WORLD FOODLESS DAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018

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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

‘THE WORLD IS AGAINST THEM’: NEW ERA OF CANCER LAWSUITS THREATEN MONSANTO

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October 8, 2018 / Published at The Guardian

by Carey Gillam and Sam Levin

Dean Brooks grasped on to the shopping cart, suddenly unable to stand or breathe. Later, at a California emergency room, a nurse with teary eyes delivered the news, telling his wife, Deborah, to hold out hope for a miracle. It was December 2015 when they learned that a blood cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) was rapidly attacking the man’s body and immune system.

By July 2016, Dean was dead. Deborah gets emotional recounting the gruesome final chapter of the love of her life. But in recent months, she has had reason to be hopeful again.

In an historic verdict in August, a jury ruled that Monsanto had caused a man’s terminal cancer and ordered the agrochemical corporation to pay $289m in damages. The extraordinary decision, exposing the potential hazards of the world’s most widely used herbicide, has paved the way for thousands of other cancer patients and families to seek justice and compensation in court.

“It’s like a serial killer, but it’s a product,” said Brooks, 57, who has a pending case against Monsanto, alleging that her husband’s use of the company’s popular weedkiller at their home led to his fatal disease. “It’s unconscionable … I don’t see how they can win. The world is against them.”

Brooks said she cried when she learned that a jury had ruled in favor of Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, the terminally ill former school groundskeeper who became the first person to take Monsanto to trial over Roundup. The verdict stated that Monsanto “acted with malice”, knew or should have known its chemical was dangerous, and failed to warn consumers about the risks.

Monsanto has filed an appeal, and a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in San Francisco. The stakes are high for Monsanto and Bayer, the German pharmaceutical giant that acquired the company earlier this year. Energized by the Johnson win, a snowballing series of courtroom challenges are now threatening the legacy and finances of the corporations – and the future of a chemical that is ubiquitous around the globe.

The fight against 8,000 plaintiffs

Monsanto has argued that “junk science” led to the jury’s ruling on the chemical called glyphosate, which the company brought to market in 1974. Sold under numerous brands, including Roundup and Ranger Pro, the herbicide is now worth billions of dollars in revenues and is registered in 130 countries, with approvals for use on more than 100 crops.

The Johnson v Monsanto trial was groundbreaking before it even began, because a judge allowed the plaintiff’s attorneys to present research and expert testimony on glyphosate and health risks – scientific evidence that the jury ultimately found credible and compelling.

Johnson, who is not expected to survive for more than two years, said he had prolonged exposures to glyphosate while applying the herbicide to school properties, at least twice accidentally getting large amounts of the chemical on his skin. Because Monsanto has insisted that the product is safe and has no cancer warnings on its labels, Johnson said he did not know about the risks until it was too late.

His award of $289m, which included $250m in punitive damages, is a game-changer for the 46-year-old, who will leave behind a wife and three children. But Monsanto is fighting to keep it from him.

“It’s a big red flag for the company,” said Jean M Eggen, professor emerita at Widener University Delaware Law School, adding of the verdict: “It brings more people out who might not otherwise sue.”

Roughly 8,700 plaintiffs have made similar cases in state courts across the country, alleging that exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides led to various types of cancer. The impact could be huge if Monsanto continues to fight and lose in jury trials, and an accumulation of wins could force the company to consider settling with plaintiffs.

“It could become very costly,” said Eggen, comparing the fight to that of the tobacco industry, which aggressively fought cases in court but eventually decided settlements were the best option. “It’s really a business decision.”

Monsanto may ultimately consider changing the labels to warn consumers about cancer risks and work to settle with consumers who have had high exposures, said Lars Noah, University of Florida law professor: “It’s sort of a wake-up call that their strategy was unrealistic.”

Of the thousands of cases, there are more than 10 trials on track to start in 2019 and 2020, with court battles ramping up in California, Montana, Delaware, Kansas City and St Louis (where Monsanto is headquartered). Farmers, gardeners, government employees, landscapers and a wide range of others have alleged that Monsanto’s products sickened them or killed their loved ones.

“This is a tremendous number of trials for one year and will allow plaintiffs to get critical evidence in front of juries – evidence not seen before,” said the attorney Aimee Wagstaff.

The first plaintiffs who may have an opportunity to face Monsanto in a courtroom are Alberta and Alva Pilliod, a California couple. Alberta, 74, has brain cancer while her husband, 76, suffers from a bone cancer that he said has invaded his pelvis and spine – both forms of NHL.

Given their age and cancer diagnoses, their lawyers have argued they have a right to a speedy trial. Monsanto, however, has opposed the request, and a hearing on the matter is set for Tuesday.

The couple, who have two children and four grandchildren, used Roundup from the 1970s until a few years ago – around their yard and on multiple properties they purchased and renovated. The couple said they chose the herbicide because they believed it wouldn’t be harmful to the deer, ducks and other animals that roamed their property. They were also sure it was safe for themselves.

“We are very angry. We hope to get justice,” Alberta told the Guardian, noting that they didn’t use protective gear when they sprayed and would not have used Roundup the way they did if they knew the risks. “If we had been given accurate information, if we had been warned, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Alva said the cancer had destroyed their lives: “It has been a miserable few years.”

