Pakistan

Lahore High Court Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif postponed until October 6 the hearing of a petition challenging the proposed sale or lease of millions of acres of agriculture land to foreign countries.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) urges the government to seriously reconsider its plan to sell land to Saudi Arabia and other foreign investors, taking into account the welfare of hundreds of thousands of peasants whose livelihood will be directly affected.

The 'Food Pirates' are fast expanding their network, their reach and their control over land. And it is happening fast in our own neighbourhood, writes Devinder Sharma.

Fears have been raised of a possible increase in food insecurity in Pakistan if a deal to lease out 202,342.8 hectares of farmland to Saudi Arabia goes ahead.

If Islamabad chooses to sell valuable agricultural lands, may be India could help itself in partnership with the Gulf businessmen who want to produce fruit and vegetables in Pakistan. After all, the Gulf knows a lot less than India about agribusiness and we might well want to import food in the not too distant future.

During Pervez Musharraf’s time, Beijing had proposed that it be leased 2,000 acres of land for a period of 10 to 15 years with the agreement that China would make technological and financial investments in the land, invest in newer forms of seeds and other products and leave the new infrastructure to the state or the owners after the termination of the contract.

Civil society, including African farmers unions, need to educate local people that such land deals are not in their interests, however couched in 'win-win' terminology they appear to be.

Last May, while Pakistan’s military was waging its offensive in Swat, Islamabad officials were simultaneously launching another offensive in the Gulf: a charm offensive to secure investment in Pakistani farmland.

It is unfortunate that even as deals that involve land which should belong to the people of Pakistan are struck, there has been so little public debate about the plan. We need to be informed of what is planned. Protests need too to be mobilized. In the prevailing political environment of Pakistan, the people who stand to lose the most have almost no spokesmen.

The government should enhance rural funding and at the same time curtail federal non-development expenditures in order to avoid leasing country’s land to foreign investors.

The Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA), in a unanimously adopted resolution on Tuesday, demanded the government immediately withdraw leasing of agricultural land to other countries.

The Lahore High Court Bar Association stated that farmlands were being acquired by the Arabs as front men for the Americans who would eventually use them for possible military bases, because Arabs had been front men in the bid to purchase Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) for an Indian businessman.