ہفتہ وار زرعی خبریں اپریل 2020

اپریل 2 تا 8 اپریل، 2020

زراعت

پنجاب میں کسانوں کو گندم کی کٹائی میں سہولت فراہم کرنے کے لیے پنجاب حکومت نے صوبے میں زرعی مشینری کی نقل وحمل کی اجازت دینے کا فیصلہ کیا ہے۔ چیف سیکریٹری پنجاب اعظم سلیمان خان نے صوبے میں کورونا وائرس کی روک تھام کے لیے عائد کی گئی دفعہ 144کے دوران زرعی مشینری کو مستثنی قرار دینے کا حکم دیا ہے۔ زرائع کے مطابق زرعی شعبہ سے متعلق مشینری کی نقل و حمل کی اجازت دی گئی ہے لیکن کٹائی کرنے والے کسان مزدوروں کو عائد کیے گئے ضوابط (ایس او پیز) پر عملدرآمد کرنا ہوگا۔
(بزنس ریکارڈر، 3 اپریل، صفحہ12)

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ہفتہ وار زرعی خبریں مارچ 2020

مارچ 26 تا 1 اپریل، 2020

زمین

چھوٹے اور بے زمین کسان مزدوروں کے حقوق کے لیے کام کرنے والی تنظیموں نے مطالبہ کیا ہے کہ حکومت یہ یقینی بنائے کہ عوامی غذائی تحفظ کی قیمت پر لاک ڈاؤن اور قرنطینہ نافذ نہ کیا جائے۔ حکومت پسماندہ شعبہ جات بشمول بے زمین دیہی افراد کو فوری طور پر معاشی مدد فراہم کرے۔ 29 مارچ، بے زمینوں کے دن کی مناسبت سے روٹس فار ایکوٹی اور پاکستان کسان مزدور تحریک نے مطالبہ کیا کہ یہ یقینی بنایا جائے کہ کووڈ۔19 کے دوران مزید دیہی عوام کو ان کی زمینوں اور روزگار سے بیدخل نہ کیا جائے۔ بے زمین کسانوں کے ساتھ ساتھ چھوٹے کسان جاگیرداری نظام میں کئی طرح کے ظالمانہ حالات میں کام کرنے پر مجبور ہیں، خصوصاً کسان عورتیں جاگیرداروں اور پدر شاہی کے ہاتھوں دہرے استحصال کا شکار ہیں۔ بڑی کمپنیوں کے زریعے سرمایہ دارانہ زراعت نے زرعی پیداوار اور منڈیوں پر قبضہ کرلیا ہے جس کے نتیجے میں بے زمینوں کی تعداد میں بے تحاشہ اضافہ ہوا ہے۔
(ڈان، 30 مارچ، صفحہ9) Continue reading

Landless Farmers Day marked: ‘Lockdown and quarantines should not increase people’s sufferings’

Our Correspondent
March 31, 2020

SUKKUR: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity, a local NGO, joined hands with the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC), and Pesticide Action Network Asia & the Pacific (PANAP) to mark the Landless Farmers Day.

PKMT celebrated the Landless Farmers Day with utmost concern as landless farmers were among the most vulnerable to be affected with the COVID-19 pandemic. More and more, the farmers are forced to work in an informal sector on daily wages in a vulnerable condition bearing the heat of health crisis, especially of COVID-19. The experts said COVID-19 has paralysed almost all economic activities and pushed the world to further food insecurity and poverty.

They said many countries had implemented lockdowns and set up quarantine centres for coronavirus suspects to minimise the impact of COVID-19, adding that the agriculture and food supply chain had been facing great disruption causing escalation in food prices.They suggested the lockdown and quarantines should not be carried out to increase people’s sufferings like food scarcity and provision of other basic essentials. They said it should be ensured that there was no further displacement of rural people from their lands on the pretext of COVID-19 or lockdown, demanded to provide sufficient resources to the people living in the rural areas.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/637279-landless-farmers-day-marked-lockdown-and-quarantines-should-not-increase-people-s-sufferings

Govt urged to protect rights of small farmers

March 30, 2020

They asked the government to provide immediate economic relief to the marginalised sectors including the landless rural people.

To mark the “Day of the Landless” on Sunday, two organisations Roots for Equity and Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT), asked the government to ensure that no further displacements of the rural people from their lands and livelihood were carried out in the pretext of Covid-19 lockdowns.