Their lawyers hope to go to trial before it’s too late. Alberta’s doctors have said she has “substantially high risk” for recurrence, has “deep brain lesions” from the cancer – and is likely to die if she does relapse.

‘We are not going to be silent’

The Pilliods and other plaintiffs taking on the company have long argued that Monsanto led a “prolonged campaign of misinformation to convince government agencies, farmers and the general public that Roundup was safe”.

Attorneys have cited internal Monsanto records that they say demonstrate how the company has manipulated and corrupted the scientific record with respect to the herbicide’s safety. The scrutiny has escalated in recent weeks.

On 26 September, the prominent scientific journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology issued an “expression of concern”, saying that its published research finding glyphosate to be safe had not fully declared Monsanto’s involvement.

The high-profile correction came after litigation revealed that the company was involved in organizing and editing article drafts. Monsanto was linked to a scientific review that countered a crucial 2015 International Agency for Research on Cancer classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.

More evidence could emerge at forthcoming trials about Monsanto’s questionable involvements in scientific papers, plaintiffs’ attorneys said.

A Bayer spokesman, Utz Klages, said in an email that the number of cases filed was “not indicative of the merits of the litigation”. He called glyphosate a “breakthrough for modern agriculture” and “cost-effective tool that can be used safely to control a wide range of weeds”.

Regulatory reviews and scientific studies have demonstrated that glyphosate is safe and not a cause of NHL, he said, adding: “The Johnson verdict is not final and concerns a single, specific case.”

John Barton, a California farmer who used Roundup for decades and was diagnosed with NHL in 2015, said he was eager to go to trial, especially since Monsanto and Bayer were still telling the public that glyphosate was safe.

“Monsanto needs to realize that we are not going to be silent any more,” said Barton, a third-generation farmer, who is part of a California lawsuit filed by the Baum Hedlund firm, which represented Johnson. “We are not going to roll over and play dead … People should be warned that this stuff is everywhere and we should be careful of this product.”

Barton, 69, said he also feared that his three sons could get sick due to their Roundup exposure.

“My dad exposed me to this. He never would’ve done that if he knew it was dangerous,” he added. “I have this guilt that I may have endangered my own sons.”

Deborah Brooks described NHL as “torture”, recounting her husband lying on towels on the floor trying to stop endless nosebleeds and the constant illnesses that plagued him while his immune system suffered.

“Nobody should have to go through that. It takes life in such a terrible way,” said Brooks, whose husband was 72 years old when he died. “I’m fighting for the honor of my husband and all the others that have come before and will come after … My heart goes out to those victims who don’t know they’re victims.”

Bayer declined to comment about the Brooks or Barton cases. A spokeswoman, Charla Lord, said in an email that because the Pilliods are both in remission and there was “no indication of any imminent cancer recurrence”, the company is arguing that an early trial date was not warranted.

Legal experts said it was possible the Johnson appeal could lead to a reduced monetary award. The courts could also find that there was insufficient evidence to prove that glyphosate causes cancer or that attorneys failed to demonstrate that the herbicide caused Johnson’s cancer.

Those outcomes could be devastating for Johnson and a setback for those fighting glyphosate. But cancer patients and families across the country will be able to push forward regardless of what happens in San Francisco, said David Levine, a University of California Hastings law professor.

“Even if Monsanto gets a complete victory here, it’s not going to stop other plaintiffs.”

http://careygillam.com/articles/article/the-world-is-against-them-new-era-of-cancer-lawsuits-threaten-monsanto

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/07/monsanto-trial-cancer-appeal-glyphosate-chemical

U.S. threats stun world health agency

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Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution by U.S. Stuns World Health Officials

By Andrew Jacobs

July 8, 2018

A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.

When that failed, they turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.

The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.

The showdown over the issue was recounted by more than a dozen participants from several countries, many of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation from the United States.

Health advocates scrambled to find another sponsor for the resolution, but at least a dozen countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and Latin America, backed off, citing fears of retaliation, according to officials from Uruguay, Mexico and the United States.

“We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,” said Patti Rundall, the policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action, who has attended meetings of the assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, since the late 1980s.

“What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on the best way to protect infant and young child health,” she said.

In the end, the Americans’ efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them.

The State Department declined to respond to questions, saying it could not discuss private diplomatic conversations. The Department of Health and Human Services, the lead agency in the effort to modify the resolution, explained the decision to contest the resolution’s wording but said H.H.S. was not involved in threatening Ecuador.

“The resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in an email. “We recognize not all women are able to breast-feed for a variety of reasons. These women should have the choice and access to alternatives for the health of their babies, and not be stigmatized for the ways in which they are able to do so.” The spokesman asked to remain anonymous in order to speak more freely.

Although lobbyists from the baby food industry attended the meetings in Geneva, health advocates said they saw no direct evidence that they played a role in Washington’s strong-arm tactics. The $70 billion industry, which is dominated by a handful of American and European companies, has seen sales flatten in wealthy countries in recent years, as more women embrace breast-feeding. Over all, global sales are expected to rise by 4 percent in 2018, according to Euromonitor, with most of that growth occurring in developing nations.

