Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity held the first Pakistan Peoples’ Caravan (PPC) on October 18, 2023, in Shikarpur, Sindh, as part of the Global Peoples’ Caravan for Food, Land, and Climate Justice. There are other caravans already organized for other parts of Pakistan in the coming weeks. The caravans will build up to the 28th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP28) of the UN Climate Change Conference happening in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), from Nov 30 to Dec 12. Similar caravans or actions in various countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other regions are planned throughout October-November 2023.

For Pakistan in general, and for the rural communities of our country in particular, the COP28 provides an excellent platform to draw global attention from the public, mass media, and policymakers to the rural people’s demands to address the interconnected issues of hunger, land and resource grabs, and the climate crisis. Rural people’s movements are rising to confront unprecedented global hunger, displacement, and environmental and climate destruction. They are holding into account imperialism – the global empire of the wealthiest countries’ finance oligarchs and their monopoly corporations. We need to continuously strengthen and expand these movements for truly deep-rooted policy reforms to take place and address the multiple crises plaguing the world’s peoples, including the rural sectors, which are most vulnerable.

Speakers at the Caravan highlighted the plight that small and landless farmers, especially women are facing in context to the extremely high level of inflation, exorbitant cost of agriculture production that is being thrust on them based on the desire for monopoly capital to extract humongous super profits form the most marginalized, vulnerable sector of our society. Rural communities face not only the disastrous effects of neoliberal trade liberalization in food and agriculture but also that of climate imperialism; Pakistan’s monster monsoons of 2022 is one of the prime examples.

In response, rural people movements are rising to meet the challenges before us. We are tackling the unprecedented crises of environmental destruction with staunch determination, global hunger and displacement. Instead of addressing the structural issues underlying these crises and the failure to face them head-on, the UN has allowed monopoly corporations from imperialist countries to exploit the food, hunger, and climate crises to pursue a despicable plan to gain more control over and take advantage of the world’s food systems.   

While governments and institutions are forever promising to support the most vulnerable peasants amidst the ongoing climate crisis, many of the proposed climate solutions and promises are entirely false; in the first place the fossil fuel addiction of the imperialist countries is responsible for some of the worst calamities that rural people face across Pakistan, and the renewable energy solutions are also being used by monopoly capital to further exploit our communities and are resulting in further land and water conflicts across rural communities, leading to the displacement of these communities and the disruption of their way of life, while funneling public resources and shaping policies to fit into the corporate agenda.

We must not allow imperialist powers and interests to manipulate the climate, food and development agenda at the expense of the peoples’ rights and interests. If we want genuine sustainable development, are serious about achieving zero hunger, and are committed to taking real climate action to save our planet, we must expose and oppose these profit-motivated schemes.

We must break the chain of imperialist plunder through (1) breaking the domination of imperialism over global governance, (2) breaking TNC control over our food systems, and (3) breaking away from fossil fuel-hungry food systems.

We must shift the future through (1) shifting the bias of policymaking toward the peoples’ rights and aspirations, (2) shifting the control over lands and natural resources, and (3) shifting financing toward genuinely radical food systems transformation. 

We must work tirelessly to strengthen and expand our movements, pushing for fundamental, lasting policy reforms to address the numerous crises afflicting rural peoples and all working people worldwide.

Released by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)

The Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity in collaboration with Asian Peasant Coalition (APC), Pesticide Action Network (PAN AP) are marking the “World Hunger Day’ on October 16, 2023 – a day which is considered to be World Food Day. A peasant gathering (JALSA) has been organized in Ghotki, Sindh.

According to a recent report by UNICEF and the World Bank, about 333 million children (one in every six children) worldwide live in extreme poverty, while 62 million children in South Asia are living in extreme poverty. The World Food Programme estimates that 345 million people worldwide suffer from severe hunger, while according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of people suffering from hunger in the world in 2022 was between 691 million and 783 million. According to a recent UN statement, another 745 million people could suffer from severe hunger this year. Apparently, we are in the 21st century, and it seems that high technological advances are also taking place, but the world is facing increasing hunger, with rural women being the most disadvantaged, who are not only suffering from hunger and malnutrition but also deprived of proper employment and ownership of their personal land, especially agricultural land.