The organisatons state that they commemorate the Day of the Landless with utmost concern as the landless rural people are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Organisations say landless rural people vulnerable to impacts of Covid-19 pandemic

In a media release, they state that with many countries implementing sweeping lockdowns and quarantines often with vague operational guidelines, to contain the spread of Covid-19, the agriculture and food supply chain faces great disruption with an escalating price-hike already sending food prices to very high levels.

They say that landless peasants along with small farmers are forced to work in a variety of oppressive conditions on lands under feudal ownership.

“Women growers particularly work under double tier of exploitation at the hands of landlord as well as patriarchy. Along with this, capitalist agriculture through its mega corporations has captured agricultural production and markets resulting in a huge increase in the percentages of the landless,” they say.

They claim that the landless workers are forced to work in the informal sector on daily wages in a variety of situations. “Together with the rest of ordinary toiling people, they bear the brunt of the raging public health crisis of Covid-19 that has paralysed almost all economic activities and pushed them to further food insecurity and poverty,” they maintain.

They say that livelihoods in jeopardy the small producers and poor consumers are suffering the major brunt of the lockdown. They add that in addition, with total ban on inter and intra-provincial travel, agriculture workers and other daily wagers have no means of finding work.

They fear that the Covid-19 may be used as cover up to further harass and dislocate farming communities as part of evictions under land grabbing for corporate interests.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2020

https://www.dawn.com/news/1544871/govt-urged-to-protect-rights-of-small-farmers

ہفتہ وار زرعی خبریں مارچ 2020

مارچ 19 تا 25 مارچ، 2020

زراعت

وزارت قومی غذائی تحفظ و تحقیق نے صوبائی حکومتوں کی جانب سے کورونا وائرس کے حوالے سے کیے جانے والے اقدامات اور خریف 2020کے آغاز کے پیش نظر تمام صوبوں سے درخواست کی ہے کہ وہ زرعی مداخل کی بروقت دستیابی یقینی بنانے کے لیے کیمیائی کھاد، زرعی زہر، اور بیجوں کی ترسیل کو لاک ڈاؤن کے دوران پابندی سے استشنی دیا جائے۔ اس سلسلے میں وزارت کی جانب سے تمام صوبائی چیف سیکریٹریوں کو خط لکھا گیا ہے۔ خط میں کہا گیا ہے کہ یہ قدم ملک میں غذائی تحفظ کو یقینی اور تمام فصلوں کے پیداواری ہدف کے حصول کو یقینی بنائے گا۔
(بزنس ریکارڈر، 24 مارچ، صفحہ3) Continue reading

March 2020 ہفتہ وار زرعی خبریں

مارچ 5 تا 11 مارچ، 2020

زمین

سینیٹ کی قائمہ کمیٹی برائے قانون و انصاف نے گذشتہ پانچ سالوں کے دوران غیر ملکیوں کے ذریعے خریدی گئی تمام زمین کا ریکارڈ حاصل کرنے کا فیصلہ کیا ہے۔ یہ فیصلہ جماعت اسلامی کے سینیٹر مشتاق احمد کی جانب سے پیش کیے گئے آئین کے آرٹیکل 253 اے کے ترمیمی بل 2018 پر تبادلہ خیال کے بعد کیا گیا۔ ترمیمی بل کے حوالے سے سینیٹر کا کہنا تھا کہ یہ تاثر پایا جاتا ہے کہ اس بل کے تحت کوئی غیرملکی ملک میں غیرمنقولہ جائیدار رکھنے اور خریدنے کا اہل نہیں ہے۔ ان کا مزید کہنا تھا کہ غیر ملکی سرمایہ کاری کو خوش آمدید کہنا چاہیے لیکن قومی مفاد پر سمجھوتا نہیں ہونا چاہیے۔ کسی بھی غیرملکی کو 20 سال سے زیادہ عرصے کے لیے زمین لیز پر نہیں دینی چاہیے کیونکہ پاکستان میں دو دہائیوں بعد ریکارڈ کا حصول تقریباً ناممکن بن گیا ہے۔ 20 سال بعد یہ دیکھا جائے کہ آیا زمین کی لیز بڑھنی چاہیے یا نہیں۔
(ڈان، 10 مارچ، صفحہ4) Continue reading