The intensity of the administration’s opposition to the breast-feeding resolution stunned public health officials and foreign diplomats, who described it as a marked contrast to the Obama administration, which largely supported W.H.O.’s longstanding policy of encouraging breast-feeding.

During the deliberations, some American delegates even suggested the United States might cut its contribution to the W.H.O., several negotiators said. Washington is the single largest contributor to the health organization, providing $845 million, or roughly 15 percent of its budget, last year.

The confrontation was the latest example of the Trump administration siding with corporate interests on numerous public health and environmental issues.

In talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Americans have been pushing for language that would limit the ability of Canada, Mexico and the United States to put warning labels on junk food and sugary beverages, according to a draft of the proposal reviewed by The New York Times.

During the same Geneva meeting where the breast-feeding resolution was debated, the United States succeeded in removing statements supporting soda taxes from a document that advises countries grappling with soaring rates of obesity.

The Americans also sought, unsuccessfully, to thwart a W.H.O. effort aimed at helping poor countries obtain access to lifesaving medicines. Washington, supporting the pharmaceutical industry, has long resisted calls to modify patent laws as a way of increasing drug availability in the developing world, but health advocates say the Trump administration has ratcheted up its opposition to such efforts.

The delegation’s actions in Geneva are in keeping with the tactics of an administration that has been upending alliances and long-established practices across a range of multilateral organizations, from the Paris climate accord to the Iran nuclear deal to Nafta.

Ilona Kickbusch, director of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, said there was a growing fear that the Trump administration could cause lasting damage to international health institutions like the W.H.O. that have been vital in containing epidemics like Ebola and the rising death toll from diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the developing world.

“It’s making everyone very nervous, because if you can’t agree on health multilateralism, what kind of multilateralism can you agree on?” Ms. Kickbusch asked.

A Russian delegate said the decision to introduce the breast-feeding resolution was a matter of principle.

“We’re not trying to be a hero here, but we feel that it is wrong when a big country tries to push around some very small countries, especially on an issue that is really important for the rest of the world,” said the delegate, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He said the United States did not directly pressure Moscow to back away from the measure. Nevertheless, the American delegation sought to wear down the other participants through procedural maneuvers in a series of meetings that stretched on for two days, an unexpectedly long period.

In the end, the United States was largely unsuccessful. The final resolution preserved most of the original wording, though American negotiators did get language removed that called on the W.H.O. to provide technical support to member states seeking to halt “inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children.”

The United States also insisted that the words “evidence-based” accompany references to long-established initiatives that promote breast-feeding, which critics described as a ploy that could be used to undermine programs that provide parents with feeding advice and support.

Elisabeth Sterken, director of the Infant Feeding Action Coalition in Canada, said four decades of research have established the importance of breast milk, which provides essential nutrients as well as hormones and antibodies that protect newborns against infectious disease.

A 2016 study in The Lancet found that universal breast-feeding would prevent 800,000 child deaths a year across the globe and yield $300 billion in savings from reduced health care costs and improved economic outcomes for those reared on breast milk.

Scientists are loath to carry out double-blind studies that would provide one group with breast milk and another with breast milk substitutes. “This kind of ‘evidence-based’ research would be ethically and morally unacceptable,” Ms. Sterken said.

Abbott Laboratories, the Chicago-based company that is one of the biggest players in the $70 billion baby food market, declined to comment.

Nestlé, the Switzerland-based food giant with significant operations in the United States, sought to distance itself from the threats against Ecuador and said the company would continue to support the international code on the marketing of breast milk substitutes, which calls on governments to regulate the inappropriate promotion of such products and to encourage breast-feeding.

In addition to the trade threats, Todd C. Chapman, the United States ambassador to Ecuador, suggested in meetings with officials in Quito, the Ecuadorean capital, that the Trump administration might also retaliate by withdrawing the military assistance it has been providing in northern Ecuador, a region wracked by violence spilling across the border from Colombia, according to an Ecuadorean government official who took part in the meeting.

The United States Embassy in Quito declined to make Mr. Chapman available for an interview.

“We were shocked because we didn’t understand how such a small matter like breast-feeding could provoke such a dramatic response,” said the Ecuadorean official, who asked not to be identified because she was afraid of losing her job.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/health/world-health-breastfeeding-ecuador-trump.html

Know your rights: ‘Government not showing efficiency in solving public issues’

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By Our Correspondent
Published: November 28, 2016

KARACHI: The government is not inefficient but they do not show their efficiency in matters related to public interest, said Azra Talat Sayeed, who is an activist and the executive director of Roots for Equity.

She was addressing the audience at a  discussion on ‘Food Justice and Farmers’ Rights’ held at The Second Floor on Sunday. Sayeed works for an organisation that fights for the rights of small and landless farmers, especially female farmers. The discussion focused on the increasing issue of agricultural change ever since the passing of the Seed (Amendment) Act, 2015 and Plant Breeders’ Rights Bill, 2016.

The majority of parliamentarians are landlords and the poor farmers are their slaves, Sayeed claimed, while accusing them of not standing up for the rights of these farmers. Recalling her first trip to a village when she got to hear stories of farmers and their families living there, Sayeed said it was difficult for her to believe that even though the farmers worked for 12 to 18 hours a day they still owed millions of rupees in loans.

