Arable land Conversion or ALC is real threat to the agricultural development in Pakistan. Arable land conversion has been taking place across the globe since the industrial revolution, however, the pace of ALC has exponentially increased since the beginning of the 21st century. The frequent mobilization of industrial resources from within the cities to the surrounding agricultural lands has shifted the modern city’s structure from being mono-concentric to being poly-centric. This poly-centric concentration is allowing multiple residential schemes to take advantage of cheap lands around the cities. In Lahore City, about 283,257 acres (114,630.04 hectares) of farmland had been converted to 252 housing schemes and other uses (Industrial, informal settlements, and mega projects) during the last 40 years”. Such repercussions has devastating impacts on the livelihood of the small farmers. The decision to sell the land is non-linear therefore involves complex decision making dynamics that have been explored in this study. Recently more small farmers have started to hold their land instead of selling it even at much higher prices. These reasons include the lack of value in inherited land and poor access to alternate employment. Therefore, in order to understand the impact of land acquisition on small farmers, the factor of price has clearly failed to demonstrate as being the sole factor of decision. This study explores multiple factors of land retention other than the increased value and has recommended multiple policy discourse for effective long term planning of agricultural resource allocation in the region of Bahawalpur. Supervisor:- Ms. Lubna Hasan