LAHORE: The Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee and Sawera Foundation held a seminar and demonstration on Monday demanding food sovereignty and sustainable practices in agriculture.

The seminar brought together small farmers, peasants, civil society, government representatives and agricultural experts to discuss food security and farmers rights in the country.

This year’s plenary session also marks the 20th anniversary of the right to food guidelines, a framework adopted in 2004 by the member states of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to ensure access to adequate and sustainable food.

Farmer leader and general secretary of the South Asia peasant coalition Tariq Mehmood said, “It is unacceptable that small farmers are struggling to sell their wheat while the government refuses to buy their yield. Instead of supporting local production, the government’s decision to import wheat undermined farmers and impacted food security in the country. We demand that the government provide adequate minimum support prices for wheat and sugar, ensuring that our farmers are protected.”

The farmer bodies have continuously criticized the government’s decision to import wheat in the second half of last year and the first three months of this year, resulting in an excess of wheat in the market and reducing prices. Following devastating floods in Pakistan in 2022, the impact on wheat farming caused a shortage of wheat in early 2023. According to figures from the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, between September 2023 and March 2024, more than 3.5 million tonnes of wheat were imported into Pakistan from the international market, where prices were much lower. As a result of the excess, at the beginning of April this year, when Pakistan’s farmers started harvesting their wheat, the country’s national and provincial food storage department held more than 4.3 million tonnes of wheat in its stocks.

Farmers’ leader Chaudhry Mohammad Abbas advocate said, “Governments’ decision to allow unlimited private importation of wheat severely affected small farmers. With Wheat stocks being full small farmers had to sell what they could to other sources at much-reduced prices and they had to suffer great losses. Without competitive and minimum support prices for our staple crops, the food security in the country can’t be ensured,” Abbas added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024