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“Calling Cholistan a ‘barren wasteland’ to justify corporate land grabs is not just false—it erases our history,”
For years, Pakistan has been battered by a cascade of crises—from the economic shocks of the COVID-19 lockdowns to the catastrophic 2022 floods that hit a third of the country. Political instability, acute insecurity, rampant inflation, widening fiscal deficit and unsustainable external debt, have all pushed the nation to the brink. Amid this turmoil, the 2022 food crisis exacerbated Pakistan’s already dire nutrition situation.
Capitalising on this vulnerability, the Pakistani government has increasingly turned to corporate farming as a purported solution - and a profit-making venture. To advance this agenda, it has privileged two deep-pocketed regional allies: the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.
March 14, 2025. On the occasion of the International Day of Action for Rivers, a rally was organized by Awami Tahreek and Sindhyani Tahreek from the village of Karan Shoro in Qasimabad, Pakistan, reaching Al-Manzar Jamshoro, where tribute was paid to the Indus River. The participants protested against six new canals, amendments to the IRSA Act, and corporate farming projects. A large number of women and children actively participated in the rally. Flowers were showered into the Indus River as a tribute and a pledge was renewed to continue the struggle for the protection of the Indus River until the last breath. Photo by Awami Tahreek & Hari Tahreek, Sindh, PKRC
Paradoxically, Pakistan’s exports of rice, fruits, vegetables, meat and seafood to the UAE and Saudi Arabia could be considered a lifeline: the UAE depends on imports for 90% of its food needs and Saudi Arabia for 80%.
From the outset, Pakistan made its priorities clear to its Gulf investors: their investments in Pakistani farmland would prioritise their own food security above Pakistan’s. In 2003, Pakistan came out with the Corporate Agriculture Farming (CAF) policy and held a farmland road tour through Gulf nations to lure investors, offering tax exemptions, exemption from labour laws, duty-free equipment imports, creation of special security force to protect investors, and 100% land ownership in special free zones in agriculture, livestock, and dairy sectors.
However, the initial wave of farmland investor interest was short-lived. There was a dramatic decrease of foreign direct investment (FDI) from Gulf nations, from a peak of US$ 8 Billion in 2007 to under US$ 1 billion by 2014.
Corporate farming for the food security of Gulf nations
The SIFC
To expedite the agricultural development and investment in farming, in June 2023, Pakistan set up a civil military institution, the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), a type of authorised commerce and investment body that provides opportunities and eases investments with a vast array of powers. The SIFC is supervised by the Prime Minister and composed of provincial and federal ministers, secretaries, and high-ranking representatives from the Pakistan Armed Forces. The SIFC serves as a top-down decision-making platform designed to do whatever it takes to streamline investment, privatisation, and business offers with a focus on five key sectors: defence, minerals, information technology, energy and agriculture. Within days of the launch of SIFC, four terminals of Karachi ports were leased to a UAE-based company, AD Ports Group, for more than 30 years.
In agriculture, the SIFC intends to hand over provincial government land for cultivation to corporations.To get all this done, the SIFC created the Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI), a programme aimed at increasing agricultural productivity by attracting private investors - both domestic and foreign. Key components include:
• The Land Information and Management System (LIMS) which maps and reclaims uncultivated land, builds canals for floodwater storage, and introduces modern farming technology.
• The Green Corporate Initiative (Private) Limited (GCI), which leases cultivable land for 30 years under joint ventures and allocates it to investors.
The GPI has identified 1.92 million hectares of “barren” land for corporate farming - an area nearly the size of Slovenia and larger than Kuwait. So far, around 400,000 hectares of land have been allocated to private investors, sparking growing public backlash over concerns that small farmers and herders will be displaced, cutting off their access to land and water.
This corporate farming approach - around land and resource grabbing- mirrors patterns seen in the implementation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), where vast tracts of land were allocated to Chinese firms under the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.
Saudi and UAE agribusiness investment
Following the food crisis in 2007-08, Saudi Arabia and UAE governments have sought agricultural investment abroad and raised their foreign direct investment to enhance food production and to reduce dependence on food imports. The UAE launched a National Food Security Strategy in 2019 to ensure access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for all its citizens at affordable prices, including in the event of emergencies and crises. Only 0.5% of the UAE’s land mass is arable and there has been a constant decline in its agricultural area due to desertification and soil degradation. Similarly, Saudi Arabia introduced its Vision 2030 project with the intention of diversifying its economy, with agriculture as a key area, given that in the kingdom only 1.5% of the land is suited for cultivation.
SALIC and others
Saudi Arabia is strategically boosting its foreign operations under the “King Abdalla Initiative for Saudi Agricultural Investment Abroad,” which was launched in 2008 and has targeted 35 countries for agro-investment. Its purported aim is to produce food for both the Kingdom and the target countries. The King Abdullah Initiative partially encourages land acquisitions by providing subsidies to its companies for investing in agricultural activities overseas.
