Pakistan Army’s Feudal Interest in Agriculture

On 29 December 2023, General Asim Munir, Pakistan’s Army Chief was invited to address the National Agricultural Convention in Islamabad. It may be difficult to imagine a uniformed general imparting wisdom to the agricultural scientific community, but Pakistan is an exception. The Army is always at the centre stage of everything that happens in the country.To his credit, the General did not disappoint the willing audience and reiterated the commitment of the army to support the country’s struggling agriculture sector. Pakistan is often dubbed as an agrarian economy as agriculture contributes approximately 23 percent to Pakistan’s GDP and employs over 37 percent of its population workforce. However, due to factors such as an acute water crisis, decreasing cultivation area and sub-par land productivity, the agricultural imports of Pakistan have risen steeply and now amount to over US$10 billion. As per the recent statistics of the World Food Programme (WFP), almost 37 percent of Pakistanis are still food insecure. These adverse conditions were aggravated by the devastating floods of 2022 and consequently, the agriculture sector considered the backbone of the national economy requires serious reforms. Pakistan, where the countryside was once marked by extensive green fields, now faces a grim reality of acute land stress accentuated by population explosion, climate change and power-hungry real estate mafia.Against this bleak economic backdrop, the Pakistan Army has seized the opportunity and emerged as a driving force for the launch of the “Green Pakistan Initiative”, through which the government aims to enhance agriculture production and reduce food insecurity. Under this scheme, it is planned that farmers will be provided with better facilities including easy provision of loans and adoption of best practices. COAS Genneral Asim Munir has repeatedly reiterated the Army’s commitment to the Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI). Towards this, the Pakistan Army has developed the Land Information and Management System (LIMS) to modernise Pakistan’s agriculture sector by reclaiming uncultivated and barren land across the country. An officer of the rank of major general has been given charge of the LIMS and appointed as Director General of Strategic Projects (DGSP) to coordinate the planned government initiatives nationwide. The newly established system also aims to provide real-time guidance to the farmer community regarding weather conditions, irrigation techniques, crop yields, and use of modern technologies. One of the stated objectives of the Army is to revive the economy by reclaiming uncultivated wasteland to boost socio-economic development in Pakistan. It has proposed to build a new network of irrigation canals to reclaim over nine million hectares of uncultivated wasteland. COAS General Asim Munir has shown an unusual personal interest in this venture and has repeatedly assured all the stakeholders that the Green Pakistan initiative will receive complete support from the General Headquarters (GHQ). “Corporate Farming” is thus the new buzz word and the Army has even created new agro subsidiaries such as FonGrow, under the aegis of its Fauji Foundation. In July 2023,it also inaugurated a “State of the Art Corporate Agriculture Park” spread over 2,250 acres in Pirowal in Punjab. Similar plans for ushering agricultural prosperity have been made for the barren Cholistan desert where the use of modern technology for sustainable farming and establishment of agri-malls for agricultural commerce is on the anvil. After much public criticism, the Sindh government has also agreed with M/s Green Corporate Initiative Pvt Ltd—another company formed under the umbrella of the Pakistan Army— and decided to allot the firm with approximately 52,000 acres of land spread across six districts for corporate farming. The 52,713 acres of “barren” land include 28,000 acres in Khairpur, 10,000 acres in Tharparkar, 9,305 acres in Dadu, 1,000 acres in Thatta, 3,408 acres in Sujawal and 1,000 acres in Badin. This vast tract of land will be handed over to the GHQ-owned firm for the next 20 years to execute its ‘Green Pakistan Initiative’. Another lease agreement has been signed by the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which gives the Army ownership rights to cultivate over 17,000 hectares of land in South Waziristan. Peshawa- based XI Corps has already commenced farming on 1,000 acres of land in the Zarmalam area of South Waziristan and plans to expand the farming area to approximately 41,000 acres over the next few years. In March 2022, GHQ‘s land directorate “requested” the Punjab Government for 45,267 acres of land for corporate farming in districts of Bhakkar(42,724 acres), Khushab (1,818 acres), and Sahiwal(725 acres). This proposal for transfer of land was in fact considered as only the first part of an overall request for over 10 lakh acres of government land in future.