Petitioner’s arguments concluded in Farmer’s Rights case

Posted on February 21, 2019 by Roots for Equity

Press Release

Lahore, 21 February 2019: A Full Bench of the Lahore High Court heard arguments by Petitioners challenging the Seed (Amendment) Act, 2015 and the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act, 2016.

Advocate Sheraz Zaka, appearing on behalf of the NGO One-World, submitted that these laws were passed at the behest of multinational seed and GMO companies and were against the interests of farmers in Pakistan. He pointed out how these law prohibit the storage and sharing of seeds, which has been a fundamental feature of agriculture since the dawn of civilization. The new laws would require farmers and seed companies to register new verities with the Intellectual Property Organization in Islamabad.

Advocate Ahmad Rafay Alam appearing for NGO Sojhla for Social Change argued the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act, 2016 could not have been passed by Parliament as it was a provincial subject. He pointed out the province of Punjab had taken measures to draft the Punjab Seed (Amendment) Bill and Punjab Farmer’s Rights Bill, and that the laws passed by Parliament usurped the powers of the provinces. The laws passed by Parliament, it was submitted, failed to recognize Pakistan’s international obligations to protect Farmers’ Rights and also usurped provincial jurisdiction. The petition filed by Sojhla for Social Change is supported by the Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek.

A representative appearing on behalf of the Federation of Pakistan submitted the Seed (Amendment) Act, 2015 and Plant Breeder’s Rights Act, 2016 were passed keeping in view advancements in technology and the needs of seed dealers.

After hearing arguments, the Full Bench adjourned the hearing of the matter to 26 February 2019 for arguments by the Federation of Pakistan.

Full Bench hears petition challenging Plant Breeder’s Rights Act, 2016 and Seed (Amendment) Act, 2015

Posted on February 19, 2019 by Roots for Equity

Press Release

Lahore, 18 February: A Full Bench of the Lahore High Court led by Mr. Justice Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi and comprising Justices Shahid Bilal Hassan and Muhammad Waheed Khan heard petitions challenging the vires of the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act, 2016 and the Seed (Amendment) Act, 2015.

Separate petitions had been filed by Sojhla for Social Change and Human-Voice, both civil society and farmers’ organizations, seeking to declare both laws in violation of farmers’ rights. It is alleged these laws were passed at the behest of multinational seed companies and not with the interest of Pakistani farmers in mind.

Ahmad Rafay Alam, counsel for Sojhla for Social Change, argued Parliament could not have passed legislation amending the Seed Act, 1976 as the Constitution envisages such legislation to be made by Provincial Assemblies. Similarly, Parliament exceeded its legislative jurisdiction in passing the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act, 1906 as this subject was not enumerated in the Federal Legislative List. He argued there was a democratic deficit in the legislation as they had been passed without hearing the voices of farmers. The petition by Sojhla for Social Change is supported by the Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek.

Sheraz Zaka, counsel for Human Voice, submitted that farmers’ rights could not be sacrificed in the interest of multinational seed and food companies.

Pakistan is signatory to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which recognizes the enormous contribution of farmers in the conservation and development of plant genetic resources that constitute the basis of food and agriculture around the world. The Treaty requires contracting parties to take measures to protect and promote farmer’s rights. The petitioners argue the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act, 2016 ignores farmers’ rights and gives preference to multinational seed companies and corporate farming.

After hearing arguments, the Full Bench directed notice be issued to the Attorney General and adjourned the case for hearing this Thursday.

WORLD FOODLESS DAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018

Posted on October 16, 2018 by Roots for Equity

PRESS RELEASE

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) celebrates the World Food Day on October 16 every year. This year FAOs slogan is “A#ZeroHunger World by 2030 is possible.” But across the world, small and landless farmers, labour organizations commemorate the day as “World Hunger Day”. Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT), Roots for Equity, PAN AP, and various organizations have campaigned from October 1-16 to highlight the critical importance of agro-ecology and the important character of youth in promoting agroecology, and have used the theme “ Youth on the March: Building Global Community for Agroecology and Food Sovereignty” for the World Hunger Day.

To protest the rising hunger across the globe, and in Pakistan, PKMT and Roots for Equity took out a rally in Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkwa which included small and landless farmers from many KPK districts.

