Final Year Project

Project Title

The Political Economy of Corporate Farming: A Case Study of the Green Pakistan Initiative in Cholistan

Description

This paper examines Pakistan’s shift toward corporate farming under the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) and its Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI). Using a Marxian political-economy framework, it analyses how state-led, capital-intensive agricultural reforms reproduce patterns of inequality and elite control. Through qualitative methods including expert interviews, document analysis, and a case study of the Cholistan project, it explores governance, land and water politics, and socio-economic impacts. The study finds that centralized decision-making sidelines local communities and experts, creating transparency gaps and risks of land dispossession, water diversion, environmental harm, and uneven economic gains. Without accountability, ecological safeguards, and inclusion of smallholders, corporate farming risks deepening existing agrarian inequalities.