By Ahmad Rafay Alam
One of the conspiracies brewing on the internet is turning out to be frighteningly real. It has been reported that the Government of Pakistan is in negotiation with the Saudi and other Arab governments over the lease of as much as 700,000 hectares of Pakistan's agricultural land to these foreign countries. The Ministry of Investment claims these leases will "pave the way" for improvements in agricultural technology. But everyone knows the truth: facing food security issues that will keep most of us awake at night. Many Arab countries are investing in agricultural land in poorer countries as a means of securing future food supplies to their own populations.
It is common knowledge that growing populations, sprawling urban areas that eat up valuable agricultural land, water shortages and climate change mean that the availability of food is becoming a political reality. Rich but arid Arab states are, for obvious reasons, looking outside their borders for opportunities to secure their future food requirements.
According to last year's figures from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), undernourishment in Pakistan increased from 24 to 28 per cent of the population, and the number of people deemed to be "food insecure" increased from 60 million to 77 million. Incidentally, the definition of poverty is the dollar per day quantification of the minimum nourishment a human requires.
Pakistan is also fast becoming a water-stressed country. At partition, our water resources were over 5,000 cubic metres per capita. They are now below 1,500 cubic metres per capita and fast heading below the 1,000 mark – officially the water-stress limit. Pakistan's water comes from the glacial melt of the Himalayas, which are themselves fast melting due to climate change. Experts predict a 30 to 40 per cent drop in glacial melt in the next 30 years. Remember, over 90 per cent of our water is used in the agricultural sector and that too, not economically. The remainder is needed for drinking and related purposes. A future without water is one of the most pressing issues facing this country.
True to form, the political circus is busy in the mind-numbingly irrelevant politics of accusing one another of corruption. The current political atmosphere reflects either a total abdication of responsibility or a Machiavellian scheme to divert attention from the real issues this country faces. One doesn't know which is worse.
Pakistan's Initial National Communication on Climate Change was issued by the Ministry of Environment in 2004, and is our first official assessment of the effects climate change will have in our country. Based on an assumed, but minimum expected increases in temperature and changes in climate, the state itself realises that glaciers are expected to melt faster, and less and less snow is expected to form in the mountains where our freshwater comes from. This report is evidence that the state knows that this will change the flow of our rivers and any system which depends on them. The increase in temperature will put heat stress on crops, including "severe stress" on our cash crops: cotton, wheat and sugar. And, without a doubt, our country's bread basket will be affected.
The canal irrigation system that the colonial rulers put into place in South Asia is the most significant event in the region, eclipsing in importance even the partition. On this assertion, as I was told by Dr Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, I have complete belief. The canal system meant that the potential of the land of five rivers was harnessed and, for a first time, the population wasn't dependant on rain as a means of irrigation. Instead of the limits of barani/land, fields could be irrigated throughout the year, increasing not just food supply for the region, but boosting the output of cash crops and making colonial England a player on the world arena. When canals were introduced, the colonialist opted to confer land grants to friends and favourites – usually retiring soldiers or others of valued service – as a means of populating the newly arable regions of the province. In this way, an entire feudal social system grew that still exists today and there is the clear hand of the military establishment.
The Initial Communication also predicts that, as a result of climate change, there will be population migrations to other arable lands. However, this will also be accompanied with increases in poverty caused by the destruction of the well-settled rural economy. Some of these effects are being felt now, as tens of thousands of families in Sindh have relocated as a result of the salinity caused by creeping seawater. Water shortage and climate change means such relocations will soon spread elsewhere.
We have 160 million mouths to feed now and should expect to feed over 300 million by 2050. Clearly, climate change and our impending water shortage crisis are going to affect our own food production. In such an environment (pun intended) it's certainly questionable whether the lease of agricultural land to foreign countries for the purposes of their own food supply is in the best interests of Pakistan, even if it brings in agricultural technology. What do the Arab farmers have that our agricultural universities don't?
There may well be technological innovations that the foreign countries that that intend to lease our agricultural land will bring to our agricultural practice. As one newspaper report boasts, the use of agricultural land will give employment to poverty-stricken farmers and introduce large-scale mechanised farming techniques. But it's not for nothing; as such leases -- like the proposed 40,000 hectares Qatar is negotiating to lease from Kenya -- attract criticism. The entire enterprise is accused of being neo-colonialism, and it isn't difficult to see why. It follows exactly the same template of the colonialist -- tapping the resources of one country for the benefit of the population of another. The only difference between the British and the coming experience will be that this time the colonialist will be a Muslim brother.
We may be indebted to our Saudi and Arab allies – after all, the Saudi Government did grant the Islamic Republic of Pakistan a four billion dollars plus oil on "soft terms" not too long ago – but we must not let this be a reason for them to take advantage of us. It is attractive but terminally short-term to think that a step, such as leasing nearly three-quarter of a million of arable land to foreigners, will bring much-needed foreign investment into the country. But the fact is that at this moment in Pakistan, there exists the expertise, motivation, desire and manpower to bring and introduce water conservation practices into place, to introduce smarter irrigation and farming techniques. What is strange is that given these opportunities for Pakistan's agriculture sector to become more productive and sustainable, the government is choosing to dispose of the same agricultural land to someone else.
The writer is an advocate of the high court and a member of the adjunct faculty at LUMS. He has an interest in urban planning. Email: [email protected]