Given that Pakistan has been ranked 99th out of 129 nations in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) report, where the level of hunger has been described as serious; food agencies such as World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), believe that more than eight million people are expected to experience “high levels of acute food insecurity.”

The situation has not been created in just a day – it is the consistent promotion of neoliberal policies that have pushed for trade liberalization in food and agriculture that have resulted in such a dire situation.

The intense land concentration, with just 5% feudal families having control over 67% of land is of course also a critical reason behind not only rising hunger but the intense indebtedness of the country. The small number of elite who govern our country has pushed it into an abyss of debt and pauperization; at the moment Pakistan has a debt of $85 billion which has resulted in a severe economic crisis forcing austerity measures on the people. The government has been begging for aid from different sources, and since beggars cannot be choosers agricultural land is being offered for lease to foreign entities. The government has created entities such as the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) that have an extraordinary presence of the armed forces. The SIFC is paying particular attention to privatization and investment, especially in food and agriculture, and will result in massive food exports. In addition, there is now land also being leased for corporate farming, with corporations being given priority over farmers, especially small and landless farmers. This is only going to have further grave consequences for rural communities, the bedrock of our society.

As a result of the IMF conditionalities, the prices of fuel have risen astronomically making it difficult for small farmers to continue food production. The rising debt of the farming community will end in exacerbating landlessness in the country.

The solution lies in not putting the country up for sale but in building self-reliance in food agriculture and national industry. Corporations and foreign direct investment will only leach the country of its resources, while reaping rich profits off our land and labor. It is critical at this juncture that we adopt food sovereignty as the base for our food and agriculture policy, with center space given to small and landless farmers, especially women in policy development and implementing. There is no doubt that by making just and equitable land distribution a priority can help the country to break the shackles of debt and pauperization, and also help in establishing a national industry.

Let us fight for Food Sovereignty, for Climate Justice, for National Sovereignty!

Released by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT);

We mark the Rural Women’s Day with grave concern! Though we are now in the 21st Century, and there is high technological development, the world is facing rising hunger, with rural women being at the highest rung of being the most marginalized, suffering from hunger,  hunger wages, and hunger for a piece of land of our own.

Women farmers, though almost all are landless are the backbone of the agriculture economy. Seeds cannot be sown, land cannot be looked after, livestock cannot be cared and bred, harvests cannot be cut without women. In Pakistan, all food crops, especially wheat are harvested by women’s back-breaking labor, almost all cotton is picked by women, and livestock is cared for by women but even after this hard labor, the rural women peasants are the most marginalized in society.

The imperialist world order dictates neoliberalism as a panacea for our misery and enforced poverty, but in fact, it is the base of our pauperization. From colonization to the present day, we the real tillers of land have been forcefully pushed off our lands. Feudal lords retain control of our land, and with the rise of imperialism, more and more corporate hegemony can be seen being imposed on food and agricultural systems.

It is the fossil fuel, profit-greedy production system that has now brought about the climate crisis. But imperialist powers are unwilling to change the unsustainable production and consumption, and we are left to suffer the intense destruction and damage of our land, homes, and livestock. Not only climate crisis, we also suffer the burden of an astronomical national debt which we never took! The austerity measures imposed by the IMF and World Bank are further crippling the food and agricultural production system.

Our government instead of leasing our land for the export of food should stand up to the capitalist nations demanding debt cancellation, ensuring just and equitable land distribution to the peasants, especially women, and ensuring safe and nutrition food for all that is free not only from chemical and genetic pollution but also free from corporate control. In short, we ask for a policy orientation that would fulfill our demands for food sovereignty, climate justice, economic and social justice, and accountability to the people.

