denied compensation by the government in the form of free fertilisers and wheat seeds as compensation can only be claimed by land owners having land less than 12 acres. No credible data are available about the number of flood affectees who are not legible for compensation. The affected areas of southern Punjab are dominated by feudal lords, who own more than 80 per cent of the irrigated land. Small farmers and peasants make up the majority of the population.

Akhtar said that the small farmers suffered most because land owners did not waive any contract money for they considered themselves among the sufferers. Malik Ansar, another farmer, had plans to marry off his two daughters and hoped to get a good sum from his 20 acres of cotton and sugarcane. However, since his farm located in Khangarh area of Muzaffargarh was inundated by flooding, the weddings were postponed.

The loss of mango orchards in Khangarh affected the education of many students of a private university in Islamabad as their parents were unable pay the fees.

Most of the farmers alleged that they had stepped back five years when their major crops were affected and the government did not compensate them. When flooding hit southern Punjab in early August, it not only displaced millions of people but also destroyed various crops that provided them livelihood.

According to Amjad Jamal, a World Food Programme spokesman, “At least 1.4 million acres of crops were destroyed in Punjab.

According to agriculture officials in Muzaffargarh, the main crops damaged by devastating floods were cotton, mango orchards, sugarcane and rice. According to Jamshed Sindhu, Muzaffargarh District Officer Agriculture, the main crop damaged in the flooding was cotton.

This year, 227,000 acres of cotton crop was completely damaged along with 3,000 acres of mangoes, 81,000 acres of sugarcane, 123 acres of citrus and 43,000 acres of rice. Alongside diary, livestock and fish farming sectors were also badly hit in Muzaffargarh and other parts of southern Punjab.

According to Malik Mureed, an agricultural expert of Muzaffargarh, when a cotton farm is destroyed, it leaves a complete eco chain affected.

“This year, no cotton means there will be no livelihood for thousands of cotton pickers employed by cotton factories, most employees are women. There will be no oil as cotton seeds provide hundreds of litres of oil extracted from seeds. No yarn for textile units so that many units will either close down or would have to import the yield to keep the machinery chugging,” he said.

In southern Punjab there are 83 cotton factories in which 64 are partially functional due to scarcity of the yield. Malik Yaseen, a cotton factory owner, said his factory produced 8,000 to 12,000 bales. But this year, he could only manage 3,000 bales which not only affected his business but also contributed to the loss to national economy.

Since the canal irrigation system has also been affected, water for irrigation may not be available to farmers in many areas for the next crop. With the flood receded and land drying up, the farms are ready to grow wheat and other crops.

“Despite no compensation from the government, small farmers have no choice but to carry on with the cycle of crop cultivation,” says Akhtar Abbas. “We are not traders who can shutter down and threaten authorities to accept our demands. If we miss the sowing season, it means we have lost six months as the next sowing season will fall after six months,” he said.

After the flood damage, the government and some NGOs are trying to compensate farmers but the meager government resources and the vast area affected are realities that cannot be ignored. The government has issued more than 99,000 Watan Cards in Muzaffargarh district alone. A Watan Card holder is entitled to Rs20,000 in the first installment and Rs80,000 in the second. According to Muzaffargarh DCO Tahir Khursheed, the district government had distributed 500,000 bags of urea and half a million bags of wheat seeds to 350,000 farmers.