A Letter from Prometheus
The Ukraine crisis has triggered a debate that countries must not be dependent on others for food security because Ukraine, which provides over 60 percent of wheat to the European market, is closed virtually to transport wheat outside of its land.
Pakistan bought over 60 percent of its last year’s important wheat from Ukraine. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has already released a warning that the global situation of food security is in danger. Such statements are partially political to accuse Russia of causing world hunger and partially true because the suspension of Ukrainian wheat supplies would be a disaster for many. Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe as years ago the Subcontinent was. Alas, the agricultural land resources and food security have become two serious issues for Pakistan in the last three decades.
According to statistics, agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan’s economy and it employs 45 percent of the labour force, contributes 21.4 percent to the gross domestic product, and provides food to a huge population. The decrease in agricultural lands is technically increasing food insecurity. Punjab, the most advantaged for producing food, has become the most disadvantaged province because real estate tycoons found in the leveled lands of Punjab the available lands to convert into “files”.
This practice has nothing to do with population growth and increasing demand for housing because the price of plots is beyond the reach of the majority of our population. The horizontal growth of housing has already eaten out fertile agricultural lands around all big cities because real estate tycoons are so strong that all laws bow down in front of them.
They actually rule the country, manipulate political developments, and influence everybody that is important in the system. Just look at Multan where thousands of mango trees are cut and sold to level agricultural lands for a new housing society and nobody dares to raise the question.
We have seen this before in Gujranwala. Agriculture lands are being converted into five-marla, 10-marla,one-kanal files. Lahore, Faisalabad,, Multan and Gujranwala divisions are the most affected areas where agriculture fields, that produced wheat, sugarcane, and other seasonal crops and vegetables and fodder for animals are now just “plot files”. The most unfortunate part of this whole game is that money earned out of files is not fully coming into the economic circle of the country and only thousands of people are making billions of rupees by converting farmland into housing colonies.
A report published last year by the Turkish News Agency (Anadolu Agency) indicates that real estate developers offer farmers triple the market price, a temptation hard to ignore, and even use administrative and political power if any farmer tries to refuse selling land.
Playing havoc with the food security of the country while providing almost nothing to the majority of the population of the country, real estate tycoons are beyond the law of land and they can shave away jungles, fertile lands, and fruit gardens with the direct help of the state and laws always go in their favour.
Alas, nobody is here to help those who do not want to sell their land. In the Rawalpindi division, several farmers had been murdered in the last 20 years over this issue when many villagers refused to sell their lands to tycoons for their housing societies. The reality is simple: farmers who used to produce their own food are now buying wheat, flour, and vegetables from the market
According to a report of the Kisan Board of Pakistan, around 20-30 percent of fertile land in Punjab province, which produces 65 percent of the country’s total food requirement, has been converted into industrial units and housing schemes. Only in the Lahore division, 70 percent of agricultural land has been converted to housing and industrial units, followed by Gujrat where the ratio is 60 percent. Unfriendly Indo-Pak relationships are a factor that border areas are still providing food because they cannot be converted into housing societies due to security reasons but in the future laws can be amended to pave the way for the expansion of several housing societies till the border line between Pakistan and India.
The city-wise situation according to the Kisan Board report is that in Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, and Kasur, 30-40 percent of fertile land has been sold to real estate developers and industrialists in the last five years. The landholding ratio is still satisfactory in southern Punjab and the northern districts of Sindh, which together are currently producing more than 50 percent of the country’s wheat, sugarcane, and cotton. I fear soon real estate tycoons would move to other parts of southern Punjab for developing new housing societies after the successful sales in Multan.
One can say that this disproportionate conversion is due to the demand for housing units for disproportionate population growth. Yes, it can be a reason but plot prices in housing societies that have eaten up agricultural lands are not in the breach of a common man in Pakistan. Plots and even files are so expensive in these housing societies that only the rich class is playing in this field. The minimum rate of a five-marla plot in such housing societies is over Rs 5 million. Can a poor and lower-middle-class person have enough money for a five-marla plot?
Businessmen dealing in these housing societies are mostly serving retired civil and military men who had been before in the business of car dealing just 30 years ago. This business is running, owned, and looked after by a particular clas,s therefore it is not helping the overall economy of the country. How can we demand or expect small farmers not to sell their lands when such a strong group, along with real estate tycoons, is in the business?
The PTI government, by using the term “economic growth” provided exceptional support to this including amnesty of investing in real estate, by announcing that the government would not ask any question about the source of income if someone would invest in the construction industry. Instead of providing low-cost housing schemes for the poor as promised in the PTI manifesto, favours were provided to powerful, rather almost “untouchable”, real estate czars.
In Pakistan, the horizontal growth of housing units is directly linked with the horizontal growth of their businesses that are calling the shots in the real estate world, and they are expanding products and services by announcing new housing societies. They are not providing low-cost housing units to a country where around 30 percent of the population is living under the poverty line and where the lower middle class is already fighting hard to avoid the “extinct phase”. The import of edibles is surely further hurting the poor and middle-income social classes while the powerful are minting money by eating out agricultural lands.
Playing havoc with the food security of the country while providing almost nothing to the majority of the population of the country, real estate tycoons are beyond the law of land and they can shave away jungles, fertile lands, and fruit gardens with the direct help of the state and laws always go in their favour.