“We have started looking for organic seeds, not scientifically grown ones,” said Sayeed, while referring to genetically modified (GM) seeds being replaced with organic seeds. It is hard to find even five varieties of wheat seeds in Pakistan, she added. Speaking about the issues that the farmers are facing since the bills have been passed, Sayeed said promoting GM seeds is the capitalist and corporate interest of the landlords.

Yasir Husain, who is an urban farmer and co-founder of Organic City, said he feels that Karachi is isolated from the rest of the country, with its people being indifferent to nature. He added that Karachiites have a concrete life and they live in that same bubble.

Talking about how people can be closer to nature, Husain said that every child should know how to grow plants. “Students should be taught in schools about kitchen gardening,” he said, adding that it is not necessary for one to have a garden to grow plants. Rooftops and galleries can also be used for planting purposes, he said.

“Seeds have changed and so has the variety,” said sociologist and Karti Dharti founder Nosheen Ali, while launching a report titled ‘Seed Inc: Food Sovereignty, Farmers’ Rights and New Legal Regimes in Pakistan’. While speaking about her time living abroad, Ali said she found the taste and colours of various fruits to be different compared to fruits here. With the ongoing hunger crisis that the world is facing and increasing use of GM seeds, we will face drastic changes, Ali said, adding that the government will never stand up for farmers’ rights.

“It is a common misunderstanding in the country that farmers are an impediment to the growth of the country because they are illiterate and the country can only grow economically with GM seeds,” she said, adding that such modified seeds will bring more misery in the farmers’ lives.

Ali was accompanied by Amna Tanweer Yazdani as the moderator of the session, who is an anthropologist and senior social scientist at Aga Khan University.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29th, 2016.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1247177/know-rights-government-not-showing-efficiency-solving-public-issues/

In the Belly of the River: Flooding the Landless

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Nov 2014

By Kasim Tirmizey

The village of Kanwan Wali, a government sponsored tent community on an embankment vulnerable to flooding.

The village of Kanwan Wali, a government sponsored tent community on an embankment vulnerable to flooding. | Photography: Kasim Tirmizey

Kachchhi – sone di pachchhi.
Riverine land is a basket of gold.
– Punjabi proverb in the Shahpur District of Punjab1

Under a burning sun, the Khana Padosh tribe of the Moza Vehlan village in Multan tehsil make do with tattered and colorful patches of cloth and wooden sticks to construct their tents. After massive flooding inundated their village, constructed on katchi (riverine) lands, they have been forced to temporarily reside on a nearby band (embankment).

While the katchi lands are prone to flooding, the Khana Padosh say they have little choice but to live there. They would hardly describe the land they live on as a “basket of gold” as the old Punjabi proverb goes. The katchi was considered bountiful in the 19th century, when farming in western Punjab was done through inundated agriculture. It was a system that thrived on regular floodwaters making riverine lands fertile for agriculture. At that time, farmers would organize agrarian life according to the rhythms of floods. Other communities, such as the Khana Padosh, in this part of Punjab were nomadic pastoralists.

Western Punjab underwent massive transformation under British rule through the introduction of canal irrigation. This signalled the demise of inundated agriculture and nomadic pastoralism. The British were interested in increasing the agrarian frontier in order to provide cheap food2 in England and to gain greater land revenue through rent. In the new political economy, katchi lands were marginal and vulnerable territory.

The Khana Padosh tribe living on the embankment.

The Khana Padosh living on the embankment.

The Khana Padosh were historically a nomadic tribe that tended to livestock. The introduction of canal colonies interrupted that mode of life, however. The British considered many nomadic communities to be ‘criminal tribes’. That term, ‘criminal’, had less to do with the law, and more with the British government’s attempt to criminalize the entire nomadic pastoral way of life, seeing as it stood in opposition to their canal systems. The British demand to assimilate to a settler-farmer mode of life was, however, unconceivable for many nomadic tribes.

Today’s Khana Padosh tribe, like their forefathers, are technically landless. A local landowner has allowed the tribe to squat on a portion of the katchi land that he owns near the Chenab River for the sole purposes of temporary settlement.

Bashir Ahmed, of the Kanwan Wali village, is living temporarily on an embankment in a government sponsored tent community in Multan tehsil. Unlike the Khana Padosh, he and his fellow villagers work as sharecroppers on katchi land for a landowner. He explains why he and others live on the katchi: “Us, the poor, we don’t have any money or assets that [allow us to] live in the pakka [settled] areas. That is why we live in the center of the river. That is why we live in the katchi. We have to produce what we can so we can eat.”

Others from Bashir’s village commented that they live on the katchi because land there is cheaper to lease.