Women Demand Food Sovereignty!

Women Demand Just and Equitable Land Distribution!

Women Demand Climate Justice!

Released by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)

The various news items in the first month of the year do not bear good tidings! The devastating monsoon and riverine floods that hit Pakistan last year, especially Sindh, continue to devastate agricultural production; a prime example is cotton production which in 2022 saw a massive shortfall of 37.23 percent. In addition, severe frost in January has also impacted major potato-growing districts. Another manifestation is the encroaching sea water in agriculture areas, devastating farmers’ lands and livelihood.

A critical learning from the floods was the stark lack of water drainage mechanism that affected millions of rural communities. Natural drainage systems have been encroached that further exacerbated the impacts of flooding last year. Different remedies are being provided including highly sophisticated technologies proposed and implemented by the World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); however, there is no mention of the feudal power base which was a major obstacle to drainage of flood water drainage. Another major aspect of water shortage includes the water-sharing agreement between India and Pakistan, where India now wants to change the old agreements by barring third-party intervention in the process. As water scarcity issues mount, the acrimonious relationship between India and Pakistan will certainly spillover on water-sharing agreements. Another appalling impact has been on Indus Delta; thousands of fishermen have given up their livelihood as less fresh water flow means no fish, nor farming.

On one hand there is continuous destruction caused by climate crisis, while on the other, there is also a galloping economic crisis. Though both have been caused by promoting and implementing neoliberal policies, our state continues to encourage market-oriented programs and schemes. Hence, there is little hope for overcoming the many forms of catastrophe facing the country. In this vein, a critical area is of course agricultural land: the World Bank has provided assistance in digital land record maintenance. Given the free market doctrine of the Bank, this initiative is deadly for small and landless farmers. There is no move towards land distribution in favor of peasants but diligent digital record keeping will of course help in intensifying corporate capture of land. It will be far easier for finding out land ownership patterns, using different methods of coaxing and coercion against debt-ridden farmers to give up land, and further collaboration between feudal landlords and corporations to develop mutually beneficial profit-oriented schemes. Instead of helping small farmers in production, various measures will clearly intensify their economic burden. To name only a few is the continuous increase in the cost of fertilizers, as well proposals to levy general sales tax on the item.

There have been extremely worrisome projections for food scarcity: a high level of food insecurity experienced by nearly 6 million people between July and August 2022 was projected to increase to 8.5 million people by end of December, 2022. The government’s response to the intense climate related decline in wheat production is introduction of agro-chemical corporate-based policies promoting zinc-enriched bio-fortified wheat production.

The economic crisis has reached such heights that the government did not have the dollars to pay trader for imports. The shortage of raw material imports were also a cause for many industrial units to close down, temporarily. Large-scale manufacturing output shrank 3.58 percent in the period July-November 2022, when compared with the same period the year before. And even with such intense hardship for the nation, especially the working class, the IMF prepared two draft ordinances to impose PKR 200 billion in new taxes, days after the government accepted IMF conditionalities to resume a stalled loan program.

The situation of labor is in any way highly precarious, where in Sindh more than 600,000 men, women and children part of Scheduled castes are suffering forced labor by landowners. Apart from the agriculture sector, fisher folk in Baluchistan have also been facing exploitation and have been demanding to be identified as labor, which was finally approved by the Balochistan government.

Sugarcane farmers also face exploitation from sugar mill owners; the Sindh government had approved PKR 302/40 kg but farmers were not getting more than PKR 250/40kg. In spite of protests, the Sindh cane commissioner was not paying heed to this injustice.

Another area of grave concern is cotton. Pakistan has been using more and more transgenic cotton seeds; and now after many years of this highly dangerous experiment its being reported that this biotech cotton seed is not appropriate for sub-tropical climate of the country. The impact on our textile industry is devastating, with about 150 textile mills having been closed, with more than 2 million people’s employment has been wiped out.

