To invite big corporate investments into the country’s agriculture sector, Pakistan has announced the building of six canals on the Indus River.
The farmers gathered under the banner of Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (PKRC) linked with the left-wing Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP). They raised slogans against the so-called Pakistan Green Initiative (PGI) launched by the state a day earlier and adopted a resolution demanding its immediate withdrawal, along with the scrapping of the new canal project.
The farmers’ conference claimed six new canals on the Indus would affect the natural flow of the river and devastate its delta region by converting it into a desert. They also stated that the project would displace thousands of small farmers from their lands and widen the rift between the provinces of Sindh and Punjab.
Controversy over government-backed GPI
Ammar Ali Jan, leader of left-wing HKP, also claimed that the Cholistan canals project, as it is called, will destroy the local ecology, displace farmers, and affect the relationship between provinces.
The farmer’s conference resolution called the GPI “anti-farmer” and accused the Pakistani government of “selling the country’s resources and compromising national integrity” by “succumbing to the IMF” dictates.
GPI was launched on Saturday by the chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province Mariyam Nawaz and Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) general Asim Munir as a joint project of the government and the army.
The project is behind initiatives such as Green Agri Mall and Service Company which is expected to provide farmers with high yield seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and fuel at a subsidized rate. It will also rent out expensive farm equipment, such as tractors and drones.
A total of 5,000 acres of land would be converted into “smart agri farm.” It will be irrigated with fresh canals built on the river Sindh (Indus) because the project is based in the Cholistan region which is mostly drought prone and arid. The government is also plans to establish a research facility under the project which it claims will help resolve issues of agricultural production across the country.
READ FULL REPORT: https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/02/18/farmers-in-pakistan-protest-governments-corporate-farming-plan-warn-of-uprising/
Source- peoplesdispatch.org, February 18, 2025.