According to the Altaf Hussain, National Coordinator, PKMT 60% of Pakistani population is facing food insecurity. A very large majority of the population was living under poverty, and this is the basic reason that 80% children are deprived of adequate nutrition, 44% children were suffering from malnourishment. No doubt hunger can be eradicated from Pakistan but in the current state of industrial agricultural production, where huge transnational corporations with their toxic hybrid, genetically engineered technology have got their tentacles in the system, it is NOT possible. These corporations are earning super-profits through the exploitation of small and landless farmers and this is the most critical factor in the escalating hunger, malnutrition and poverty. In Pakistan, in spite of surplus production of wheat and rice, feudalism, corporate agriculture and international trade agreements that such a large majority of the people, especially women and children suffer from hunger. Only by taking away the control of feudal lords, and corporations from our lands, our food systems and markets can eliminate hunger.

Fayaz Ahmed, Provincial Coordinator, KPK stated that the promotion of foreign investments, and an export-oriented economy, and vast infrastructural projects are resulting in the eviction of small and landless farmers; this in the face of the fact that only 11 percent of big landlords own 45% of agricultural land. The expansion of the Hattar Industrial Zone is a living example for which not only small farmers were evicted but even the labor force employed in the industries suffers from very low wages and lack of basic human rights.

Mohammad Iqbal, District Coordinator Haripur stated that the governments willingness to allow global capitalist powers control over our markets, promotion of unsustainable agriculture practices has resulted in land and food production to be a source of profit-making. All this has not only exacerbated hunger among rural communities but has also caused environmental pollution especially food pollution, and climate change. In order to get rid of poverty, hunger and joblessness, equitable land distribution must be carried out, for attaining food security and food sovereignty the control of corporations, especially agro-chemical corporations must be eliminated. All this is only possible if the farmers including women are central to decision making in rural economy, and of course agroecology is made the basis for healthy, sustainable food production systems. Only these measures will guarantee a sustainable society.

The demands put forward by PKMT and Roots for Equity include.

Released by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek & Roots for Equity

29 March, Day of the Landless

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Roots for Equity

Press Release

29 March 2018

The Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity in collaboration with the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) and the other Asian organizations have marked the Day of Landless under the theme “Peasants of the world: intensify our struggle for Land and Life!”

The Day of the Landless is observed globally to highlight the struggle of farmers for land and other natural resources as they have been forcefully evicted from their land, despite the fact that they have inhabited these lands for generations’. The numbers of countries including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mongolia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippine, Thailand, and Indonesia have held various events to mark this day.

PKMT has lodged a protest against the pervasive land grabbing and landlessness in Pakistan on the day of landless at the Hyderabad Press Club, Hyderabad, in which the small and landless farmers from different districts of the province have participated. The PKMT Sindh Coordinator, Ali Nawaz Jalbani spoke on this event emphasizing the invaluable contribution of farmers to our communities. He pointed out that small and landless farmers not only provide food to the people through their hard work but are also responsible for export of agricultural products that yields valuable foreign exchange. But even in spite of them feeding the country, they suffer from severe malnutrition, hunger and poverty; no doubt this condition is a result of massive landlessness among farmers. In Pakistan, feudal lords, the elite and rich farmers own 45 percent of agriculture land. This is the critical reason that a country that which has high food product, tragically still comes on top when it comes to infant death statistics.

Allahdino, a PKMT member pointed out that “We the landless farmers are forced off land, evicted from our villages, losing our livelihood, and community forced to work as wage labor in towns and cities under inhuman conditions. With no food grains, every-day hunger is the mode of the day. Contract farming is on the rise, where farmers are being forced to work as part of an assembly line, producing at the behest of agro-chemical corporations who produce not food but profitable items such as sugar cane, livestock fodder, and agro fuels.

According to Sony Bheel, patriarchy is a hard cruel reality. Women, have very few rights, and as agricultural women workers these women face intense structural poverty. They country’s food security in the forms of grains or vegetables, dairy or livestock production is absolutely not possible without rural women’s hard physical labor. However, women a major part of the landless are not even recognized as farmers and face exploitation at the hand of both capitalists and feudal lords. The increasing chemical intensive agriculture is responsible for not only destroying biodiversity but also intoxicating the food chain system which impacts women and girl children immensely. It is because women and girls work the most in cash crop harvesting be it cotton or maize or vegetable picking. Hence the landless, especially women landless suffer the most from multiple forms of exploitations, discriminations and oppressions.

The members of PKMT from Ghotki and Badin, Mohammad Sharif and Mohammad Ramzan said that in Pakistan, farmers are facing oppression and deprivation due to neoliberal policies of capitalist countries, unfair land policies and corporate agriculture. In the name of development and innovation; motorways, Special Economic Zones, energy and other projects are being established, all which are forcing land evictions, depriving farmers of their land and livelihood.

