PARC against leasing land to foreign investors

Daily Times | 16 September 2009

Suggests enhanced funding in rural areas

By Razi Syed

KARACHI: 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.

Chief of Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC), Dr Zafar Altaf on Tuesday, said that for utilisation of such land the government should prefer local investors and poor landless farmers and support them in cultivation of land to increase our gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income.

He said the legislators should discuss a bill for the proposed selling of agriculture lands before the parliament in order to give it a clear cut approval from the peoples’ representatives. The Gulf and some Dubai based groups were showing great interest to acquire fertile lands for rearing livestock besides to produce crops for their respective countries.

It is in the process of acquiring farmland in Pakistan to export more food to the Gulf region. Instead of selling land it would be better to sell its yield to the people in the Gulf region. He said the provincial governments of the country have the right to sign the accord following the parliament’s nod if they desired so.

He said the Ministry of Investment (MoI) should form a committee comprising federal and provincial representatives and private sector stakeholders (framing community) in order to take any initiative in this direction. There are reports that the government has decided to offer more than 7 million acres of farmland for long-term investment and for sale to the foreigners and an Emirates Investment Group, Chairman Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA), Agha Saiddain said.

If the authorities are bent upon to sell the land then it would be better to lease it so that Pakistan has right on its land to get it back after expiry of the lease period like Hong Kong and Macao who remained under foreign occupation for more than 99 years and were returned to China after expiry of the lease deed which China was forced to sign after its defeat in opium war, he added.

Mr Agha said, “It can create security risk for the country and the decision to offer farmland to foreigners is far away from the foresight and vision and is only to draw short-term gains at the cost of selling the homeland.” By selling six million acres we will introduce new type of feudalism and create relative deprivation in the area and can spoil the bright future of our children of the soil who were already victims of our short sightedness. There are many other options to utilise the land, instead of selling, the government should offer such land on 30-year lease, secondly, the farmland may be offered to domestic investors on comparatively easy terms and thirdly the government may distribute this land among landless farmers and help them to cultivate the same.

“Saudi Arabia and China are interested to acquire land on lease besides to join hands with the private sector stakeholders in order to grow soft crops and vegetables.” “The United Nations (UN) also expressed its concern over the issue and asked the government to prepare transparent and foolproof blueprint in order to avoid any involvement of extremist group in the purchase,” he maintained. Minister for Investment Waqar Ahmad Khan denied any such decision and said, “The federal government is considering asking provincial governments to allow local farmers and growers to share with foreign investors’ on 50/50 percent basis as this is purely a provincial matter.” He said our agriculture sector would get the latest farming technology if we capitalise on this scheme and would be able to attract the potential investors. He said the government was working to ward off apprehension of the people of the agriculture sector in this respect.

He said it was expected that after investment the country could save most of its exports of agricultural produce as it was hampered by lack of modern storage facilities, conform to international standards.

The international investment companies are also seeking agriculture lands in Philippines, Ethiopia and other countries.
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