Other initiatives which the Saudi government undertook to promote its overseas agricultural operations include the Public Investment Fund (PIF) initiative, the Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC), and the Saudi Private Sector Joint Venture Initiative, involving technology transfers, joint ventures, and outright purchases of agricultural businesses. The Saudi agricultural industries have spent over US$ 4.5 billion acquiring or renting vast tracts of farmland and invest in livestock, crop production, and food processing facilities in more than 16 countries.
Another Gulf country jumping on Pakistan’s farmland offer is Kuwait. In late 2023, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Pakistan for $10 billion worth of projects, which included some focused on food security. Both countries have decided to expand their economic and investment partnership focusing on sectors such as food/agriculture, water reservoirs, mining, mangrove preservation and information technology.
In 2020, the Saudi group Sarh Attaqnia Co. (SAC) signed a partnership deal with the Pakistani industrial conglomerate Fatima Group for over US$ 1 billion. The Fatima Group is one of Pakistan’s fastest expanding industrial companies, with holdings in fertilisers, energy, textiles, sugar, cement, and venture capital investment. This partnership targets the use of fallow lands in Pakistan for the production of crops like rice, barley, oats, silage bales for livestock, and the dairy industry under the Corporate Agriculture Farming initiative. Sarh Attaqnia’s marketing pitch is that it will invest in developing a state-of-the-art agriculture value chain encompassing sustainable production, processing, warehousing, and export of grain crops to help ensure regional food security. The China Machinery Engineering Company (CMEC) is also a technology partner in this deal, contributing to it with climate-smart precision agriculture farm machinery, improved high-yielding seeds, and other crop inputs.
According to Pakistan’s former caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, in 2023 the Saudi Kingdom committed to a projected US$25 billion investment over 2-5 years, with agriculture as a key focus.
In March 2024, a business-to-business (B2B) agreement was signed between Pakistan’s SIFC and the Saudi Najd Gateway Holding Company in the livestock sector, where 2,023 hectares of land in Bakkhar, Pakistan, will be utilised for alfalfa cultivation, with plans for export to Saudi Arabia to feed its dairy cows.
FonGrow, the company run by the Pakistan Army to facilitate joint corporate farming efforts between itself and the Pakistani government, has also attracted many other Saudi companies like Al-Dahara, Saleh and Al-Khorayef to invest in Pakistan’s agriculture.
Pakistan also offered the Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) a project to set up a cattle farm in Punjab for 30,000 animals with an annual production of six thousand tons of meat with an initial investment of over US$25 million. SALIC also showed interest in leasing 20,234 hectares of land.
The UAE
The UAE government and its companies went through a similar process. In response to growing food security challenges, the UAE launched its Food Security Strategy 2051 in 2019, with the ambitious targets of becoming a world-leading hub for innovation-driven food security and to lead the Global Food Security Index by 2051. The framework outlines multiple priority areas: enabling uninterrupted global food trade, diversifying food imports partnerships, and developing domestic food production.
To ensure its food security, the UAE has embarked on an ambitious investment strategy globally, which includes commercial partnerships and farmland acquisitions. The UAE government and its private sector partners such as ADQ, Al Dahra and Elite Agro have amassed some 960,000 hectares of farmland overseas to cut intermediaries, securing their supply chains, strengthening logistics and reducing the cost of food imports, thus saving up to 25% on import spending by having direct access to food crops.
The UAE is one of Pakistan’s largest trade partners and a major source of foreign investment, amounting to more than US$10 billion over the last 20 years. In December 2023, immediately after the launch of the SIFC, the UAE signed US$25 billion worth of deals, including in agriculture, starting with halal meat and date palm production for export to the UAE.
Lastly, there’s the major role played by Abu Dhabi’s ADQ sovereign wealth fund. It has acquired a 50% stake in the Al Dahra Holding Company, a multinational agribusiness leader that specialises in animal feed and essential food commodities. Al Dahra operates three rice mills in Pakistan, India and the UAE with the capacity to supply 500,000 tons annually.
Chinese companies are also investing significantly in Pakistan’s agriculture. In September 2024, around 25 Chinese companies pledged investments and signed MoUs for US$10 billion worth of investment in the agriculture, food, textile and automobile sectors. A Chinese investor has signed a protocol to cultivate 4,047 hectares in Cholistan of peanuts for export.
Earlier this year, China’s BGI group offered to launch a pilot project for growing rice and maize in Cholistan, in addition to introducing genetically modified cotton to the province.
People pushback against corporate farming
Feb 23, 2025. In Mithi, Tharparkar, Sindh Awami Tehreek & Sindhiyani Tahreek organized a protest march against the occupation of the Indus River, the construction of Cholistan canals and corporate farming.
