SUKKUR: Farmers belonging to different areas of Sindh continued their rallies in Kandhkot-Kashmore for a second consecutive day, Monday, against provincial government’s indifferent attitude towards their plight.

Raising slogans for better prices of their produce, they demanded end to their ‘economic murder’ by unscrupulous millers, traders, middlemen and government functionaries.

The rallies were organised by Awami Tehreek (AT), Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and local organisations of growers, peasants and tillers.

Political, nationalist, social welfare and other activists also took part in the rallies in considerably large numbers.

Leaders condemn govt’s indifferent attitude towards plight of farming community

Participants of the JI-organised rally, started their march from Ghanta Ghar in Kandhkot and reached the deputy commissioner’s office, where they held a sit-in.

JI Sindh Emir Kashif Saeed Shaikh, who led the protesters, reaffirmed his party’s full support to farmers’ intensified drive for their legitimate rights and against their exploitation by other stakeholders in the agriculture sector.

“Farmers need a fair price for their crops, not the ‘Hari Card’ being offered to them,” Shaikh said.

He said ‘economic murder’ of farmers must come to an end now. He said paddy growers’ demand of fixing Rs4,000/40kg as minimum procurement rate for their produce was genuine.

He noted that farmers had been holding protests across Sindh for many days now but the provincial government had remained indifferent. He said there were multiple issues that had forced farmers to take to streets. These issues included shortage of water, blackmarketing of fertiliser, increase in the prices of seeds and pesticides as well as unjustifiably low rate being offered by ‘miller mafia’.

The JI leader condemned that paddy growers were being offered just Rs2,200/40kg as against the production cost of much above the rate.

He said millers, big traders, investors and industrialists were exploiting farmers by manipulating the market to buy their crops — including rice, sugar cane and wheat — at very low rates and then make millions by selling them or producing by-products at very high rates.

“This manipulation turns them multi-billionaires and keeps the farming community below poverty line,” he said.

He claimed that for the last 15 years, growers in Sindh had not been receiving a reasonable rate for their sugar cane, wheat and paddy crops.

Shaikh demanded fixing of fair procurement price of all crops, waiver of taxes and end to unjust deductions by buyers, besides grant of subsidies on agricultural inputs.

Other JI leaders including Hafiz Nasrullah Channa, Imdadullah Bijarani and Ghulam Mustafa Mirani, and Kissan Board leader Ustad Hafeezullah Golo also spoke.

The Awami Tehreek rally was taken out on Sunday from Masha Allah Hotel in Kandhkot to the Tangwani van stop, where the participants staged a sit-in against a very low rate being offered to paddy growers in the open market.

The protesters demanded increase in paddy prices to Rs4,000/40kg and an end to ‘economic murder’ of farmers.

The protesters were led by AT district president Advocate Asif Khoso and Sindh Hari Tehreek’s Tangwani leaders Sultan Gujrani, Saddam Khoso and others.

They told the rally participants that Sindh’s farmers and growers were being economically destroyed under a conspiracy.

On the one hand, the prices of fertiliser, seed, and other agricultural inputs had skyrocketed while, on the other, traders in the market were purchasing farmers’ produce at dismally low rate, leaving millions of farmers in the province to face hunger and destitution, they said.

Due to an open collusion between Sindh government and profiteers, the cost of production had shot up and farmers were getting very low returns, they said.

Furthermore, local buyers (traders) were applying a deduction of two kgs on every 40 kgs, with even further deductions made under the pretext of moisture content, they lamented.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2025