LAHORE: Tenants of state lands have pledged not to vacate their lands for handover over to corporate farmers as planned by the government, vowing to fight the policy of “benefiting capitalists at their cost” tooth and nail.

Leaders of Pakistan Kisan Rabita Committee (PKRC) and Anjuman Muzaraeen Punjab told a press conference here on Thursday that small farmers and landless peasants would not vacate their lands and were prepared to fight against the government’s plan to forcefully take over their lands.

Rejecting the corporate farming, they termed it a deadly poison for peasants, agricultural workers, and small-scale farmers, alleging that the policy was designed to destroy their lives and fill the pockets of capitalists.

Demanding comprehensive agrarian reforms, they demanded the government should distribute state land among the landless peasants, agricultural workers, and small-scale farmers, claiming this was their “legal right”.

They claimed that so far 4.8 million acres of land have been identified, with 0.9m acres already allocated to private companies in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

In Punjab, 27,000 acres of land at Muhammad Nagar Seed Farm in Arifwala tehsil has been allocated to private companies and the trend is being replicated at other farms. Farmers are being threatened by deputy commissioners and state institutions to vacate the lands immediately or face police action, they alleged.

PKRC Secretary general Farooq Tariq said the government is trying to strengthen the feudal system through corporate farming, instead of implementing land reforms, to the disadvantage of peasants and smallholders.

Anjuman Muzaraeen Punjab President Mehr Ghulam Abbas said the government is trying to snatch their rights to please the capitalist class, adding that tenants’ ancestors had turned this barren land into cultivable patches through their hard work.

Published in Dawn, November 22th, 2024