Malta has the highest average price for arable land in the EU, costing 24 times more than the bloc’s average, according to Eurostat.

The average price per hectare of arable land in Malta was just over €283,000 in 2023. The EU average is almost €12,000.

Malta was the highest by some margin, with the second highest average price being the Netherlands with around €91,000 per hectare.

Eurostat reports show that the price of arable land has been rising rapidly in Malta from just over €167,000 per hectare in 2021 to around €233,000 in 2022. This means the average land value has increased by over €110,000 in two years.

The Eurostat study on 2022 reported that this statistic reflected Malta’s limited availability of agricultural land, which has brought about higher prices.

Besides this, in recent years farmers have raised concerns about how selling arable land for recreational purposes has cause the cost of these plots of land to skyrocket.

Last September, 24 agricultural societies and the Chamber of Architects appealed to the government to put an end to the sale of arable land for recreational use.

The First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, in 2023 ruled that arable land should be valued for its agricultural yield rather than its recreational potential.

In 2022, farmers’ lobby Għaqda Bdiewa Attivi commissioned a study using satellite imagery to prove that government-owned farmland is being sold to the highest bidder for recreational purposes and not agricultural purposes.

An exercise carried out by Times of Malta in 2021 found that farmers need to pay at least €40,000 for one tumolo, when farmers need an average of 12 tumoli to start a full-time agri-business.

Meanwhile, the Eurostat study also found that Malta had the third lowest rental price for arable land with an average price of €91 per hectare, which is below the EU average rental price of €173 per hectare.