Allowing transgenic products in the country is indeed a dangerous game, which the devastation of our cotton production has already shown. In face of such terrible lessons, and in spite of the Minister for Food Security Tariq Basheer Cheema’s endeavors to stop import of genetically modified soyabean as poultry feed were waived and more than 6,000 tons of Canola and 7,000 tons of soya bean seeds were offloaded at Karachi port and used across the country.

There is absolute indifference to the suffering of the working class; as many as 18 people including 16 children died in the Kemari area due to presence of toxic gases emitting from factories that were operating in residential areas.

The international news provides an equally distressing economic picture. According to the FAO food price index was up 14.3% from 2021, and the highest since records were initiated in 1990. Unemployment rates and job losses were reported from different regions, with the Arab region registered the world’s highest unemployment rate in 2022. The UN labor agency predicted that there would be a slight increase in unemployed people to 208 million people in 2023, with global unemployment rate of 5.8 percent or 16 million people. The cost-of-living crisis will be the biggest global risk for the next two years.

Climate crisis also had devastating impacts in the Asia Pacific region, with 74.4 percent of disaster events, and 88.4 percent of total deaths, globally. Finally, according to the Red Cross, all countries remain ‘dangerously unprepared’ for the next pandemic.

To download the complete publication: https://rootsforequity.noblogs.org/files/2023/06/Haal-Ahwal-January-Final.pdf

Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) members in various districts of Sindh (Shikarpur, Ghotki, Khairpur, Badin and Tando Mohammad Khan) and Rajanpur, Punjab have been heavily impacted. Many of our members that we have been able to contact have left their villages and are either staying in shops, schools, on the roadside or with relatives. All cooking fuel (wood, animal dung) is lost or wet; many are going hungry and have very limited resources at hand. Most of their saved wheat and rice grains have been lost, also. Some have also lost their livestock.

The PKMT Steering Committee held an emergency meeting and few actions have been agreed upon. 

A press conference on Aug 30 in Sukkur Press Club is going to be held to emphasise government’s criminal negligence in safeguarding against the current situation and lack of relief initiatives as well as for demanding immediate government support, as well as develop mobilization on holding rich industrialized countries accountable for the continuous debilitating destruction, debt, hunger and misery faced by the poorest most vulnerable populations, especially women, children, elderly and the disabled persons.

A solidarity visit of PKMT members from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkwa will happen as soon as the rain stops and allows passage possible. The group will also be able to assess what is needed to help out PKMT members in need.  We are also thinking ahead for October- November when it will be the wheat sowing season. If farmers are not able to carry out sowing in November, there will be an acute shortage of wheat further exacerbating the current crisis.

Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek held its 14^th Annual Conference from October 15 -16 at Renewal Centre, Lahore and simultaneously, held panel discussions and demonstrations to mark International Rural Women’s Day and World Hunger Day. During the events, speakers held corporate entities, IFIs and neoliberal policies accountable for creating food systems that are directly responsible for the hunger, malnourishment and economic destitution of more than a billion.

Azra Sayeed, Roots for Equity exposed corporate hijack of the United Nations Food Systems Summit, highlighting the role of the World Economic Forum, and foundations especially, the Gates Foundation and philanthropies who have provided corporate-driven policies depriving farmers of land, livelihood and food by funding technology intense systems in third world countries; the entire UNFSS was termed as nothing but a hallmark of false solutions to hunger e.g. pre-mixed therapeutic food that accrues billions of dollars in profit for corporations. Wali Haider, PKMT General Secretary highlighted the neoliberal policies in food and agriculture introduced in Pakistan amidst the pandemic reflecting much of the neocolonial policies emitting from the UNFSS. These policies are a fresh wave of attacks on small and landless farmers in Pakistan, embedded in the Pakistan Agricultural Transformation Plan, Kisan Card scheme, CPEC’s agricultural policies and livestock development programs. Policy features of digitalization of the agricultural economy, value chain strengthening and cluster-based food production panders to the corporate lobby, facilitates corporate land grab for export-oriented production, benefits landlords and industrialists and captures natural resources e.g. water, agricultural land, forests and rare minerals for company use. Essentially, it is a blueprint of UNFSS’s vision for food systems transformation and completely overrides small farmers’ rights to land and livelihood.