There are many such examples: In Hattar, Haripur, KPK, more than a 1000 acre of land has been allotted for the extension of Special Economic Zone, and in Peshawar the construction of Northern bypass project. In Punjab, 6,500 acres of land is being provided to foreign seed companies. In Rajanpur district, the Government of Punjab is promoting forest cultivation for trade through public private partnership; inevitably farmers are being evicted, others forced into contract farming with corporations. In Khairpur, Sindh, 140 acres of land has been used for Special Economic Zone. These are the clear examples of the oppression present due to land grabs and exploitations faced by the small and landless farmers in the country.

Saleem Kumar, the Tando Mohammad Khan, Coordinator, PKMT stressed the point that instead of distributing land to farmers, the government is promoting foreign investors, allocating land to the corporate sector, steps that further erode the sovereignty, well-being and prosperity of the people of Pakistan.

Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek has made food sovereignty its critical most demand with right to land resonating as the loudest call for gaining social and economic justice.

PKMT’s struggle against imperialist globalization and feudalism challenges land grabbing, corporate agriculture and the whole realm of neoliberal policies that are strangulating farmers lives and livelihood; In essence PKMT demands equitable distribution of land among women and men farmers, the most critical base for ending hunger, poverty and malnutrition in the country.

There is no doubt without Land there is NO Life!

Released by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) & Roots for Equity

Urdu Press Release

land less day PR 29,march 2018 urdu

Several injured in tenants-police clash in Charsadda

Posted on January 31, 2018 by Roots for Equity

CHARSADDA: A tenant woman set herself on fire in protest against police action to evict them from houses and land in Ijara village on Thursday while over a dozen people, including police personnel, were injured in clashes with the peasants and their female family members. The woman, who is said to have received severe burns, was taken to the tehsil headquarters hospital.

According to the district administration officials and local residents, women and children of tenants came out of their houses when the police and FC personnel tried to use force to evict them from the land occupied by them in Ijara village of Tangi tehsil.

During the protest, a woman sprinkled kerosene oil on her body and set herself on fire. She got burn injuries and was rushed to the THQ hospital in critical condition.

Later, sensing gravity of the situation the administration decided to give 20 more days to the tenants to leave the land and houses, which belonged to landlords of the area. The decision was made after a meeting with representatives of tenants.

Moreover, nine tenants, including women and children, were injured when armed men of the landlords stormed their houses to evict them in Hando village.

The district administration claimed that tenants had been removed from 285 kanals in Qandaharo, Mir Ahmed Gul and Hando villages.

Deputy commissioner Mutazir Khan and district police officer Zahoor Afridi while addressing a joint press conference said that the police personnel had taken action to reclaim the land occupied by peasants in the light of Peshawar High Court verdict.

They said that the land had been handed over to the owners. They said that some tenants were also arrested during the action.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2018

SEVERAL INJURED IN TENANTS-POLICE CLASH IN CHARSADDA

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Roots for Equity

Dawn, January 26, 2018

During the protest, a woman sprinkled kerosene oil on her body and set herself on fire. She got burn injuries and was rushed to the THQ hospital in critical condition.

Moreover, nine tenants, including women and children, were injured when armed men of the landlords stormed their houses to evict them in Hando village.

The district administration claimed that tenants had been removed from 285 kanals in Qandaharo, Mir Ahmed Gul and Hando villages.

They said that the land had been handed over to the owners. They said that some tenants were also arrested during the action.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1385383

In Response to 15 Years of Lie and Deceit: Indeed No More!

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Roots for Equity

PRESS RELEASE

January 9, 2018

The President of the United States of America, Mr. Donald Trump on January 1, 2018 sent a tweet in which he states that his country had ‘foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years. . . . No more!” Pakistan Mazdoor Kissan Tehreek and Roots for Equity beseech, beg, and plead, the President of the United States and its people, (on whose behalf US aid is provided), to at least keep this ONE promise of NO MORE!.

Let us recount what this ‘foolish aid’ and engaging in the so called War on Terror has cost the people of Pakistan: more At least 1,000 NATO and drone attacks, and suicide bombings have left more than 40,000 dead, and 20,000 injured; not to include destruction of our livelihood, infrastructure, agriculture, livestock, industrial production and other economic aspects of daily life. But the economic cost is nothing in contrast to the absolute loss of dignity and peace that we, the people of Pakistan have suffered. Our constitution was changed to allow for unchecked ‘security measures,’ we the people of Pakistan, each one of us, are potential ‘terrorist’, even by our own law enforcement agencies. Our young people and youth have grown up in a state of terror, not being allowed peaceful dignified existence in our communities. Millions have been forced to be displaced, living as refugees in the country. Our people’s organizations are searched, humiliated, and subjugated at every step; people’s rights, civil rights are all severely curtailed! All this because of your ‘foolish aid’.