Azra Talat Sayeed, the director of the NGO Roots for Equity, which focuses on the political mobilization of peasant and labour communities, argues that the fundamental issue behind the impact of the floods is landlessness:

“Many thousands of these people live on the banks of various [rivers] which run the length and breadth of the country, only because Pakistan has failed to implement even the most rudimentary of land reforms, let alone a policy that would allow for a just equitable distribution of land. Feudal lords, who are fast changing into ‘corporate land lords,’ rule the country and millions of farmers are forced to eke out a very meagre earning by working as sharecroppers, agricultural workers or contract farmers. Others are forced to endanger their lives and livelihood by living in what could be called a ‘seasonal red zone’; no doubt global warming and ensuing climate change have exacerbated the situation.”3

Landless people and smallholders represent 92 percent of the population in present day Pakistan. For the rural poor, katchilands are the last resort for survival. While some nomadic tribes opted to settle in one area, have received small portions of land to practice agriculture on, the Khana Padosh tribe opted not to do so. The Khana Padosh do not have a history of agrarian life, nor do they engage in farming today. Farming has been a mode of life that requires an intense amount of apprenticeship and practice, and, most of all, access to land that is not vulnerable to severe inundation. The Khana Padosh say that they mostly continue to act as pastoralists, tending to livestock under contract with wealthy farmers. Others seek daily wages as labourers in the nearby city of Multan.

Communities across the katchi had a few days warning of the oncoming floods. These communities packed whatever houseware they could take with them, a few days worth of food, and headed towards the embankment.

Muhammad Ghulam with a basket that he made from wooden sticks to be sold in the market. This production continues in the embankment as means of livelihood.

Muhammad Ghulam with a basket that he made from wooden sticks to be sold in the market. This production continues in the embankment as means of livelihood.

“Our villages in the katchi have been totally inundated. Our homes have been destroyed,” Ghulam Muhammad of the Khana Padosh tribe told Tanqeed. “When we return to our village we will have to start from scratch. We don’t even have any food or tents. Things will worsen when the cold weather arrives and we are without proper shelter.”

While the government has been distributing basic rations and providing tents to some communities from the katchi, they have not given anything to the Khana Padosh.

“The government has not given us any rations. Nor do they allow us to sit in government sponsored tent communities,” says Muhammad.

Across Punjab, it is those villages that have connections with feudal lords or politicians that have generally been able to gain access to government rations. As the Khana Padosh are among the most marginalized of communities, they do not fit into the network of patronage. Bashir Ahmed says that they received government relief only after they repeatedly pressured officials into giving them their rights.

What are other possibilities for communities that live on the katchi in the face recurring floods? Roots for Equity has called for equitable redistribution of land as the only just way to address the issue. Without access to safe and fertile lands, millions will continue to reside on the vulnerable lands of the katchi. The Pakistan Kisan Mazdoor Tehreek (Pakistan Peasant Workers Party or PKMT) also advocates sustainable agriculture in the riverine lands. This is a medium-term measure to avoid the indebtedness that has resulted in the increasing entrenchment of corporate influence into agriculture in Pakistan.

In a field south of Multan tehsil, villagers who are members of the PKMT are experimenting with sustainable forms of agriculture. They are using a diversity of traditional, rather than corporate, seeds. They do not use pesticides and chemical fertilizers. PKMT realizes that the corporatization of agriculture is leading to the impoverishment of peasants. Opposing corporations and pro-corporate laws, such as the recent Punjab Seed Act of 2013, is necessary, but not enough. They also believe in creating their own alternative economies that are based on food sovereignty. Efforts are being made by some villages on the katchi in the Kanwan Wali village to transition to more self-reliant forms of agriculture.

But what do historical pastoralists like the Khana Padosh do when agriculture is not their calling? Equitable redistribution of land and ending a land-water ownership regime based on private property are important aspects within any long-term solution to the massive floods that have impacted the most marginalized of Pakistan in recent years. And no genuine land reforms will be possible without the mobilization of peasants, pastoralists, and labour.

Children of the village of Kanwan Wali on the embankment.

Children of the village of Kanwan Wali on the embankment.

The socio-ecology of Punjab is shaped by the legacies of colonialism as well as ongoing feudalism, imperialism, and corporate agriculture. Colonialism introduced commercialized agriculture, whereby the landscape of western Punjab was transformed, moving away from inundated agriculture and nomadic pastoralism and towards irrigated agriculture. In this transforming landscape, nomadic pastoralists were increasingly marginalized and rendered criminal. In addition, those tribes and sub-castes that were loyal to the British, especially during the 1857 war of independence were given large landholdings. Marginal communities such as the Khana Padosh were made landless in a territory that was increasingly ruled by private property, where their nomadic way of life was being made extinct.

Millions of other landless people opt to lease cheap land or squat on the katchi. This is despite the fact that this is a zone of recurring flooding. Global warming has been attributed to the expansion of capitalism,4 most evident in the greenhouse gas emissions from industrialization. The wretched of the world, it seems, only experience the exploitation and oppression of capitalism, and now they are further forced to squat on the most vulnerable of lands. Ironically, in the case of the Punjab, it was these very lands that used to be considered “a basket of gold”, not so long ago.

Kasim Tirmizey is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. He is currently based in Lahore, Pakistan.

