Issues related to Agriculture and Islamic perspective
Current
crises with farmers agitating against the new government laws recently enacted
highlights the sorrowful status of farmers; their miseries; reviewing issues
related to farmers and status of Agriculture in the golden period of Islam
Let’s see the
following subjects related to the above topics:
- Importance of Agriculture in Islam
- Agricultural practices in Golden period of Islam (700 AD – 1250 AD)
- Over Population and their sustenance – Myth or reality?
- Food wastages around the world
- Hoarding of essentials – Islamic Teachings
- Impact of Corporate farming – American Poultry & African Agricultural Models
- What solutions to look at for future?
Importance
of Agriculture In Islam
Farmers are
called fallah which is derived from root word F-L-H ف ل ح.
فَلْحٌ (falah): to tear apart, to make a gap.
فَلَّاحٌ (fallah): a farmer because he tills the soil
and thus tears it apart to get it ready for sowing {T, M, R}.
فَلَاحَۃٌ (fallahah): cultivator and to cultivate {T}.
Since the
return or compensation of a فَلَّاحٌ (fallahun) or farmer_s
labour is that for each seed he sows he gets hundreds of grains when the crop
comes up and matures, thus the word فَلَاحٌ (falah) has come to mean
multiplied success and well-being {Ibn Faris}.
Quran
has emphasized the role played by agriculture and considered these as signs for
those who believes.
وَهُوَ
الَّذِي أَنزَلَ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً فَأَخْرَجْنَا بِهِ نَبَاتَ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ
فَأَخْرَجْنَا مِنْهُ خَضِرًا نُّخْرِجُ مِنْهُ حَبًّا مُّتَرَاكِبًا وَمِنَ
النَّخْلِ مِن طَلْعِهَا قِنْوَانٌ دَانِيَةٌ وَجَنَّاتٍ مِّنْ أَعْنَابٍ
وَالزَّيْتُونَ وَالرُّمَّانَ مُشْتَبِهًا وَغَيْرَ مُتَشَابِهٍ ۗ انظُرُوا إِلَىٰ ثَمَرِهِ إِذَا أَثْمَرَ
وَيَنْعِهِ ۚ إِنَّ فِي
ذَٰلِكُمْ لَآيَاتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يُؤْمِنُونَ ﴿٩٩﴾
And it is He
Who has sent down water from the heavens, and thereby We have brought
vegetation of every kind, and out of this We have brought forth green foliage
and then from it close-packed ears of corn, and out of the palm-tree from the
sheath of it - thick clustered dates, hanging down with heaviness, and gardens
of vines, and the olive tree, and the pomegranate - all resembling one another
and yet so different. Behold their fruit when they bear fruit and ripen!
Surely, in all this there are signs for those who believe. (6:99)
Planting
a tree is a noble cause and will be rewarded as Sadaqa Jariya.
Narrated Anas
bin Malik: Allah’s Apostle (PBUH) said, “There is none amongst the Muslims who
plants a tree or sows seeds, and then a bird, or a person or an animal eats
from it, but is regarded as a charitable gift for him.” Sahih Bukhari Vol.3
Book 39, No.513
Sustenance
(Rizq) of each Individual is fixed
وَمَا مِن دَابَّةٍ فِي
الْأَرْضِ إِلَّا عَلَى اللَّـهِ رِزْقُهَا وَيَعْلَمُ مُسْتَقَرَّهَا وَمُسْتَوْدَعَهَا ۚ كُلٌّ فِي كِتَابٍ
مُّبِينٍ ﴿٦﴾
There is not
a single moving creature on the earth but Allah is responsible for providing
its sustenance. He knows where it dwells and where it will permanently rest.
All this is recorded in a clear Book. (11:6)
Your rizq is
written for you but in order for you to unlock the door, you need to work as if
your rizq depended on how hard you try, but in your heart, you know that
nothing will come to you except what Allah (swt) has written for you.
One
should Prioritize Akhirah to limit greediness
مَن كَانَ يُرِيدُ حَرْثَ
الْآخِرَةِ نَزِدْ لَهُ فِي حَرْثِهِ ۖ وَمَن كَانَ يُرِيدُ حَرْثَ
الدُّنْيَا نُؤْتِهِ مِنْهَا وَمَا لَهُ فِي الْآخِرَةِ مِن نَّصِيبٍ ﴿٢٠﴾
Whoever seeks
the harvest of the Hereafter, We shall increase for him his harvest, and
whoever seeks the harvest of this world, We shall give him thereof; but he will
have no share in the Hereafter. (42:20)
Golden
Age of Islam
Between the eighth and 12th centuries, the Islamic rules and land ownership and labour rights created big incentives to engage in agriculture. There are a number of hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) which relate to land ownership and the importance of equitable distribution of yields from agricultural production. During the Islamic Agricultural Revolution, Islamic precepts and customary laws ensured that farming was conducted more many places, any individual – man or woman – had the right to own, buy, sell, mortgage and inherit land, and most importantly, farm it as he or she liked. Relatively low rates of taxation, where they of output, freeing farmers from uncertain taxes. Large estates, which had come to dominate everywhere and monopolise agriculture, were often broken down into smaller ownerships, or at least had to compete with smaller farms and individual peasant smallholdings. The lands around cities were given over to small market gardens and orchards. Serfdom and slavery were virtually absent from the countryside in the early Islamic world; instead, the legal and actual condition of the overwhelming majority of those who worked on the land was one of freedom.
