Loss of islands' rural character

Abstract

The past few months saw a searing spotlight on the agricultural sector, with the Gozo Minister announcing that the Ministry of Agriculture would be calling for applications from farmers and breeders for European Union funds, and after a yawning 'sabbatical' of 20 years, the agricultural survey for our islands was published. The two main figures resulting from the survey which caught my eye are that the number of full-time farmers has plummeted by over 65 per cent in the last 20 years and that nearly 12 per cent of agricultural land has been eaten away. So, on the one hand you have more funds in the offing while on the other you have progressively fewer full-time farmers. In the same vein, I would like to dwell on two vintage bulwarks of the agricultural tradition of our islands. The first is the case for the preservation of traditional Maltese produce given by Helen Caruana Galizia in the latest edition of the Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti magazine Treasures of Malta where, besides ruing the fact that traditional Maltese vegetable and fruit produce is being shunned in favour of imported varieties, she also laments the constant loss of agricultural land in our islands, namely the cutting of carob and olive trees.