Understanding Conflict among Farmers: Legal and Social Solutions

Conflict refers to some form of friction, disagreement, or discord arising between individuals or within a group when the beliefs or actions of one or more members of the group are either resisted by or unacceptable to one or more members of another group. Conflict pertains to the opposing ideas and actions of different entities, thus resulting in an antagonistic state. It is said that the conflicts could have positive significances as well as tragic, it is vital that executives find their managing preparations.
Causes of Conflicts Among Farmers:

Conflicts have a vast impact on the social, economic and political life of the farmers. In the rural community land and water are the major conflicts that are examined. Other issues that are correlated to them are grazing animals, heritage, property ownership etc. These conflicts sometimes lead towards severe crime like murder and snatching.Mostly these people are living in a joint family system where they have a small piece of land from their ancestors which they use as a source to earn and feed their family. Mostly a single person is the source to feed the whole family. And he is unable to fulfill their needs due to less income as well as resources. Government should not be able to provide proper facilities to the farmers and it becomes a major issue in rural development. Farmers are not facilitated with proper medicines i.e. pests etc. for crops.Sometimes these medicines are provided at high rates so that farmers are unable to buy them.

Education is a major issue found among the farmers in rural development. People of rural communities are mostly uneducated with a large family system.These people don’t have a vast knowledge about the technologies used in the 21st century for the proper production in the field of Agriculture. They have no idea about the diseases of crops. They used the methods that they taught from their ancestors for farming. Water rights is an issue found during the destruction of land in the inheritance system. Whenever a piece of land is divided among the heirs, the water rights are also divided respectively. But sometimes in this division of water or land, issues or problems are faced by heirs in the irrigation system and this causes a conflict in the members of the family among which the land is distributed. Government also provides improper water supply to farmers on a small scale for the proper cultivation.

Another issue that was found among the farmers was the distribution of income. Farmers that grow crops on a small scale prefer to grow cash crops for quick and timely returns. They face poverty issues. Cotton as well as many crops are exported to different countries and these are important sources of income for farmers as well as for the country. About 50 percent of conflict on land occurs between close relatives and family members in rural communities. And the other half relate to inheritance issues. In a study it was stated that 5 to 11% productivity loss is due to these land conflicts. Sometimes due to family related issues the farmers are unable to give proper time to their farms. Due to the court activities they are unable to pay attention to their fields and they invest a lot in resolving the issues that lead towards poverty. As we know that farming needs proper attention as well as time, as they are unable to do their job properly (irrigation, harvesting and other activities are not done properly), this results in destruction of their farms and fields. Rural Communities are totally dependent on natural resources for survival. That’s why it affects their lifestyle. Due to such conflicts issues like depression, family relation and social status destruction, routine life as well as wastage of their money and time.

Farmers-Grazer conflict also found among farmers of crops and grazers. Grazing animals enter the land, eat their crops and destroy them. This results in destruction of crops that have a severe impact on our production of agriculture. Due to these conflicts farmers migrated. Some farmers leave their occupation and move towards other businesses because the environment produced due to such conflicts is not suitable for farming. Force relocation and migration of farmer’s further lead to scarcity. Increases in the ratio of widows and orphans is also examined.

Legal and Social Solutions about Conflicts:

Strategies and methods have to be adopted by the Government to sustain the livelihood of rural communities. Judicial informal system is 1st ranked in resolving the conflict in rural communities. In Khyber this system is known as Jirga. Whereas in Other provinces it is named as Panchayat. It is responsible for taking the decision and understanding the norms and values of both of the parties. At some levels social workers, Headmasters of schools, Imam of Masjid are involved in decision making to resolve the dispute among parties with a satisfying decision acceptable by both of the respondents. Proper facilities and guidance let them go to produce a large amount of product on a small piece of land. Extension workers should be hired by the government to check that either the messages are properly conveyed or not. It’s the responsibility of the government to facilitate the farmers with proper water. For this purpose it is necessary for the government to provide them information in a proper and positive way. It is the responsibility of our Government to provide the best variety of seeds, technologies and other resources related to agriculture to reduce the impact of conflict.

Water channels are further subdivided for proper availability of the water and proper irrigation system has to be maintained. Furthermore, seminars, workshops as well as training sessions have to be organized by Government and Non-Government Organization in rural areas to resolve the issues that cause problems in the field of agriculture. For resolving the farmer-graze conflict proper farming techniques are too adopted to increase production. Viable and intensive system of grazing should be adopted by pastoralists..It’s the responsibility of the government to provide them equally distributed land to meet the needs of crop farmers as well as grazers. They have to demarcate the boundaries and make sure that both of the respondents follow the law respectively or not.

To resolve such issues, it is necessary to provide land to laborers as well as tenant households to buy land and then provide them through organizations to get credit, seed, fertilizer, water extension services and access to markets.