According to Raja Mujeeb, Steering Committee member, PKMT, the Global People’s Summit, a Global-South counter to the UNFSS main objective was to mobilize landless farmers, agricultural workers, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk and rural women across the world to develop a People’s Action Plan and draw up a Declaration for a people-led radical transformation of the current food regimes towards just, equitable, healthy, and sustainable food systems. The GPS is a testimony of the people’s collective resistance against the global corporate food empire and a call for genuine food systems transformation.

As part of the panel on movements and struggles, Asif Khan, PKMT Steering Committee member, presented an overview and analysis of peoples’ struggles and movements across the world, saying that revolutionary politics and direct action is the only way to grant farmers complete rights overall productive resources and complete autonomy and decision making in food and agriculture.

A number of other activities highlighted Rural Women’s Day with a tribute to rural women for the formal and informal, paid and unpaid work in food and agriculture. PKMT also celebrated 10 years of its struggle for seed sovereignty by holding a seed mela with indigenous seeds from all over Pakistan.

In addition, a protest was held as part of the Global Day of Action against IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings. The protest actions called for an immediate TRIPS waiver, debt cancellation and an end to resource plunder and greenwashing practices in the name of development.

Demands:

• Implementation of agroecological approaches to agriculture based on food sovereignty principles that center peasants’ right to land and collective rights over all critical productive resources, in order to create just, equitable, healthy and sustainable food systems that ensure safe and nutritious food for all;

• Recognition of the role that women and rural communities play in conserving plant and animal genetic resources through agricultural practices rooted in traditional knowledge;

• Boycott all neoliberal corporate-led platforms, policies and action plans such as UNFSS and bilateral and multilateral trade agreements such as the RCEP, CPTPP and others that allow the monopolization of global trade by TNCs;

• Provide climate justice now by demanding greater accountability and higher compensation for solutions from countries with a higher level of development who have destroyed Earth’s life systems due to extractive and polluting capitalist production model.

Release by: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)

17 July 2021 – Dossier

Dr. Azra Talat Sayeed –

The State of Food Security and Nutrition 2020 stated that almost 690 million people went hungry around the world in 2019, a ten million increase on 2018[1]. It came as no surprise that the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation predicted that a further 83-132 million could be pushed into chronic hunger due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest figures clearly show how our governments and an entire range of multilateral agencies are fighting a losing battle in their attempts to reach the sustainable development goal of ending all forms of hunger and malnutrition by 2030. But these devastating figures cannot be laid at the pandemic’s door alone, as trends since 2014 showed that hunger was on the rise. In Pakistan, despite being a prolific food producer, 36.9% of the country’s population remains food insecure and the statistics on malnutrition and consequent health concerns reflect the abject state of poverty of its citizens, particularly rural women and children.

How could such an advanced society have drifted so far from meeting one of its most critical and basic human needs? To understand this and the problem of hunger and malnutrition in a world that has surplus food production, an analysis of the political economy of hunger could yield some critical insights.

The WTO and its impact on small farmers

The creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 subjected the agriculture sector to a universal binding set of agreements for the first time. Key WTO agreements such as the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), which had been vigorously pushed by the US corporate lobby at the WTO, constituted a vicious attack on farmers, especially small and landless farmers, unleashing neoliberal deregulation, privatization and liberalization policies on poor subsistence farmers in the third world.

These agreements not only established a rigorous system governing international trade in food and agriculture but forced third-world governments to reduce the production and export support they provided to their farmers, while at the same time obliging them to open their markets to imports from other countries. They also pose a grave threat to the ownership of indigenous knowledge of farming communities and indigenous peoples.

