Land Reforms: A Landlord's Perspective

Recently there has been a spate of letters in Pakistani newspapers from several persons promoting further Land Reforms. Unfortunately most of these persons have no idea of facts and are relying merely on perceptions.

It is incorrect to say that the tillers of the soil are at the mercy of the landlord. In fact it is the other way around. The landlord has to depend on the farm workers for production from his land. The investment in Land and Inputs like Fertilizer, Seeds, Pesticides and farm implements Like tractors, Harvesters and Threshers is the landlord’s while the labour is provided by the farm workers. If the farm worker is lazy or does not take timely actions, then the landlord loses all his investment. Farming is the only industry in Pakistan where the labourer gets up to fifty percent of the revenue (Not fifty percent of Income) earned. In bad times like droughts and floods it is the landlord who bales out the worker since he feels responsible towards his people. At the end of the day after deduction of expenses, the landlord is left with only about thirty percent of the revenue as Income. The difference here is that the farm workers earn from a few acres while the landlord may get a smaller percentage from many acres of land and hence a higher earning in total. The average income of a small trader or a restaurant owner in Karachi is much higher than that of many big landlords. The main difference is that the landlord tries to maintain a certain standard of living and therefore lives an ostentatious lifestyle and hence appears to be very wealthy.

Would the various learned writers on this subject agree to letting the workers have a share in all the respective industries and businesses where they work?

In terms of elections, all over the world it is the local who runs and primarily a local with sufficient means to pay for the enormous election expenses. Therefore it is not likely that a poor non-resident can afford to run for office and can expect to win.

The reality of life is that the poor villager votes for his landlord not under coercion, but because he needs the support of the landlord to prevent him from all sorts of oppression. The first thing that a poor villager looks for is protection from the high handedness of the police, secondly he looks for someone who can provide him protection from dacoits and other villagers who may be of threat to him and thirdly to have a notable provide quick justice by acting in the form of an arbitrator in case of family or property disputes.

Land Reforms or a forced reduction in private land holding will provide no solution, but will act to the contrary. This experiment has been tried in the past but has had no success. On the average only sixty percent of the land is usually cultivable. In the case of cash crops like sugarcane, the land needs to be rotated every three years, which implies that you cannot use the same land continuously but have to use different portions of land under different crops, all of which may not be profitable. An example in this case is the use of clover, which is then either used as animal fodder or is simply plowed back into the ground to provide it with organic matter and nutrients. Thus less than fifty percent of the total land holding is actually put to productive use at any one time.

The primary reasons for low productivity are; lack of mechanization, irregular supply of water, expensive pesticides and fertilizer and reluctance on the part of the farm worker to use modern farming techniques and mechanization.

Reduction in the size of the land holdings will do nothing other than reduce the total productivity, as poor farmers will lack the necessary resources to provide the necessary inputs. On the other hand the big landlords with reduced land holdings will not find it economical to invest in technology. The minimum average land holding required in Sindh to make it profitable, for example is about 200 acres. Whereas at least 1000 acres is required to make a big investment worthwhile. In countries like the United States and Canada the average land holding is between 2000 and 3000 acres and there are still issues for farmers and people expect a reduction in land holding in Pakistan will make everyone well off.

Let us stop trying to make agriculturists scapegoats for every ill in our society and try and identify the root causes of the ills in our society.