  1. Wilson, James. Grammar and dictionary of western Panjabi: as spoken in the Shahpur District : with proverbs, sayings & verses. (Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2005).
  2. Patnaik, Utsa. in The agrarian question in the neoliberal era: primitive accumulation and the peasantry 7–60 (Pambazuka Press, 2011).
  3. Sayeed, Azra Talat. Communities Impacted by Floods in Pakistan. Roots for Equity (2014). at <http://rootsforequity.noblogs.org/post/2014/09/20/communities-impacted-by-floods-in-pakistan-2014/>
  4. The connection between capitalism and climate change has been made in several places. More recently, Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. Alfred A Knopf, 2014.

http://www.tanqeed.org/2014/11/in-the-belly-of-the-river/

Authorities get another chance to respond to plea against amended seed act

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Justice Sayyed Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi of Lahore High Court on Friday expressed serious concerns over the failure of the authorities concerned to submit a reply on a petition challenging the Pakistan (Amended) Seed Act 2015.

The judge remarked, “It is shocking that local farmers’ future has been put in jeopardy,” adding that the amended law could endanger national food security by making the country dependant on multinationals for genetically-modified seeds.

The judge warned that the plant breeder’s rights registry would be restrained from operating if a response was not submitted in the matter by June 22.

At an earlier hearing, the court had directed the Punjab government to produce the resolution passed by the provincial assembly calling upon the Centre to pass a plant breeders’ rights bill. Notices were issued to the federal government in which it was asked to file para-wise comments to the petition filed by Human Voice, an non-government organisation, challenging the Pakistan Amended Seed Act, 2015 for being in violation of farmers’ fundamental rights and passed at the behest of US-based multinational seed manufacturing companies.

The orders were not complied with as neither the copy of the resolution nor parawise comments were submitted till Friday.

Petitioner’s counsel Sheraz Zaka had submitted that the impugned seed act was passed without the approval of the cabinet, and under article 144 of the Constitution the amendment made in seed act could not have been passed by the federal legislature as it is a provincial subject. He argued that the impugned act would deprive farmers of their traditional farming practices and was meant to accommodate the demands of multinational corporations which were harmful for the environment, anti-competitive, and a threat for the national economy.

Advocate Zaka contended that the Parliament could not pass a bill of such a nature in the absence of resolutions passed by provincial legislatures. He submitted that the scope of his petition was wide and required the attention of the court, keeping into consideration the fact that the federal government had ratified the convention on biological diversity but still not taken any measures to protect traditional breeding practices.

During earlier hearings, Zaka had said that under the impugned law, farmers would be fined and imprisoned for preserving, selling and exchanging seeds, a centuries-old tradition. He said that it would adversely affect the agriculture sector of the country.

Zaka emphasised that the impugned law had made it mandatory for farmers to buy seeds from a licensed company or its agent and they had to do so every time they cultivate a new crop. He stated that this restriction would make farmers dependent on companies.

He said that it would be a huge injustice towards the millions of small and landless farmers whose food insecurity would be aggravated. He submitted that conditions required under the impugned Act would lead to increase in prices of agricultural products and a food security threat in future was likely to happen.

The counsel said that the experience of growing genetically modified (GM) crops, like Bt cotton, had been disastrous in the country but the government still intended to promote GM crops through the law. He added that many European countries had already banned genetically modified crops because of their adverse impact on environment and Pakistan should follow suit.

Zaka requested the court to set aside the amended Seed Act for being unconstitutional.

Link: https://dailytimes.com.pk/251095/authorities-get-another-chance-to-respond-to-plea-against-amended-seed-act/

سامراجی تجارتی نظام کے خلاف، کسان مزدور اتحاد

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پریس ریلیز

تاریخ: 6  مئی 2018

پاکستان کسان مزدور تحریک کا چھٹا سالانہ صوبائی اجلاس ماتلی، ضلع بدین میں منعقد کیا گیا جس میں صوبے بھر سے چھوٹے اور بے زمین کسان مزدوروں کی بڑی تعداد نے شرکت کی۔ صوبائی اجلاس کے اختتام کے بعد پی کے ایم ٹی اور روٹس فار ایکوٹی کی جانب سے ماتلی پریس کلب کے سامنے ملک میں جاری سامراجی پالیسیوں کے نتیجے میں جاری کارپوریٹ زراعت، زمینی قبضے کے خلاف احتجاجی مظاہرہ بھی کیا گیا۔
پی کے ایم ٹی کے رہنماؤں کا اس موقع پر کہنا تھا کہ ورلڈ ٹریڈ آرگنائزیشن جیسے عالمی سامراجی اداروں اور ممالک کی ایماء پر ملک میں مسلط کردہ زرعی و تجارتی پالیسیوں کے نتیجے میں چھوٹے اور بے زمین کسان مزدور بھوک، غربت، غذائی کمی، بیروزگاری کا شکار ہوکر زراعت چھوڑنے پر مجبور ہورہے ہیں۔ ڈبلیو ٹی او کے ٹرپس جیسے معاہدوں پر عملدرآمد کرتے ہوئے بیج کا ترمیمی قانون اور پلانٹ بریڈرز رائٹس جیسے قوانین کے نفاذ کے ذریعے کسانوں کو ان کے روایتی بیج سے محروم کرکے بین الاقوامی زرعی کمپنیوں کو ان کے استحصال کی کھلی چھوٹ دے دی گئی ہے۔ ملک میں غربت کے خاتمے اور پیداوار میں اضافے کے نام پر غیر پائیدار کیمیائی زراعت کا فروغ کسانوں کو مزید غربت میں دھکیل رہا ہے۔ غیر پائیدار طریقہ زراعت کے تحت زیادہ پیداوار حاصل ہونے کے باوجود کسان خالی ہاتھ رہ جاتا ہے جبکہ سارا منافع بیج اور دیگر مداخل بنانے والی دیوہیکل زرعی کمپنیوں کی جیب میں چلاجاتا ہے۔ ان ہی پالیسوں کے نتیجے میں کسان مقامی منڈی میں اپنی پیداوار فروخت کرنے سے بھی قاصر ہیں۔ دوسری طرف غیر پائیدار کیمیائی طریقہ زراعت ناصرف ماحولیاتی اور غذائی نظام کو زہر آلود کررہا ہے بلکہ عوام میں بڑے پیمانے پر مختلف بیماریوں میں اضافے کا سبب بن رہا ہے۔

