Okara hit headlines in international media during General Musharraf’s regime when tenants of military dairy farms, spread over thousands of acres in the district along the National Highway, resisted the army administration’s plans to change around a century-old Batai system into a rent system in 2000.

This led to a movement for ownership rights by tenants ploughing the fields since 1913, when the land was given by the Punjab government to the military on a 20-year lease that was never renewed. The ongoing struggle has resulted in the deaths of over a dozen tenants inviting the attention of human rights watchdogs across the globe.

The city of Okara, headquarters of the district carved out of Sahiwal in 1982, was built on land covered with Okan trees during the British period. The settlement was earlier called Okanwali (land of Okan trees) and ultimately finalised into Okara. It shares boundaries with the Bahawalnagar district in the south, Pakpattan in the southwest, Sahiwal in the west, Faisalabad and Nankana Sahib in the north, Kasur in the north-east and Fazilka (India) in the south-east. The last factor adds to the geographic importance of the district, which houses a cantonment since the Partition.

Exports of potatoes, fresh and chilled, dropped 39pc from $115m in 2019 to $69m in 2020

Famous for its fertile lands suitable for almost all the crops of every season, the district is spread over 4,377 square kilometres with a population of over three million. There are many tribes and clans settled in the district, including Syed, Rajput, Arain, Kumboh, Jat, Sheikh, Baloch, Lodhi, and Khanzadas.

A central ridge marking the old bed of River Beas passes through the district bifurcating it into two. Descending from Kasur, the crest goes all the way to Chunian, and then Shergarh in Okara. On the west of the ridge into Okara and Renala Khurd tehsils, the subsoil water is brackish and the area depends on canals for irrigation. But, on the eastern side of the ridge, Depalpur tehsil area, the subsoil water is sweet and good for agriculture.

The area is known for decades for its fields of potatoes, maize, wheat, rice, tomatoes, sugarcane, and cotton.

Cotton was once a popular crop in the district as one of the two textile mills Pakistan owned at the time of independence was located in Okara. It has, however, closed down as farmers have given up growing the white lint due to failure of the crop year after year and have diverted their attention to other more promising options. Cotton was grown only on 157,000 acres even when it was giving a good yield in 1990. The area under the lint shrank to 27,000 acres in 2020.

Potato and maize crops benefited from the losing interest of the farming community in cotton as the district became part of a core zone along with Kasur, Sahiwal and Pakpattan of tubers in Punjab. The land under potato crop increased from about 28,000 acres in 1990 to 134,030 acres in 2020. Its per acre yield during the last three decades has also improved from 150 maunds to over 250 maunds.

However, exports of potatoes, both fresh and chilled, dropped 39 per cent from $115m in 2019 to $69m in 2020. Potato Research & Development Board Chairman Maqsood Ahmed Jat laments that Pakistan imports tuber seed worth billions of rupees from Holland but is not importing even a single kilogram of potato from Pakistan whereas the European state is importing the same from other countries. He suggests that the government should engage Holland as well as China, Thailand and the Philippines — three large tuber importers — for the export of Pakistani potato.

To facilitate potato exporters, Mr Jat demands, the federal authorities should establish a permanent Plant Protection Department’s sub-office at Okara. Presently, it is working only on a temporary basis during the harvesting season.

Notwithstanding its large share in tuber production, Okara is devoid of a potato value-addition chain, he laments and suggests the government should encourage industrialisation of the sector through financial support and subsidisation for the benefit of growers as well as unemployed youth of the area.

Claiming that the National Agriculture Research Council (Narc) multiplies imported tuber seeds that lead to intellectual property rights issues, he demands that the Ministry of National Food Security and Research direct Narc to instead propagate equally good local varieties developed by the Potato Research Institute Sahiwal.

Seven of these varieties, he says, have been approved by the Punjab Seed Council and hopes that the variety evaluation committee will follow the suit soon.

Maize crop has increased its acreage by around 90pc during the last 30 years as land under it has gone up to 372,800 acres in 2020 from 22,500 acres in 1990. The main reason behind it, says Agriculture (Extension) Ijaz Ahmed, is the introduction of hybrid varieties improving maize per acre yield from 17 maunds to over 93 maunds — an increase of more than five times.

Paddy is also gaining currency among local farmers though the agriculture department is opposing it as rice is a water-guzzling crop that may damage land fertility for other crops. Its acreage increased from 176,000 acres three decades ago to over 400,000 acres in 2020, while its per acre yield has also improved by 80pc.

There are two sugar mills in the district but sugarcane, despite its improved per acre yield, is losing its attraction for the farming community; the area under the crop has dropped almost by a third during the last three years — from 57,300 acres in 1990 to 21,000 acres in 2020. Mr Ahmed attributes this downward trend mostly to delayed payments by millers to growers, who as the agriculture officer says, are progressive and not reluctant to try other crops if one crop fails and causes them any trouble.

Giving the example of moong whose acreage decreased from 2,670 acres in 1990 to 150 acres in 2020, he says pulses are rain-fed crops and thus can not succeed in areas such as Okara as heavy rains usually damage their yield.

Large fruit farms, including the known Mitchells fruit farms, also dotted its landscape but these are vanishing fast as the farmers are diverting their attention towards crop intensity — getting three crops, potato, coarse rice and maize, in a year. A major part of the Mitchells farms has also fallen victim to the concrete infrastructure of a public sector university and a couple of other institutes. Mango orchards are found on not more than 200 acres of land now, likewise, citrus, guava and grapefruit orchards are increasingly becoming unattractive for the growers.

The largest buffalo market of Punjab, Okara is very rich in livestock population and production. It is also famous for its known cattle breed Sahiwal and a water-buffalo breed Niliravi. A multinational and a couple of local dairy products companies have most of the milk collection centres in the district, the top milk-producing area in the country.

The Livestock Production Research Institute (LPRI) Bahadarnagar Farm is a large government facility near Okara city (18.5km on Faisalabad road). Farm director Dr Mehmood Ejaz Gorsi says his institute is working on breed conservation to keep the Sahiwal and Niliravi breeds pure. The local species, he says, are environment friendly as these may be reared even on dried grass in the extreme summer and winter seasons, unlike the imported ones that require a specific atmosphere and temperature to thrive on.

A livestock official, who requested not to be named, predicts a fall in the livestock population and production in the near future as the farming community is fast migrating to urban centres to seek better education and health facilities for their young generations. They are renting out their farms but the renting system cannot work with the cattle so they are selling out their animals, he says, adding the fact is evident from the gradual decrease in the land under fodder cover — from 163,000 acres a few years ago to 149,000 acres at present.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, April 19th, 2021