Just before last Christmas, The Sunday Times of Malta broke a story about a massive tract of agricultural land in Marsaxlokk which has been put up for sale, with the result that scores of farmers now risk eviction from the very farmland they have tilled for generations.

It was just another of the many similar stories, some of which have not made it to the news, of farmers being forced out of their land.

Over the course of the last year, numerous farmers have reported manoeuvres from landowners – some legal, others less - to evict them, as property often changes hands for speculation reasons. Another recent trend, caused perhaps by the growing strain on public spaces such as Miżieb and Aħrax, is the sacrificing of further farmland for recreational uses.

The pressure on farmland has been accentuated by a ticking time bomb which exploded in November 2020, when a Constitutional Court judgment found that the landowners’ rights were breached by the law regulating agricultural leases. This opened the floodgates for landowners and speculators alike, as acres of ODZ land are being sold with an eye for development.

Farming NGOs have reported a spike in suits requesting the eviction of farmers, which are now a “weekly if not daily” occurrence.

However, a court sentence delivered in December by Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff found in favour of the farmer, declaring that “the state is to ensure that the local agricultural sector is safeguarded and that local produce is sufficient”, that “the state has a very wide discretion to ensure that the agricultural sector does not collapse” and that the market must not rely wholly on importation as this “may be negatively impacted through force majeure”.

Effectively, this court decision echoes the arguments put forward by NGOs such as Għaqda Bdiewa Attivi, Malta Youth in Agriculture and Moviment Graffitti. These groups have repeatedly called for a review of the existing law and land transfer mechanisms, since backstops allowing the transfer of agricultural land from one farmer to the other are clearly malfunctioning.

Agriculture Minister Anton Refalo has also been promising reform, however time is pressing and, with elections looming, an early dissolution of parliament would jeopardise the much-awaited government intervention.

At this point, the government may claim to be hampered by EU rules on state aid, however, now that the courts have decreed the obvious there is no reason for the repeated dragging of feet.

Moreover, the government appears to have no trouble incurring the wrath of the European institutions through its insisted flaunting of hunting regulations, to the point where the taxpayer is financing court cases and fines to appease a lobby of “hobbyists” made up of “researchers”.

Surely, the European Union may look way more favourably on our government if it were to take up the nobler cause of preserving the agricultural sector, which caters for the country’s food supply.

The Mintoff sentence has changed the cards on the table yet again as Refalo himself has recently acknowledged.  However, the pressure is on him to do the right thing and quickly.

In addition to a reform of the agricultural leases law, which is fair to both farmers and landowners, the government should be moving to implement a much-needed audit of the sector so that genuine farmers are acknowledged and protected, followed up by an audit of agricultural food produce and its labelling.

Through these reforms, Prime Minister Robert Abela would have, finally, justified the creation of a dedicated Ministry for Agriculture. Allowing the sector to die out is not an option.