March 2020 ہفتہ وار زرعی خبریں

فروری 27 تا 4 مارچ، 2020

زراعت

حکومت کی جانب سے خیبرپختونخوا کے نو جنوبی اضلاع میں ٹڈی دل حملے پر ہنگامی حالت کے نفاذ کے دو ہفتے بعد ہی ضلع لکی مروت میں کھڑی فصلوں کو ٹڈی دلوں کے ایک اور حملے کا سامنا ہے۔ مقامی افراد کا کہنا ہے کہ اس نئے حملے سے فصلوں کو شدید نقصان ہوسکتا ہے جبکہ ضلعی انتظامیہ ہنگامی حالت پر توجہ دینے میں ناکام ہے۔
(دی ایکسپریس ٹریبیون، 27 فروری، صفحہ6) Continue reading

WOMEN CONSTITUENCY STATEMENT ON CIVIL SOCIETY MECHANISM (CSM)

Public Panel

Public Debate: 10 Years After the Committee on Food Security (CFS) Reform

Civil Society Forum 2019, Rome, Italy 12-13 October, 2019

Azra Talat Sayeed

Women Constituency, Civil Society Mechanism (CSM)

The main thrust of the intervention was:

The Committee on World Food Security is facing many problems. These problems include the struggle between powerful countries such as the United States and China. The main economic paradigm used by various political actors is based on neoliberalism and hence policies of deregulation, privatization and trade liberalization are pushed. Huge corporations are being helped through the implementation of these policies to control our resources, labor and markets.

Women are half of the world’s population and immensely impacted though this fight for resources. So the demands that are resonating from the women of the world include control over resources. Land rights remain at the heart of our demands as women are by far the largest segment that is landless in the world. The corporate capture of land is resulting in immense land grab across countries, especially in the continents of the third world. As part of the control over resources land grab is top most; even rich countries, land scarce and food scarce countries are grabbing land. And hence instead of women being given priority in land titles, it is the corporate sector, which is controlling thousands of acres of land across our continents. Result is massive evictions of our people, especially the indigenous people who are being hunted and forced to leave their ancestral lands.

At the same time its not only land that women demand, they also demand access and control over all reproductive resources. It is clear that fisher women, pastoralists and others don’t necessarily need land rights but must have control over production, and the resources needed for production. Its also clear that women demand access and control over markets. Continue reading

PCFS Statement – To AIIB: Stopbankrolling landgrabs

The Peoples Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS) demands the members of the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) to stop funding projects especially of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that result to landgrabbing and rural peoples’ displacement. On the occasion of the AIIB’s annual meeting this July 12-13 in Luxembourg, we stand with the rural peoples on their call for greater accountability and transparency, as well as justice for the violations of the people’s rights.

While AIIB asserted that it is a multilateral bank for the longest time, recent pronouncements show that it is ultimately a financing institution of the BRI with over 7,000 China-funded projects that focus on transportation, maritime navigation, energy, and trade spanning more than 60 countries in the Global South.

As a multilateral lender, AIIB has been consistently behind most of the BRI projects – as a co-funder or as a key lender. This will surely accelerate as AIIB President Jin Liqun declared to focus more on the bank’s own portfolio and sees the bank as a “twin engine” with BRI.[i] More than 60 out of the 87 member countries of the AIIB are part of the BRI. As it is, AIIB is currently bankrolling China’s expansionist lending strategy that ultimately impacts the most vulnerable in the Global South – the rural peoples.

Last month in Hong Kong, PCFS together with the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) conducted a forum on China’s BRI and its impact on the rural peoples.  Discussions and accounts of the participants from Asia, Africa, and Latin America regions paint a dismal picture of the BRI projects’ impacts to rural peoples and the right to food sovereignty. Numerous cases of rights violations such as displacement, landgrabbing, harassment, corrosion of traditions, and aggravation of fragility in regions have been reported.

A threat to the right to land. Without adequate environmental and social assessment in the regions and countries, AIIB has been co-funding multiple BRI projects that are opaque and inaccessible to the public. As mentioned above, these include megadams, large roads, ports, and energy plants that often result in landgrabbing and displacement. Continue reading

WHY WE MUST OPPOSE GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEEDS?

A Brief prepared by Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek and Roots for Equity

Seed was born free. It has multiple functions: it is the reservoir of genetic resources, it is the basic unit for our food, it holds life in its core, essential for maintain human and all life on this planet.  Commodification of seed is commodification of life!

