In the last decade since the motorway surfaced along Hargoni village, where Noor Rehman grew old cultivating land, unplanned development has crept into the lives of farmers like him in ways they had not foreseen. 
Slowly but surely, it has robbed them of their livelihood.
Twenty years ago, Hargoni located in the eastern suburbs of Peshawar was all green fields and orchards. Acres of crops, vegetables and fruits were peppered with sparse settlements, where six to 10 families, original inhabitants of Hargoni, lived.
Now, the village is all concrete structures, mostly residential quarters with mere patches of land, where only clover is grown and sold as fodder. Once around 30 farmers like Noor Rehman worked in the land but now, there are only two.
“As more and more settlements have been built on agricultural land, farmers have left the village,” said Rehman, 70, who has been a farmer almost all his life. Rehman who is tenant said that Khans (landlords) are selling their lands to outsiders migrated from tribal area and other areas of Khyber 
Pakhtunkhwa.
Research conducted by a teacher of University of Peshawar shows that total agriculture land in Hargoni village was 115 hectares in 1991 and its built up area was six hectares. In 2009 the built up area in the village increased to 39 hectares.
A large-size plot opposite Hargoni measuring 100 acre is being turned into housing colony. Concrete structures are being raised on farm lands on both sides of the Grand Trunk Road and beyond.
Peshawar is losing fertile lands on its southeastern suburbs that experts call the ‘food basket’. The construction boom is swallowing agriculture lands in the adjacent districts of Charsadda, Nowshera and Mardan, too.
KP is already deficit in food production especially wheat. The development statistics of KP-2016, a document of the Bureau of Statistics Planning and Development, said the province’s total wheat production in 2014-15 was 1,155 tonnes against its total requirement of 3,056 tonnes, showing 1,901 tonnes of shortfall.
Naveed Mukhtar, director, agriculture, said the government had no legal tool to stop conversion of farm lands for housing and commercial 
activities.
He said the directorate and its parent department were helpless to protect diminishing 
agriculture lands.
“The directorate could not protect its own assets,” said Mukhtar while referring to the recent allotment of 25 acres of land at the Agriculture Research Institute Tarnab Farm for the establishment of the Peshawar expo centre.
The official records show that the total agriculture land in Peshawar district was 109,883 acres in 2001-02, which shrank to 106,576 acres in 2013-14. The successive government could not frame law to restrict use of agriculture land for other 
purposes.
Attaur Rehman, who teaches geography at the University of Peshawar and urban and regional planning in the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, said farmlands in Peshawar and its adjacent districts were under pressure due to the rapid and unplanned 
urbanisation.
He said farmlands further diminished due to the massive migration from tribal areas and other districts of the province and the stay of Afghan refugees.
“Twenty years ago, 80% of the total territory of Peshawar district was used for agriculture purpose. Currently, 700 hectares are required for construction of houses in Peshawar every year,” he said.
Rehman said with the arrival of Afghan refugees in early 1980s Peshawar started expanding horizontally and now the trend shifted to vertical structure because of increasing land cost.
Recently, building control authorities have been set up in four municipal towns of the city, but miserably failed to check mushroom growth of housing schemes.

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