How have these conditions impacted the food security of small and landless farmers in the Global South, especially the women? One needs to remind that the burden of ensuring household food security rests mainly on the women, particularly the rural women in the Global South.

In order to understand the impact of the AoA some basic differences between first and third-world agricultural producers must be taken into account. Referring to India as an example the international research group GRAIN states “India’s farmers have an average landholding of one hectare, while US farmers’ average landholding is 176 hectares. There are 2.1 million farms across the US, employing less than 2% of the population, with an average annual on-farm income per farm household of $18,637. Whereas more than half of India’s 1.3 billion that depend on agriculture do so for their livelihoods, with the average annual income of per farm household (from all sources) at less than US$1000.”[2]

The result is a tragic debt burden borne by millions of small farmers across Africa, Latin America and Asia. The majority of third world countries have what can be considered a semi-colonial and semi-feudal mode of production, which basically means that they are dependent on first world countries for agricultural inputs such as seed, fertilizers and pesticides. The domestic political landscape portrays control and ownership of land by very powerful feudal elites and rich farmers, while small and landless farmers lack any political clout. This is in contrast to the political power of the farm lobbies and mega-agrochemical corporations in the advanced capitalist world. Furthermore, the wealthy industrialized countries also provide very high levels of domestic support to their farmers.

The creation of the WTO triggered a clarion call to “Junk WTO” and to resist neoliberal policies in agriculture; farmers across the world developed the concept of Food Sovereignty, which comprises a set of principles ensuring the right of every human being to safe and nutritious food and the right of the small and landless farmers to produce food and earn a decent livelihood. Across Asia, many grassroots organizations started to mobilize rural communities and farmers to resist the draconian WTO agreements, with women farmers playing a key role.

WTO impacts on women dairy farmers in Pakistan

TRIPs and the AoA have had an immense impact on small and landless farmers in Pakistan: domestic seed saving systems have been wrested out of their hands through new legal mechanisms, production has been threatened by an onslaught of imported processed foods, livestock, and semen, while access to land has been affected by land-grabbing, for the large-scale production of crops that yield ethanol for example.

A particular case in point is the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) mechanism, a key WTO agreement that sets out the basic rules on food safety and animal and plant health standards. Based on the SPS, Pakistan, through its Punjab Food Authority (PFA), which is responsible for setting standards for food articles and regulating their manufacturing, storage, distribution, sale and imports, passed a set of Pure Food Laws that included a pasteurization policy for the province of Punjab, simultaneously implementing a ban on the sale of unprocessed milk. These homogenizing rules are the direct result of a globalized industrialized approach to food production that makes production processes complex and costly. Just before the onslaught of Covid-19, the PFA had given directives that in the city of Lahore, Punjab, sales of open milk would be banned by 2022.

At present, almost 95% of milk sales are from small and landless farmers, with Punjab accounting for almost 70% of the livestock and agriculture sector in Pakistan. As almost 90% of livestock care is in the hands of landless rural women, the SPS has critical implications for women farmers.

It is clear that transnational dairy corporations are eyeing the multiple products that milk yields such as butter, cheese, cream, yogurt, and buttermilk. Pakistan has one of the best cow and buffalo species that yield rich, creamy milk; there is little doubt that European countries, the USA, and Australia are pushing neoliberal policies in this sector to capture this lucrative market. Animal dung is also of interest as it yields biogas, an alternate source of energy to fossil fuels. Furthermore, seed corporations are promoting hybrid and genetically engineered maize seeds for fodder. Agribusinesses such as Nestlé and Friesland Campina have the capital to set up large processing facilities and benefit from economies of scale, while small producers are pushed out and deprived of their livelihoods.

The SPS agreement was therefore a death knell to poor women farmers, for whom livestock rearing is a vital economic asset. Milk and its byproducts (milk, butter, clarified butter, yogurt, and lassi) contribute to a household’s food security, especially in hard times, and are also a source of daily income. Animal dung is used for cooking and is a source of heat during winter.

