Formed in 1997 and formally registered in 2000, Roots for Equity is a Pakistani action research and advocacy organization dedicated to advancing political, social, environmental, and economic justice. Operating primarily out of Karachi, the organization works alongside marginalized populations across urban and rural sectors, including small-scale and landless peasants, women agricultural workers, religious minorities, and industrial laborers.
The Roots for Equity organisation operates on the premise that true social transformation requires dismantling the structural inequities driven by feudalism, patriarchy, and corporate globalization. Through grassroots political education, movement building, research, and policy engagement, the organization empowers marginalized communities to secure land rights, food sovereignty, and gender justice.
Food Sovereignty & Agroecology
Roots for Equity advocates for smallholder farmers' rights over their land, water, and seeds. The organization rejects corporate agricultural models, genetically modified seeds, and chemical pesticides, promoting traditional, sustainable agroecology to combat climate change and ensure food security.
Women’s Economic & Human Rights
Recognizing that women constitute a massive yet exploited share of the rural labor force, the organization campaigns against landlessness, lower wages, and patriarchal barriers to education and political participation for female agricultural workers.
Environmental Justice
Focusing on communities most vulnerable to climate disasters, such as riverine populations facing devastating floods, Roots for Equity demands accountability, climate reparations, and state policies rooted in climate resilience and local community sovereignty.
Action Research & Political Education
The group conducts community-led research on globalization, land grabbing, and economic policies to create an accessible knowledge base for grass-roots leaders, worker unions, and youth movements.
Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT): Roots for Equity works closely with PKMT—a mass movement of small and landless farmers across Pakistan—jointly organizing national conferences, seed sovereignty campaigns, and land rights rallies.
Policy Representation: The organization serves as an active voice for regional civil society alliances, including the Asia Pacific Regional CSOs Engagement Mechanism (APRCEM), bringing local peasant issues to international policy forums.
Resistance to Corporate Agriculture: Roots for Equity actively challenges legislation like amended seed acts and corporate farming laws that threaten indigenous seed saving and land tenure rights.
Corporate / Industrial Agriculture Model
Focuses on heavy chemical inputs, proprietary hybrid/GM seeds, land consolidation, and export-driven cash crops.
Concentrates control in corporate entities and large feudal landlords while trapping small farmers in cycles of debt.
Roots for Equity Agroecology Model
Focuses on seed saving, organic bio-pesticides, natural fertilizers, and peasant-led farm management.
Demands land redistributive reforms, protection of indigenous agriculture, and economic empowerment for small landholders and rural women.
