BAHAWALPUR, 22 September 2009 (IRIN): Fears have been raised of a possible increase in food insecurity in Pakistan if a deal to lease out 202,342.8 hectares of farmland to Saudi Arabia goes ahead.
Talks are reportedly under way between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to finalize an agreement. The land, to be acquired in all four provinces of Pakistan, would be used to grow food to help Saudi Arabia meet its own food needs.
However, there is concern about the impact of such an agreement on Pakistan.
– Leasing land to foreign companies or the Saudis will not benefit Pakistan in any way. It will aggravate the worsening agricultural crisis we face, Farooq Tariq, secretary of the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, an alliance of 22 organizations representing peasants, told IRIN.
– It will deprive the peasantry of the right to land and it will bring no progress to agriculture. Food sovereignty will be compromised as the outsiders will come to Pakistan for just one purpose: the loot and plunder of natural resources, Tariq said.
The fact that hunger is rampant in Pakistan adds to such concerns about land leasing. The Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, which releases an annual Global Hunger Index each year, rates the level of hunger in Pakistan as “alarming”.
However, the government is moving ahead with the deal.
The acquisition of farmland in poor countries by richer nations, to meet their own food needs, is part of a global trend that has been discussed at various international forums, including the G8 meeting in July this year.
The accelerated process of land sales and leases has created alarm. Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, spoke last year of the risk of a “neo-colonial” agricultural system emerging.
The Pakistan government has said it also plans to lease land to countries other than Saudi Arabia.
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