پاکستان بھر میں چھوٹے اور بے زمین کسان مزدور جو پہلے ہی جاگیرداری نظام کے ہاتھوں بدترین استحصال کا شکار ہیں اب ملک بھر میں نیولبرل پالیسیوں کے تحت کارپوریٹ فارمنگ، خصوصی اقتصادی زون، شاہراؤں کی تعمیر اور ترقیاتی منصوبوں کے نام پر بیدخل کیے جارہے ہیں۔ خیبر پختونخوا کے علاقے ہری پور حطار، پنجاب میں ضلع راجن پور کے علاقے رکھ عظمت والا میں کئی دہائیوں سے آباد کسانوں کی زمین سے بیدخلی اس زمینی قبضے کی چند واضح مثالیں ہیں۔ ملک سے بھوک غربت اور غذائی کمی کا خاتمہ صرف اور صرف جاگیرداری نظام کا خاتمہ کرکے زمین کی منصفانہ اور مساویانہ تقسیم سے ہی کیا جاسکتا ہے جو کسانوں کو خوراک کی خودمختاری اور غذائی تحفظ کا ضامن ہوسکتا ہے۔

پی کے ایم ٹی مطالبہ کرتی ہے کہ عالمی سامراجی نیولبرل پالیسیوں کا خاتمہ کرکے چھوٹے اور بے زمین کسان مزدور مرد و عورتوں میں زمین منصفانہ اور مساویانہ طور پر تقسیم کی جائے، زرعی شعبے سے بین الاقوامی زرعی کمپنیوں اور ڈبلیو ٹی او کاکردار ختم کیا جائے کیونکہ کسان کی خوراک کی خودمختاری ہی قومی غذائی تحفظ، پائیدار ترقی اور ملک سے بھوک و غربت کے خاتمے کی ضمانت ہوسکتی ہے۔ ملک بھر کے چھوٹے اور بے زمین کسانوں کے لیے لازم ہے کہ وہ پیداواری وسائل خصوصاً زمین پر اپنے حق کے لیے متحد ہوکر جدوجہد کو اپنا لائحہ عمل بنائیں۔
جاری کردہ : پاکستان کسان مزدور تحریک

یکم مئی مزدوروں کا عالمی دن: مزدوروں جاگو اپنی تقدیر خود لکھو

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پریس ریلیز

یکم مئی، 2018

مزدوروں کے عالمی دن یکم مئی کے موقع پر پاکستان کسان مزدور تحریک اور لیبر ویلفیئر سوسائٹی نے حطار، ہری پور، کے پی کے میں ایک جلسہ کا انعقاد کیا۔ جس میں بڑی تعداد میں مزدوروں نے شرکت کی۔ یہ دن 1886 شکاگو کے مزدوروں کی جدوجہد کے تناظر میں منایا جاتا ہے کہ جب مزدوروں نے اپنے حقوق خصوصاًآٹھ گھنٹے کام کے اوقات مقرر کرنے کے لیے اپنی جانوں کا نذرانہ پیش کیا تھا۔

پی کے ایم ٹی کے عہدیداروں کا کہنا تھا کہ حکومت عالمی سرمایہ دار اداروں کی ایماء پر ملک کے قیمتی اثاثے کوڑیوں کے مول ملکی اور غیر ملکی سرمایہ داروں کو فروخت کررہی ہے جو مزدوروں میں بیروزگاری اور غربت و بھوک کی بنیادی وجہ ہے۔ حطار میں قائم مستحکم سیمنٹ فیکٹری ایک ایسی ہی مثال ہے جسے غیرملکی کمپنی کو فروخت کردیا گیا جس سے نا صرف فیکٹری کے مزدوروں کو ملنے والی مراعات ختم یا محدود کردی گئیں بلکہ نجی کمپنی کی جانب سے زیادہ سے زیادہ منافع کے حصول کے لیے پیداوار میں غیر پائیدار اضافے سے علاقے کا ماحولیاتی نظام بھی تباہ ہوکر رہ گیا ہے۔