Following are some points elaborated to highlight why Sojhla for Social Change, Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT), Roots for Equity and other people’s and civil society organizations have been opposing in general the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Act (TRIPs) and specifically the Pakistan Seed (Amended) Act 2015, and the Plant Breeders Rights Act 2016.

Farmers Collective Rights over Seed and Patenting of Life Forms

Seed, a genetic resource is a gift of nature and belongs to no one person or corporation but is owned collectively. But there is no doubt, that it was farmers who over many millennia experimented, re-generated, sorted, propagated and saved seeds. It was the collective knowledge of farmers and rural communities that allowed hundred of varieties of grains, vegetables, fruits, and flowers to be domesticated for human civilization. Farmers saved seed from one generation to the next, a process that went on for millions of years. There were thousands of varieties that were developed by farmers, but even though we farmers came out with new varieties we respected and followed the rules of nature, and shared the genetic resources openly with all. We, who have our history based in the Indus Valley Civilization, were the first to domesticate seed and through our knowledge and experience pass the best of genetic resources to our generations. Therefore, we farmers believe that first seed is free; it is a carrier of life and being a living thing it cannot be shackled, it cannot be owned by individuals or companies. If at all, it is the collective property of farmers; we have been its custodians, its guardians. We have respected our position of custodians and hence shared it fully and openly with all those who wish to use it as food, as a source of health, as a source medicine and of life.

Risks to Biodiversity:

It needs to be pointed out that with the advent of Green Revolution in the 1960s, seed has been forced out of our care and custody and turned into a commodity. With corporate control over seeds, with promotion of hybrid varieties and now genetically modified seeds we have lost much of the indigenous varieties in just 50 years; genetic diversity which was saved through hundreds of millennia were lost in less than half a century!

If we allow genetically modified seeds to take over our food and agriculture this will further the process of destroying biodiversity. Hybrid varieties and genetically modified seeds are based on monoculture and uniformity; they belie the intricate interwoven complexity of all forms of biodiversity with each other. Seed has been turned into a machine whose worth is weighed by productivity. But seed’s function is not only productivity: its function is in promoting various forms of life, of which human intelligence has as yet not grasped enough to turn it into a only an addition, subtraction formula. Plant life is very complex, it’s a food chain as well as shelter for millions of other life forms from birds to reptiles, to insects and millions and millions of microorganisms.  Uniformity in plant life negates diversity of life, and is fast leading to various forms of ecological disasters.

It needs to be added, that high yielding varieties are at least not an irreversible biological change in the plant, and over time genetic material can be retrieved from these seeds. But GM seeds are formed through a biological process that is irreversible. The GM seed can carry out reproduction with natural seeds; this means vast, irreversible contamination of our genetic resources. Once GM seeds have spread in nature, it’s like having a child with genetic abnormalities – one cannot take away the defect and it will keep on producing itself, contaminating and polluting natural varieties in the environment.

Corporate Control over Food and Agriculture

Agro-chemical corporations and seed corporations have worked hard to create a legal policy framework based on which seed can be called their property. This is because seed has an amazing characteristic – even only a single seed can generate hundreds of replicas and hence it is impossible to create control over seed – this is only possible through a legal system that allows these mega-corporations to control and own life. With control over seed by profit-driven corporations, a nation loses the ability to control its food production. The corporations can choose the price at which a seed would be sold. They can easily refrain from marketing seeds in any particular country; in these times of conflict and war – seed control is only one more added dependency. Today farmers cannot decide what they would like to grow; they have to depend on what seed the corporations provide in the market and have little choice but to grow that. Please note that today, nearly all vegetables in Pakistan are grown from corporate controlled seeds and each one of them is heavily doused with toxic pesticides. This is the food that all citizens are forced to consume –rich or poor.

It is important to note that a majority of seed is now in the hands of only four big corporations: Bayer, BASF, ChemChina and Corteva; in a handful of years, these four corporations have monopolized the seed sector. These four seed corporations control 60% percent of seed sales, globally. Just ten years ago, in 2009 there were at least 100 seed companies. Only in the last 2-3 years, there have been huge mergers such as Bayer purchasing Monsanto to be the largest seed company today. In 2017, DuPont had merged with Dow to form the US Corporation DowDupont; this year the company has separated its agricultural wing and named it Corteva agriscience. Continue reading