In Pakistan today, ordinary farmers are forced to live in extreme poverty and destitution. Under state patronage, the plunder by fertiliser factory owners, sugar mill cartels, independent power producers (IPPs), large landowners, and middlemen continues unabated. Crops are purchased for a pittance, and farmers are trapped year after year in a vicious cycle of devastating debts and credit-based agricultural inputs (seeds, pesticides, fertilisers, etc.). Meanwhile, these same capitalists, large landowners, middlemen, and speculators hoard millions of tonnes of agricultural produce in warehouses—on one hand starving farmers, whilst on the other exploiting the public by selling commodities at inflated prices. This situation prevails across the entire country, and the small farmers of Bhakkar District are no exception.
Land Ownership and Class Division
Here, an ordinary poor farmer typically owns 3-5 acres of agricultural land, whilst large landowners possess thousands of acres. These same large landowners are engaged in politics and enjoy every form of state privilege. This area is counted among Pakistan’s most fertile agricultural regions.
Three types of land are found here:
1) Riverine Land (Kacha): This land lacks canal water but is extremely fertile, situated along the banks of the Rivers Indus and Jhelum. It should be noted that Bhakkar lies between these two rivers. This constitutes approximately 20-25% of the total agricultural land and is irrigated via tube wells. Water is so abundant that a 40-50 foot tube well bore is sufficient for irrigation. Sugarcane is the primary crop, followed by wheat, sugar beet, and other minor crops. The current lease rate is 100,000-150,000 rupees (~$357-536 USD) per acre annually.
2) Canal-Irrigated Land: This was previously uninhabited Thal desert land, made cultivable through the Greater Thal Canal. It comprises 25-30% of total agricultural land. Wheat is the primary crop, followed by sugarcane and pulses such as moong. Tube well bores here are 120-130 feet deep. The annual lease for this land is 50,000-80,000 rupees (~$179-286 USD).
3) Thal Rain-Fed Area: This agricultural zone depends entirely on rainfall. Khagal and eucalyptus trees are planted here for income.
The Landless Majority
The overwhelming majority consists of landless rural populations who own no land whatsoever. They either migrate to cities for work (earning 18,000-20,000 rupees (~$64-71 USD) monthly) or work as daily-wage agricultural labourers for 800 rupees (~$2.86 USD) daily). Sugarcane takes eleven months to harvest, wheat six months, and other minor crops such as millet, maize, sesame, mustard, and pulses take a few months. Agricultural land is given a one to two month rest period to restore its salinity and nutrients—that is, it is left fallow rather than sown.
Crippling Input Costs
Regarding agricultural inputs, their exorbitant prices have broken the backs of small farmers. Currently, one bag of DAP (diammonium phosphate) fertiliser costs 15,000 rupees (~$54 USD). One bag of urea costs 4,500 rupees (~$16 USD). One 10 Kg bag of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) costs 7,500-8,000 rupees (~$27-29 USD). Agricultural pesticides cost 1,000-1,500 rupees (~$3.50-5.40 USD) per litre. Farmers typically retain enough seed from each harvest for the next planting, but if dire necessity forces them to sell their entire harvest, or if crops are planted before or after the optimal time, 50-60 kg of seed per acre must be purchased—an additional cost.
Production Costs vs Returns
For wheat cultivation over six months, 3-4 bags of fertiliser and 1-2 bottles of pesticides are used per acre. Similarly, for an eleven-month sugarcane crop, 6-7 bags of fertiliser are used per acre. Estimating costs, wheat cultivation exceeds 60,000 rupees (~$214 USD) per acre, with yields of 1,500-2,000 kg per acre. Middlemen exploit farmers drowning in debt and desperate for inputs for the next planting, purchasing their crops at rock-bottom prices. Later, colluding with hoarders, they create artificial shortages and sell at whatever prices they demand. The farmer is left with approximately 15,000 rupees (~$54 USD) per acre and some straw.
For sugarcane, per-acre costs exceed 200,000 rupees (~$714 USD). Yields are 500-700 maunds per acre, and mill owners have currently fixed the rate at 400 rupees (~$1.43 USD) per maund. Farmers are left with 60,000-70,000 rupees (~$214-250 USD) per acre from sugarcane, whilst minor crops like moong dal and millet provide barely subsistence income. On average, canal water is available for half an hour every eight days. Therefore, the enormous electricity or diesel bill for running tube wells all month is a separate burden. Installing a new tube well requires 150,000-200,000 rupees (~$536-714 USD) in bribes to the electricity department, plus hundreds of thousands for boring and installation. Those who cannot afford tube wells must purchase water at inflated prices from wealthy farmers or large landowners. Running tube wells on solar panels also requires hundreds of thousands of rupees. The Punjab government launched a so-called solar energy project for farmers, receiving 400,000 applications from across Punjab, yet only 20,000 applicants received solar installations. The remaining applications were discarded. Solar panels are also available for hire, which reduces costs somewhat but remains an additional expense.