During the period of Umar Bin Abdul Aziz the Umayyad Caliph it is narrated by Yahya bin saeed that he was the revenue collector of Africa and when he tried to find poor to distribute zakath, he could find none as there were no poor people in the city and all of them were living prosperous life (Life History of Umar bin Abdul Aziz Part 1 page 65)
Muslims developed Water wheel called Saqia in Andalusia (spain)
For more details visit the below link.
http://www.arcworld.org/downloads/Islamic-Farming-Toolkit.pdf
https://kitabosunnat.com/kutub-library/masla-malkiyat-e-zameen
Hoarding
in Islam
Islam prohibits hoarding, which creates
dearth, fear, price hikes; and hoarding deprives some people of buying some
essential goods. God has created this universe for human beings and the human
being is created for the worship of God.
Generally, hoarding is done when sellers
want to make an illegitimate profit. It is observed that hoarding deprives
people of their entitlement. The human being is free in Islam. When people are
deprived of their entitlements, this constitutes an injustice.
Overusing
resources, abusing human beings and hoarding wealth are things that are
despised in our religion and Allah (swt) warns us severely against them.
Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ)
in a saḥîḥ ḥadith addressed the sin of hoarding:
Narrated Ma’mar b. Abi Ma’mar [one of the
children of ‘Adi b. Ka’b]:
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: No one withholds
[ya-khtakîr] goods till their price rises but a sinner [khâṭi’]. I said to Sa’id (b.
al-Musayyab): You withhold goods till their price rises. He said: Ma’mar used
to withhold goods till their price rose.
Abu Dawud said: I asked Ahmad (b. Hanbal):
What [does the term] “hoarding
(hukrah)” [apply to] ? He
replied: That on which people live.
Abu Dawud said: Al-Auza’i said: A mukhṭakir [one who hoards] is one who withholds a supply of
goods in the market. (Sunan Abî Dâwûd #3447)
EXPLOITATION
VS. MANAGEMENT
Some people have argued that hoarding is
lawful when it comes to food grains; they give the example of Prophet
Yusuf(RA) . However, taking such inferences from this incident is wrong in
terms of present day hoarding and price-gouging. Prophet Yusuf(RA) had stored the food grain
in an open and responsible way for the public good, for combating against the
coming drought in Egypt: Yusuf officially managed the nationwide supply of
grain in order to be able to distribute it equitably to the nation over the span
of seven difficult years (Sûrah Yûsuf, 12:47-48); he did not hoard it for the
profit of himself or a select group. He was the Prophet, and he was informed
well before the famine incident began, in order to prepare for disaster
management. The Quran called him trustworthy, knowledgeable and experienced. He
was given the authority of minister to the king [Pharoah] (12:54-56) in
order to control and mitigate the impact of the calamitous drought in Egypt.
It is not lawful to hoard goods. There are
some exceptions to the prohibition of storing up needed goods. Certain
“hoarding” is allowed in Islam. For instance, keeping some goods in cold
storage is not hoarding. These goods are kept for their preservation and
sellers supply goods to the market for sale throughout the year, even though
they might be produced in restricted time periods.
Profit Maximization and Hoarding: An Islamic
Corrective Prof Irfan Shahid is an India-based shari'ah
scholar and economist.
https://www.aljumuah.com/profit-maximization-and-hoarding-an-islamic-corrective
There are various hadiths which prohibit the
hoarding of goods and public resources. Some of the hadiths are these:
The Prophet (ﷺ)
said that one who hoards some goods for forty days will not be able to perceive
the fragrance of Paradise, while the fragrance of Paradise reaches upto a
distance of five hundred year’s journey. When even the fragrance of paradise is
prohibited to a person, there is no question of his entering Heaven. (Mustadrak
al-Wasa’il Vol. 12 page 212)
Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ)
said that he heard angel Jibril say that there was a valley in Hell and fierce
fire blazed in it. When he asked the caretaker of Hell about those who would be
put there, he said that it was for three groups: The hoarders, the drunkards,
and those who earned a commission on unlawful deals. (Mustadrak
al-Wasa’il Vol. 2 page 314)
Narrated by ‘Umar bin Khattab
The Prophet (ﷺ)
said that whoever hoards food (and keeps it from) the Muslims, Allah will
afflict him with leprosy and poverty. (Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith #
2155)
Narrated by Ibn ‘Umar
The Prophet (ﷺ)
said that If anyone withholds grain for forty days out of the desire for a high
price, Allah will renounce him.” (Ahmad
& al-Hakim, Hadith # 4880)
Over Population: Is the world over populated?