لیبر ویلفیئر سوسائٹی کے عہدیداروں کا اس موقع پر کہنا تھا کہ اٹھارویں آئینی ترمیم کے بعد مزدورں کی بہبود کا محکمہ صوبائی حکومتوں کو منتقل ہو گیا لیکن اب تک صوبائی حکومتوں کی جانب سے مزدور قوانین اور اس پر عملدرآمد کے حوالے سے کوئی جامع پالیسی ترتیب نہیں دی جاسکی ہے۔ خیبر پختونخوا میں ورکرز ویلفیئر بورڈ کے زیر انتظام مزدوروں کے بچوں کے لیے چلنے والے اسکولوں میں معیار تعلیم انتہائی ناقص ہے جہاں بچوں کی کامیابی کا تناسب انتہائی معمولی ہے۔ بورڈ فی بچہ 17,000 روپے خرچ کرتا ہے اس کے باوجود مزدوروں کے بچے معیاری تعلیم سے محروم ہیں۔ ورکرز ویلفیئر بورڈ لیبر کالونیوں میں مزدوروں کو رہائشی کواٹر کے مالکانہ حقوق نہیں دیتا جبکہ ملک میں بقیہ تین صوبوں میں مزدورں کو رہائشی کواٹر کے مالکانہ حقوق دیے جاتے ہیں۔

مقریرین کا کہنا تھا کہ سی پیک کے تحت ملک میں بڑے پیمانے پر خصوصی اقتصادی زون کی تعمیر اور مختلف صنعتوں اور شاہراؤں کی تعمیر جاری ہے لیکن اب تک اس حوالے سے مزدوروں سے متعلق کوئی پالیسی واضح نہیں کی گئی کہ چینی سرمایہ کار کمپنیاں مقامی مزدوروں کو روزگار فراہم کرنے کی پابند ہونگی، ان مزدوروں کے کام کے اوقات کار، اجرت اور دیگر سہولیات کی فراہمی کو یقینی کیسے بنایا جائے گا۔ اکثر یہ دیکھنے میں آیا ہے کہ کمپنیوں کی جانب سے مزدوروں سے انتہائی کم اجرت پر آٹھ گھنٹے کے بجائے 12 گھنٹے کام لیا جاتا ہے۔ ملک بھر میں صنعت ہو یازراعت یا ماہی گیری شعبہ تقریباً ہر شعبے میں مزدور نجکاری، ٹھیکیداری نظام، کم اجرت اور دیگر بنیادی سہولیات کے فقدان کی وجہ سے غربت و بدحالی کا شکار ہیں۔

سرمایہ داروں کی ہر حکومت صنعتکاروں اور سرمایہ داروں کے کالا دھن سفید کرنے، ٹیکس میں چھوٹ دینے، سرمایہ کاروں کو مفت زمین فراہم کرنے، انہیں زرتلافی اور دیگر مراعات دینے کے لیے قانون سازی کرتی ہے اور ان قوانین پر عملدرآمد بھی ہوتا ہے لیکن بات جب مزدوروں اور دیگر پسے ہوئے طبقات کی ہو تو ان کے حقوق کے تحفظ کے لیے مزید قانون سازی تو دور پہلے سے موجود قوانین پر بھی عملدرآمد نہیں کیا جاتا۔ ملک بھر کے محنت کشوں کو اس استحصال سے نجات اور اپنے حقوق کے لیے متحد ہو کر جدوجہد کرنے کی ضرورت ہے کیونکہ یہ ظالم سرمایہ دار طبقہ کبھی بھی مزدوروں کے حقوق دیگا۔

پی کے ایم ٹی اور لیبر ویلفیئر سوسائٹی مطالبہ کرتی ہے کہ نجکاری، ٹھیکیداری نظام کا خاتمہ کیا جائے، عارضی مزدوروں مستقل کیا جائے، مزدوروں کی کم سے کم اجرت ایک تولہ سونے کے برابر مقرر کی جائے، مزدور عورتوں کو مردوں کے برابر اجرت دی جائے، مزدور آبادیوں میں معیاری تعلیم، آلودگی سے پاک ماحول اور باعزت روزگار فراہم کیا جائے۔ مزدوروں کے لیے پیشہ ورانہ صحت و تحفظ کا کام کی جگہ پر معقول بندوبست کیا جائے۔ تمام مزدوروں کی سوشل سیکورٹی اور ای او بی آئی کے ساتھ رجسٹریشن کو یقینی بنایا جائے۔ مزدوروں کو لیبر کانوینز میں رہائشی کوارٹرز کے مانکانہ حقوق دئیے جائیں۔مزدوروں کی بچیوں کے لیے جہیزگرانٹ سالوں سے بندہے فوری بحال کی جائے۔
جاری کردہ : پاکستان کسان مزدور تحریک اور لیبر ویلفیئر سوسائٹی

29 March, Day of the Landless

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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

First International Rural Youth Assembly

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In every generation, the scope and depth of the youth’s participation has always been
decisive in the building of a better future. It is among the youth wherein the best bits of
today’s society are kept alongside the seeds of fundamental social change blooming
within them too.

Azra Talat Sayeed, International Women’s Alliance (IWA) giving a Solidarity message at the First International Youth Rural Assembly, Jakarta Indonesia

Mujtaba giving a Solidarity note at the First International Rural Youth Assembly, Jakarta Indonesia