• Leaders say that millions of farmers are ready for judicial arrest, but they will not pay the tax
• The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture promises to move from the court or go for other crops
Hyderabad: The Chamber of Agriculture of Sindh (SCA) has announced that it will challenge the 45PC Agricultural Income Tax in the courts. He described the tax as “unconstitutional, illegal and not very ethical”, and asked its members and farmers of Sindh to boycott wheat cultivation this year.
The decision was taken at the Chamber meeting held here on Tuesday under the presidency of its boss pattern, Dr. Syed Nadeem Qamar.
The meeting rejected the tax and said it was imposed under the directives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The farmers who attended the meeting argued that they were not receiving fair prices for their products and, as such, there was no justification for the imposition of said tax.
The meeting asked farmers throughout Sindh not to pay the tax, and warned that if the government turned to arrest them for this disobedience, millions of other farmers also cut the arrests in court. “We are ready to face the imprisonment, but we will not pay the agricultural income tax,” said the leaders of the farmers at the meeting.
The participants announced a complete boycott of the Agricultural Income Tax and asked the Government with exemptions similar to those given to the industrialists.
The SCA told farmers to boycott wheat cultivation for the 2025-26 season in the field that they were not obtaining adequate support prices.
Farmers promised to look for alternative growing crops, such as mustard, nigella (Kalonji), sunflower and other oilseed seeds. They said that due to the very low prices of wheat, they could not even recover the cost of production, and this year it will be marked as a “boycott year” for wheat cultivation.
Decrease in cotton production
The Chamber expressed its deep concern for more than 40 percent in cotton production, estimating that the yield would not exceed four million bullets. He said the farmers were receiving only RS6,500 by Maund for Cotton, although Sindh’s Minister of Agriculture had promised RS11,000 by Maund who did not materialize.
SCA demanded the withdrawal of the 18PC local tax on cotton and the imposition of a 25 percent tax on imported cotton to discourage imports from this local production. He expressed concern about the increase in the cost of agricultural inputs, citing an increase of RS22 per liter in diesel prices and the increase of RS600 per bag in the DAP fertilizer in the last 15 days.
He said that the prices of essential agricultural inputs were paralyzing farmers, especially because they were not receiving fair prices for their products. He considered that these developments indicated a deliberate destruction of the agricultural sector. He demanded an immediate reversal of the increase in diesel prices, fertilizers, seeds, pesticides and other agricultural supplies.
The Chamber urged farmers to contact their respective Mukhtiarkars (administrative officials) and related officials to register for the Benazir Hari card. He demanded that the RS10,000 subsidy per ACRE, currently available for sunflower and canola crops, also extend to mustard and rapes.
The meeting was attended by the Irrigation and Draidage Authority of Sindh, Kabool Khatian, Secretary General Zahid Bhurgari, Nabi Bux Sorry, Shahnawaz Khan Jamali, Asgha others.
Posted in Dawn, July 23, 2025