If we made
a gigantic condominium, with luxury buildings with twenty-two floors, six
apartments per floor and give an apartment to EVERY PERSON.
The entire
population of planet Earth could be comfortably accommodated in the state of
Sergipe (Brazil); for Americans, substitute “New Jersey” for “Sergipe”.
To really
have a problem, we would need to exceed 100 billion inhabitants.
The planet
earth holds up to a trillion people with the proper redirection of food.
We are full
of resources, but those people live in need because they have no money or basic
resources like food.
Overpopulation
is not a problem, in fact it is an excuse to avoid talking about real problems,
the real problem is resource distribution, and accessibility for those in need,
we do not have an efficient resource distribution. (Deveid Wesley Bachelor in Information
Systems, University Center of Brusque Brazil)
If all seven billion people on
Earth stood shoulder-to-shoulder, the entire world's population could fit within
the 500 square miles (1,300 square kilometers) of Los Angeles.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111031-population-7-billion-earth-world-un-seven/
The total land surface area of
Earth is about 57,308,738 square miles, of which about 24% is mountainous and
about 33% is desert. Subtracting this uninhabitable 57% (32,665,981 mi2) from
the total land area leaves 24,642,757 square miles or 15.77 billion acres of
habitable land.
Divide this figure by the
current human population of 7 billion (that's 7,000 million people!) and you
get just under one hectare (2.3 acres) per person.
Worldwide food waste
an estimated 1/3 of all food produced globally is lost or goes to waste which amount to 1.3 billion tonnes per year (http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/flw-data)
America
In the United States 30 per
cent of all food, is thrown away each year. Overall, losses amount to around
US$90 billion–US$100 billion a year (Jones, 2004 cited in Lundqvist et al.,
2008). The food currently lost or wasted in Latin America could feed 300
million people (FAO, 2013).
Europe
United Kingdom households waste
an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of food every year, The food currently wasted
in Europe could feed 200 million people (FAO, 2013).
Africa
In Sub-Saharan Africa,
post-harvest food losses are estimated to be worth US $ 4 billion per year - The food currently lost in Africa could feed 300
million people. (FAO, 2013)
Asia
China wastes 50 million tonnes
of grain annually, enough food to feed 200 million people,
A recent estimate by the
Ministry of Food Processing India is that agricultural produce worth 580
billion Rupees is wasted in India each year (Rediff News, 2007 cited in
Lundqvist et al., 2008). (https://www.unenvironment.org/thinkeatsave/get-informed/worldwide-food-waste)
Every year
1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted, equivalent to the same amount produced
in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, one in every seven people
in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children
Monopolistic Markets – USA &
African Model – Who bears the risk?
Most sectors of the U.S. economy have concentration ratios around 40%, meaning that the top four firms in the industry control 40% of the market. If the concentration ratio is above 40%, economists believe competition is threatened and market abuses are more likely to occur: the higher the number, the bigger the threat. Almost every sector in agriculture is well above these levels.
https://www.farmaid.org/issues/corporate-power/corporate-power-in-ag/
in order to secure a contract, farmers must invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to build expensive poultry houses. The grower is also on the hook for operating costs like utilities and waste disposal. The whole set up can be boiled down to this: the company owns everything that makes money and the farmer owns everything that costs money. For further reading click links …
https://www.farmaid.org/blog/fact-sheet/big-chicken-poultry-growers-fight-fairness/
How free trade has devastated
Africa’s farmers and poor by Jeremy Hance on 15
February 2010
A push in the mid-1980s for Africa to embrace free trade to
aid its economies backfired in many of the continent’s poorest countries,
argues a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (PNAS). Africa was pushed to rollback government involvement
in development and instead to rely on the private sector: government services
shrunk, cash crops were pushed over staples, while tariffs and subsides were abolished.
The insistence on free
trade was meant to spur economic growth, but instead undercut traditional
agricultural systems that had worked for centuries, eventually leading to a
food crisis, which left millions hungry, caused multiple food riots, and
destabilized governments.
https://news.mongabay.com/2010/02/how-free-trade-has-devastated-africas-farmers-and-poor/
Green revolution is locking African farmers into a system that is not designed for their benefit, but for Northern multinational corporations.