All these huge Green Pakistan Initiative projects have been fostering outrage and pushback across the regions of Punjab and Sindh. Farmers, especially small landholders, along with environmentalists and food activists are worried that the foreign and domestic companies investing in farmland will displace farmers, limit their access to crucial agricultural resources, strain water resources and lead to an ecological disaster in the region. They’re also not buying the promises that these investments are promoting the country’s food security. They see the production of cash crops which, if at all, will end up fulfilling other countries’ food security needs, but not Pakistan’s.
A wave of campaigns and actions have been - and continue to be - rolled out by civil society to resist what are being called “corporate mafias”. In March 2024, a farmers’ conference was organised by Sindhi Hari Tehreek, a movement for the rights and welfare of farmers, peasants and tillers, in the Shahpur Chakar in the Sanghar district of Sindh, to demand an end to the occupation of Sindh lands and the construction of canals that would bring about the desertification of the province. The organisers condemned the auction of 526,092 hectares of land in the province in the name of corporate farming and demanded the dismantling of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), which they deem unconstitutional.
Feb 23, 2025. In Mithi, Tharparkar
At a press conference in Lahore in November 2024, landless peasants and smallholders - backed by the farmers’ organisations Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (PKRC) and Anjuman Mazareen Punjab (AMP)- vowed to fight rather than surrender their fields to the government’s corporate farming push. For the PKRC and AMP the solution to the predicament of rural communities is clear: comprehensive agrarian reforms, with land distributed among landless peasants, agricultural workers, and small-scale farmers.
In Lahore, farmers filed a lawsuit against military-linked agricultural projects, while activists warned that corporate farming with modern technology would deepen climate change-related catastrophes.
At the heart of it all, there is a pattern that the PKRC and allied groups denounce: the government is using corporate farming as a smokescreen for land grabs in favour of corporate mafias. Leases spanning 30 to 50 years are already gutting villages, irrespective of the court orders acknowledging these lands as the common property of peasants.
In defiance of farmers’ opposition, Punjab’s Chief Minister and the Army Chief launched the Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI) in Cholistan’s Kandai and Chapu desert on 15 February 2025. The launch included the Green Mall and Service Company (selling subsidised seeds, fertilisers, and drone rentals) and a 2,023 hectares “Smart Agri Farm”, a farm equipped with modern farming technology and irrigated by a system of six new canals diverting Sindh (Indus) waters.
News of these canal projects sparked nationwide protests. In Sindh, farming communities, fisherfolk, residents and even the political ally of the ruling party, led a wave of demonstrations, condemning the diversion of Sindh waters and warning of catastrophic water shortages. Tensions escalated further when, on 23 April, India unilaterally announced its suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, in response to the Pahalgam attack in Jammu and Kashmir. On the 24 April, the Pakistani government declared a halt to construction of the new canal, pointing to broad-based domestic opposition as one of the reasons. This marked a major victory for people against the corporate farming agenda’s water grab.
Although the suspension of the construction of the canal are a setback in the GPI’s corporate farming project, farming communities remain at risk of land grabs and other pro-corporate agricultural schemes. The Green Pakistan Initiative threatens to entrench a new feudalism – one powered by agribusiness-led monoculture farming and Gulf capital. While the model promises high-tech “modernisation”, it sidelines small farmers, replacing their livelihoods with foreign-controlled supply chains for seeds, machinery and irrigation, and this, only, if they manage to stay on their land.
In Australia, the Saudi SALIC group along with Minerva Foods, its Brazilian joint venture partner, acquired a 100% stake in the Australian Lamb Company (ALC), one of the largest meat producers in Australia, operating two processing facilities, with a capacity to process up to 3.78 million heads annually.
In 2019, the UAE’s agribusiness company Elite Agro wanted to secure 100,000 hectares of land in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Meanwhile in the Philippines, the Abu Dhabi-controlled fresh food producer Unifrutti manages 1,700 hecatares of banana plantations.
The Saudi SALIC group also has acquired a 44% stake in Olam Agri Holdings (“Olam Agri”) for approximately US$1.78 billion. Olam Agri, a Singapore-based global agribusiness company, owns and operates plantations and farms, producing raw agricultural commodities. SALIC aspires to take over a 100% stake.
In early 2022, the UAE committed to an initial investment of US$ 2 billion for setting up “food parks” across India. The food parks -integrated industrial zones for food processing, offering shared infrastructure like cold storage, warehousing, utilities, and waste management- are part of the massive US$ 7 billion food security corridor under the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) which followed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and UAE. The India-UAE Food Corridor is an initiative to connect Indian farms to processing centres and directly to the UAE’s ports throughout the food production value chain. India will provide land and will facilitate Indian farmers’ integration into the food parks.
Meanwhile, Aqua Bridge Group, a UAE-based corporation, plans to invest US$ 461 million in in developing an aquafeed plant in Uttar Pradesh that could produce up to one million tonnes of feedstock to supply India’s growing aquaculture sector.
GRAIN & Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee
Footnotes
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