The importance of the livestock and dairy sector for rural food security in Pakistan became particularly clear during the COVID-19 lockdown. According to rural women, for most landless families milk and butter, along with rotis made from wheat flour, were the main source of food for the entire household and if these items had not been available in those dark difficult months, hunger would have been much worse Lockdowns were imposed in Pakistan from March to May 2020, the prime wheat harvest months. Many women could not take part in the harvest due to the lockdown or lack of transport. Also, as large numbers of men had come back from the cities as there were no longer any jobs there, there was less work available for the women. Hence, women’s earnings from the wheat harvest were considerably lower than usual.

Organizing and resistance of women dairy producers in Pakistan

The Farmers’ Alliance Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) was formed in 2008. In a very patriarchal society, where no more than 2 % of women own land, PKMT had a very difficult time organizing women, but a determined ten-year thrust of ensuring women farmers’ membership has led to rich gains. This could be especially gauged during the pandemic as women stood up to defend their right to produce and consume safe food using agroecological methods and promote seed sovereignty.

PKMT quickly responded to the milk grab initiated by the PFA in 2019 and mobilized its women members to resist the corporate capture of the dairy sector. This was extremely timely as during the COVID-19 public eating-places were closed and as a result, milk sales were severely impacted and women lost considerable income. Big corporations started buying milk as they could save it in big chillers and women found that they had to sell milk to them at nearly half of the pre-pandemic market price. Through PKMT women came to understand the power of these corporations as well as the acute need of having control over milk as a food source. In spite of the pandemic, the women continued to organize and mobilize. On March 8, 2020, there was a nationwide mobilization demanding women’s farmers’ rights; women categorically challenged corporations for promoting agrochemical farming as well as the ongoing propaganda against raw or fresh milk and allegations that it has a harmful impact on human health. Even with the deepening impact of the pandemic, women celebrated Rural Women’s Day on October 15 with a strong attack on the dairy corporations as by now they had suffered the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on milk sales. At the PKMT General Assembly women also spoke out vehemently against the corporate milk grab.

Many PKMT women members have joined men to start farms run on agroecological principles. Throughout 2020, they remained committed to traditional wheat growing, even though there was constant pressure from government agencies to revert to agrochemical farming, which the authorities maintained would yield much higher production. Some of these farms are in riverine areas, where there is a constant threat of flooding and loss of harvests. But even in the face of such multiple crises, women have stood strong. They are totally self-sufficient in livestock, animal dung, and compost, as well as seeds through seed saving. The reward, though based on backbreaking labor, is self-sufficiency in ample, healthy, and nourishing food.

One woman, who had been keeping livestock as well as running an agroecological farm, had to sell her buffalo to meet hospital bills but afterward bought a calf. Though she did not have the money to buy a buffalo, she was willing to buy a calf in order to keep her farm going. Of course, it is certainly not all sunshine: one woman, who wanted to access her land, was denied it by her brothers. Through her constant negotiations with her brothers, she obtained just enough land to establish a seed bank; this is something that PKMT encourages its members to do to enable them to break away from dependence on corporate seeds. Another young widow was denied access to land by her family but continues to rear livestock and is a strong voice within PKMT advocating against patriarchy and the corporate capture of agriculture.

So it is clear that the fight for food sovereignty must be conducted on several fronts, including standing fast against corporate capture, feudalism, and patriarchy.

More information:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The State of Food Security and Nutrition around the World in 2020, July 2020. http://www.fao.org/3/ca9692en/online/ca9692en.html#chapter-1_1

Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek, https://pkmt.noblogs.org/