Billions of dollars spent promoting and
subsidising commercial seeds and agrichemicals across Africa have failed to fulfill their promises to
alleviate hunger and lift small-scale farmers out of poverty,
according to a new white paper published
by the Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute.
African and German civil society organisations produced a report
based on the research, “False Promises,” calling
on governments to stop funding and subsidising the so-called “green revolution”
and shift support to programs that
help small-scale food producers, particularly women and youth, develop
climate-resilient ecologically sustainable farming practices.
The research examines the Alliance for a
Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a nonprofit launched by the Bill &
Melinda Gates and Rockefeller foundations in 2006 with promises to double
yields and incomes for 30 million farming households while cutting food
insecurity in half in 20 African countries by 2020.
https://theecologist.org/2020/aug/14/gates-failing-green-revolution-africa
Land Degradation due to various reasons
Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi said his government would commit to restoring 5 million hectares of
degraded land by 2030, in addition to a previous commitment of 21 million
hectares.
But the UN says that would not be
enough. It says India needs to restore at least 30 million hectares in the next
10 years to reverse land degradation by 2030.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/as-land-degrades-india-struggles-to-save-its-farms/
Farming
problems need to address
Providing
adequate Infrastructure: As the State of the Indian
Agricultural Report points out: “To enhance productivity, easy and reliable
access to inputs such as quality seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, access to
suitable technology tailored for specific needs, the presence of support
infrastructure and innovative marketing systems to aggregate and market the
output from large number of small holdings efficiently.”
Ensuring
that quality seeds are available is very important. “The efficacy of other
agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation is largely
determined by the quality of the seed used. It is estimated that quality of
seed accounts for 20-25 percent of productivity. Hence timely availability of
quality seeds at affordable prices to farmers is necessary for achieving higher
agricultural productivity and production,” the report further points out.
http://agricoop.nic.in/Annual%20report2012-13/ARE2012-13.pdf
Legal
Issues: Another issue which adds to the
problem is that “substantial chunks of scarce land remain untilled because of
landowners’ reluctance to lease out land for fear of losing its ownership.”
Land
Grabbing by nations
some
countries over the past decade have been buying land in other countries on
which to grow crops and livestock a phenomenon known as ‘land grabbing’ . The
World Bank has estimated that around 45 million hectares of land has been
purchased since 2008, with 62 countries involved in the ‘grabbing’ in 41 countries
across every continent except Antarctica.
There has
been a resurgence of interest in sustainable agriculture in recent years;
‘Rio+20’, the short name for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012, pledged
more than $513 billion to build a sustainable future to overcome food
insecurity, poverty and inequality across the world today. Many of these
practices in the form of sustainable agriculture have their roots in the
Islamic Agricultural Revolution and were unfortunately until recently lost in
the Muslim world.
There are
between 400 million to 500 million small farms in the world and an increasing
number of experts believe that smallholder farmers are the key agents of change
in the doubly green revolution.
In what a recent study in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) characterizes as a “new
form of colonialism,” investors from the US, UK, and China are gobbling up
foreign farmland at “alarming rates” and often with little consultation and
compensation of poor small-scale farmers and local populations.
According to the PNAS study, the land grabbing phenomenon has
already claimed some 203 million acres, or about .7 to 1.75 percent of the
world’s total farmland, since 2002, with the majority of acquisitions after
2008. Out
of 41 land grabbing speculators, the US ranks second, with 9.14 million acres
grabbed, an area larger than the country of Qatar.
https://www.motherjones.com/food/2013/02/top-land-grabbing-countries/
There
currently remains some 2.7 billion hectares of land with potential for crop
production in the world, concentrated in South and Central American and
Sub-Saharan Africa.
The solutions
to addressing the availability of arable land are three-fold:
·
The production of more arable land,
·
Increase in the productive capacity of existing arable
land and
·
The conservation of arable land in order to prevent
degradation.
Despite more
than an adequate supply of arable land to meet future demand, land availability
will continue to be a major factor in meeting future food security because of
the need to find a balance between competing interests and uses and finite
resources. https://www.futuredirections.org.au/publication/the-future-prospects-for-global-arable-land/
Conclusions
In order to address the problems of farming following
actions to be taken
·
Make of use of Arable lands which are not
used
·
Provide basics infrastructure to the farmers
to increase productivity
Ensure Food wastages are reduced
·
Prevent land degradation
·
Provide water to the irrigation interruptedly
along with the power
·
Avoid monopolistic tendencies which let
accumulation of wealth in few hands
·
Ensure no one hoard the essential food grains
to increase prices
·
Pass on the benefits to the farmers to help
them develop
Learn from the previous successful and failed models to plan for the future.
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