Exploitation at Every Turn
Farmers owning just a few acres cannot afford tractors and must hire them. A hired tractor costs 3,000 rupees (~$10.70 USD) per pass, with two passes required per acre. Comparing total costs against sale proceeds reveals that farmers are left with insufficient money even for two square meals a day. Under such circumstances, speculators operating under state patronage trap farmers in such cycles of debt and helplessness that produce is taken at arbitrary rates and sold in markets. To suppress local prices, wheat is imported whilst the domestic crop is still standing. When the impoverished farmer is forced to sell at rock-bottom prices just to survive, this wheat—purchased for next to nothing—is exported for trillions of rupees. When artificial domestic shortages are created, hoarded wheat is released and sold at inflated prices in local markets. A complex web of local agricultural produce, imports, and exports has been created in which everyone from ordinary farmers to urban workers is trapped and suffering, whilst trillions of rupees are plundered annually.
Dire Living Conditions
Visiting any rural area across the province clearly reveals the devastating conditions in which farmers are forced to live. There is a severe lack of basic necessities such as healthcare, education, housing, infrastructure, and recreational facilities. Where something does exist, it is beyond reach due to exorbitant costs.
The Green Pakistan Initiative: Land Grabs
This entire situation has been made even more severe by the “Green Pakistan Initiative.” Under this programme, the Punjab government has allocated over 35,000 acres of land to the Pakistani Army, and across the province, more than 800,000 acres are being allocated, displacing small farmers who have been settled for generations on government land farms in various districts. The primary pretext is ownership—that farmers lack official documents to prove ownership. In response, the Punjab Tenants’ Association (Anjuman Muzarain Punjab) has launched a struggle under the slogan “Ownership or Death,” with Bhakkar District currently being the most radical centre.
The true reality of this programme is that it is forcibly introducing corporate farming across Punjab and the country. This involves severe exploitation of all local natural resources and wage labourers, with all agricultural production to be exported at rock-bottom prices. This creates a clear possibility of astronomical price increases and shortages of basic agricultural commodities domestically. Additionally, farmers settled for generations will be displaced and destroyed.
PTUS Campaign strongly condemn this daylight robbery and demand the immediate cessation of forced evictions and the granting of ownership rights to farmers.
Root Causes and the Way Forward
We believe that the root cause of all problems facing farmers is the capitalist system, in which the back-breaking labour of farmers is plundered by capitalists, middlemen, and speculators under state patronage, who then sell in markets and pocket all the wealth. True freedom is economic freedom, and farmers can never achieve this freedom under capitalism. Rather, as the economic system continues to deteriorate, this oppression and exploitation will only intensify. For decades, we have witnessed sloganeering by various political parties and wealthy leaders of farmers’ associations about providing cheap agricultural inputs through subsidies, provision of facilities, and so forth.
Yet throughout this entire period, farmers’ poverty and exploitation have only increased. We should support all legitimate demands of farmers to improve their living conditions, but we believe that the true leadership of the struggle for these demands should be in the hands of people’s committees created by ordinary farmers themselves. This struggle must also be linked with the struggles of urban workers. Furthermore, the work of connecting the farmers’ movement with a programme must be advanced.
Programme for Change
We believe all problems can only be solved through:
- Taking all fertiliser factories, sugar mills, agricultural input industries, and IPPs into collective ownership
- Ending the profit-based market system and eliminating middlemen and speculators
- Cancelling all debts
- Establishing workers’ control over exports and imports
- Reconstructing agriculture and irrigation systems on modern technical foundations
- Ending large landholdings and granting ownership rights to all farmers
Only a relationship of cooperative and fair exchange of produce and goods between farmers and urban workers can pave the way for prosperity for society as a whole. Farmers should be encouraged with the right to freely join cooperative farming rather than corporate farming, with the primary objective being the cultivation, growth, and increased production of basic necessity crops rather than cash crops.
The only path to achieving all these objectives is building an organisation of workers, farmers, and young people based on a correct programme that will forever liberate the people from the devastation of capitalism.
Note: Currency conversions based on exchange rate of approximately 280 PKR = 1 USD (December 2025)