The history of US economic and military aid needs to be examined from the early years of Pakistan. US AID reports admit that development loans (not grants) for millions of dollars’ worth of fertilizers to Pakistan were provided. The introduction of green revolution technologies supported by Ford and Rockefeller Foundation, wiped out our traditional agriculture, creating a huge market for US agriculture corporations; as a result today millions of farmers are deep in debt – (just like the Pakistani government), suffering from malnutrition, hunger and impoverishment. Today, the clarion call of aid agencies is Food Fortification; thank you Green Revolution! Millions of children and adults are now suffering from micronutrient deficiency because of fertilizers and HYV seeds of Green Revolution. So, first US AID has caused disease and death through highly toxic agriculture inputs, and now the ‘remedy’ is fortified therapeutic foods. US AID is pouring in millions of dollars aid through the UN agencies including the World Food Program and UNICEF for food fortification. Based on testimonies given to the US Congress, US international food aid from farm to foreign ports provides the following benefits:

$1,972,000,000 in output of all US industries

$518,000,000 in earnings of households and 13,043 jobs

So, on one hand US economy is maintained by sending us in-kind food, and on the other a new ‘Gift’ is fortified food. This is the next billion dollar market created through food fortification. US Corporations like Kellogg and General Mills among others, supported by USAID, USDA have ‘foolishly helped’ the government of Pakistan reforms our laws and standards so that fortified foods can be force-fully marketed to the hungry, malnourished people of Pakistan.

This is similar to what has been done for changing seed laws in 2015. The meager $6 billion US Aid from the Kerry Lugar Bill in the name of economic and emergency aid for the people, has been used to bring about huge legislative changes in various sectors including agriculture and energy pushing for privatization, liberalization and deregulation. US AID has particularly pushed Pakistani agriculture research toward paving the way for US corporations.

No doubt, the US state is imperialist! We put our hopes in the people of the US. We ask them to stand with the people of Pakistan and not send any more aid ‘in their name. Please Mr. Trump, NO MORE MILITARY, ECONOMIC, HUMANITARIAN, FOOD AID to the people of Pakistan; and (using us a conduit) to the people of Afghanistan. As an ‘honest American citizen’ and the leader of such a ‘great nation’ we hope you will keep this promise, at least!

Released by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) & Roots for Equity

Urdu Press Release

PROTESTER ATTEMPTS SUICIDE

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Roots for Equity

Dawn, December 29th, 2017

MIRPURKHAS: A sugar cane grower, Abdul Majeed Qambrani, 55, sustained 40 per cent burns when he attempted self-immolation during a protest sit-in by growers at toll plaza here on Thursday.

He was rushed to the Mirpurkhas Civil Hospital where he was admitted for treatment. A resident of Mashooque Marri village of Hussain Bukhsh Marri taluka, Qambrani told reporters at the hospital that he could not bear the heavy loss feared to be caused by sugar millers’ denial of a reasonable rate of his produce. He said a halt to cane crushing by millers was bound to devastate him, like many other cane growers.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1379401/protester-attempts-suicide

GROWERS CALL OFF PROTEST AFTER SHC’S INTERIM ORDER

Posted on December 23, 2017 by Roots for Equity

Dawn, 23 December, 2017

HYDERABAD: Growers of Sindh have called off the protest they had scheduled for Dec 23 (Saturday) against government’s failure to implement its notification fixing the sugar cane procurement price at Rs182 per 40kg for the season 2017-18.

The decision to call off the protest was announced by the joint sugar cane action committee, having representation of various organisations of growers, in the office of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) on Friday evening.

The committee held its emergency session earlier in the day after the Sindh High Court in Karachi passed an order in favour of the growers’ organisations that had moved court over the matter.

The emergency session was attended by SCA president Kabool Mohammad Khatiyan and general secretary Zahid Bhurgari; Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) president Abdul Majeed Nizamani and senior vice president Mehmood Nawaz Shah; Sindh Abadgar Ittehad (SAI) president Nawab Zubair Talpur and other leaders.

Kabool Khatian told reporters here after the session that the SHC allowed sugar millers to procure the cane crop at the rate of Rs172/40kg but ordered them to deposit Rs10/40kg with the court Nazir as security. He said that growers would become party to this case and the three organisations of growers would engage their separate counsel to plead the case in court.

Majeed Nizamani and Nawab Talpur, stating that growers respected the court order, announced that the protest planned for Saturday (today) was being called off.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1378226/growers-call-off-protest-after-shcs-interim-order