Thread: Corporate Agricultural Farming – Need of Hour
#Pakistan continues to face serious concerns about food insecurity despite being an agri-based society.
Even Pakistan's national security policy has emphasized food security as an imp aspect of non-traditional security.
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#Pakistan continues to face serious concerns about food insecurity despite being an agri-based society.
Even Pakistan's national security policy has emphasized food security as an imp aspect of non-traditional security.
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Ample availability of water, a suitable climate, arable land, employment of innovative technologies, and availability of power supplies are crucial elements of food security.
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Water insufficiency, urbanization, lack of investment, and rising production costs pose a challenge to national food security. Studies have shown that Pak could experience water scarcity by 2025 & become the most water-stressed country in South Asia by 2040.
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Therefore, it is necessary to devise an active policy to mitigate this looming threat.
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The Global Hunger Index (GHI) has ranked Pakistan 99 out of 121 nations, with its hunger categorized as ‘serious'. Following the disastrous floods of 2022, Pakistan faces a scenario wherein has been largely impacted and compromised.
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The agricultural sector contributes around 23% to Pak’s GDP, however, recent floods of 2022 damaged 8.3 million acres of crops, with over 3.4 million being affected in Sindh alone. This destroyed Agri sector by disrupting the essential supply chain of food commodities.
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As per Pak Bureau of Statistics, around 1.46 million hectares of land in Punjab during the year 2019-20 was categorized as cultivable wasteland. The land is cultivable but not being utilized due to factors like water logging, salinity, electricity, tech & inadequate capital.
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To improve the efficiency of agricultural system, it is imp to bring more area under under cultivation, increase investment in tech and bring more monetary revenue. This will increase the export production of Pakistan's Agri sector.
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In this connection, GoP announced a policy package to introduce Corporate Agriculture Farming CAF in 2001-2002.
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The idea of corporate farming was to cultivate wasteland in Pak by bringing foreign corporations which will cultivate these lands by employing tech & local labor at attractive wages, train local people, pay local taxes, etc, while bringing prosperity at nominal profits.
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About 30,000 acres of barren land are being made fertile annually in Punjab, however, with the growing population rate and rising food insecurity, the speed of this process is extremely slow as the province has over 3.8 million acres of barren / non-agricultural land.
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In a positive development recently, 45,267 acres of barren land have been allotted to #PakistanArmy to assist govt to transform Pak’s barren lands to harness their potential. As for decades, agriculture has faced negligence from authorities.
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With the help of Army thru Corporate Agricultural farming, the barren lands would create investment marvels that will resultantly, mitigate food challenges to a great extent. It would boost livelihood of farmers, generating employment and giving enhancing revenue generation.
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#PakArmy will incorporate 'Corporate Agricultural Farming' through foreign funding. The revenue generated through Corporate Agricultural farming would not benefit Army by any means.
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🔶Revenue Division:
📌 40% of the wealth generated would be utilized for the next yield of crops
📌 40% of the profit generated would be handed over to Govt of Punjab
📌 The remaining 20% would be utilized for farming technology, practices, research and development, etc
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📌 40% of the wealth generated would be utilized for the next yield of crops
📌 40% of the profit generated would be handed over to Govt of Punjab
📌 The remaining 20% would be utilized for farming technology, practices, research and development, etc
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Pakistan possesses immense agriculture potential, as it is predominantly an agricultural country. Nearly two-third of country's population is dependent on agriculture-related activities. However, as per UNDP report, 80% of Pakistan’s area consists of arid or semi-arid lands.
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These terrains are vulnerable to desertification - a process whereby cultivable land gets degraded to a desert due to drought, deforestation, primitive and improper agricultural practices, climate change or when these all factors are at play simultaneously.
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For example the large arid areas in Southern Punjab including - Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bhakkar, Khushab, Layyah. Similarly, wasteland areas in Balochistan and Sindh resulting from relatively marginalized water pumping systems and water scarcity.
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The global community is finding ways to exploit the untapped potential of barren land. China is constantly transforming its deserts into green lands. For eg, the Mu Us Desert of China was undergoing desertification but 93% of it's land has now been transformed to Greenland.
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Presently,farmers in the United Arab Emirates have begun using a Norwegian technology of mixing nano-clay with water and binding them to sand particles to condition the desert soil for growing food in deserts.
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Rather than spreading negativity, the project undertaken by military should be taken as a positive development to cultivate and utilize the barren terrain in Pakistan.
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In the past, Pak Army has taken various developmental initiatives in collaboration with the federal / provincial govts for building a stronger, greater and prosperous Pakistan.
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