[1] http://www.fao.org/3/ca9692en/online/ca9692en.html

The Fight for Food Sovereignty in Pakistan and the role of Women

Dr. Azra Talat Sayeed of Roots for Equity and Chairperson IWA highlighted the continuously negative spin in attaining basic rights in women lives, the escalation in the oppression and exploitation at the national and international levels: all due to the increasing grip of capitalism through neoliberal policies. Profit-seeking capitalist forces have introduced modern technology in food and agriculture sector which pave the way in increasing landlessness, gender discrimination, violence, hunger and poverty in Pakistan and other third world countries. In Pakistan, women particularly women agricultural workers faces different kind of exploitations under feudalism and capitalism. Agricultural women workers not only face economic and gender discrimination but also face mental and physical violence, illiteracy among others. In the past years sugarcane production has wiped out cotton production, which had still provided an income for women, though it had dire impacts on the environment and women’s health as well as all living things. The need for skilled trained women may be the reason that the generally feudal-minded Sindh Government has passed the Sindh Women Agriculture Workers Bill. There is no doubt that if women ware incorporated in the planned special economic zones, they will face further exploitation and feudalism in a highly feudal society.

While detailing imperialist policies in the Dairy sector PKMT member Pathani and an activist Ms. Ayman Baber highlighted the impacts on women. After corporate capture of seeds, the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement being implemented through the Pure Food Laws which will lead to control of the corporate sector on livestock, fodder and the output of the diary sector in which a large number of women are engaged, especially in Punjab and Sindh. Corporate capture of these sectors will gain huge profits not only in the lucrative local markets but also through exports. These policies will result in market hegemony erosion of livelihood of millions of peasant and farmers across the country. The impact on women and children will be multifold, as they will not only loose a rich source of food and nutrition but also the income from milk and livestock. The recent National Nutrition Survey has already well documented the extreme levels of hunger and malnutrition that women and children in the country face: the Pure Food Laws will only result in further aggravating the situation. It was also stated that food fortification policies that are ostensibly an answer to the malnutrition are only a profit-seeking industry for the mega-corporations of North America and Europe.

A young women PKMT member Ms. Roop Kanwal highlighted the impacts of Patriarchy and its deep inter-linkages with feudalism and capitalism. She highlighted the lack of women’s control over productive resources, production and income with men maintaining a death hold on all decision making processes in women’s lives. Patriarchy is the base through which, women being used as a commodity intensifies violence against women on a daily basis.

Rabia Bukhari, Roots for Equity detailed the importance of agroecology in opposing capitalist policies in food and agriculture as well as overcoming the impacts of climate change. She highlighted saving and promoting biodiversity and the critical need for adopting natural forms of agriculture to preserve our natural resources. These methods would allow for production of safe, nutritious foods, sustainable agriculture as well sustainable decent livelihood for rural communities, especially women and gain us food sovereignty.

Noor Ahmed, PKMT District Coordinator Tando Mohammad Khan introduced the PKMT Jazba Farmer’s Cooperative, an initiative to consolidate sustainable agriculture practices and allow farmers to provide safe nutrition to the communities at large. Zahida Meerani a PKMT member from Ghotki shared different methods of production being adopted by farmers in PKMT Jazba cooperative farms as well as the need for women to increase not only their membership but also voice in the decision-making process in PKMT.

Provincial Coordinator, Khyber Pakhtunkwa Faiz Ahmed while addressing the women’s assembly highlighted the importance of the International Women’s Day. Without women being equally represented in movements, neither resistances can be built nor rights attained. He stressed it was critical that women from every province made their presence felt in the Tehreek. He deplored the recent attack on women, especially highlighting extremely uncivil verbal abuse against women on media that was aired without censorship. There is no place for abuse against women whether it was verbal, physical, emotional or sexual. Women hold equal rights to men in society and these should be upheld at all times. It is for workers’ and farmers’ movements to ensure that women hold command space in forcing movements forward in our fight against exploitation and oppression embedded in patriarchy, feudalism and capitalism.

As part of the Women’s Global Strike being coordinated by APWLD, women chanted various slogans, especially “If Women Stop, the World Stops”, “Women are the backbone of World Economy”, and “Movements Not Possible without Women” “ Women’s Equality! If not now, then when?” and “Stop Imperialist Agriculture Policies”.

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