Agriculture has always been about the prowess of farmers to use nature and its resources to provide food for the people. It is the art and science of finding the balance between nature’s productivity and the demands of society. Historically, the entire focus and effort of the agricultural world were on producing ‘enough’ and policies and subsidies around the globe incentivised increase in production.
Nowadays, however, the multifunctional role of agriculture is being given increased importance and the European Union is increasing the funding of its Common Agricultural Policy to make land managers take more environmentally friendly decisions.
But whereas this is surely a positive step if the bigger picture is considered, this vision’s implementation on the ground can have unintended consequences, as is the case in Malta. The social, cultural and environmental realities in local agriculture make the politics of trying to meet the requirements established at European level and absorbing the money made available to the country a complex juggling affair.
One of the most contentious measures that proved so is the financial incentive (€213 per tumolo) for land managers to sow wheat in winter and then keep the land fallow (empty) in summer. The idea behind this measure is to increase the percentage of organic matter in the soil.
The implications of such a measure are manifold. Firstly, in a world plagued by food insecurity the last thing we need is to incentivise empty land. Secondly, one needs to consider that there are plenty of local land managers who are not farmers. It has become very easy for them to apply for such an incentive, ask someone to sow and harvest wheat for them (there are specialised service providers to do this job) and then leave the land empty for the rest of the year, without ever setting foot on the land and while being paid close to what a true, genuine farmer earns by sweating his head off producing food.
Moreover, the land managers in question might, in normal circumstances, allow a genuine farmer to work his/her land for a year giving access to land to active farmers who desperately seek more land to till. Because of this measure, land managers prohibit such access since they only get the money if they sow wheat (generally through the service provider mentioned above) and leave field empty in summer.
What appears to be a simple measure to increase organic matter in the soil has far-reaching implications for agriculture and farmers in Malta.
This situation occurred in the last seven years of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2014-2020 and one would have thought that the Maltese government would have proposed and negotiated a different measure with less collateral damage for the CAP 2023-2027 but, alas, this did not happen and the Maltese government decided to issue this measure yet again.
In a world plagued by food insecurity the last thing we need is to incentivise empty land- Malcolm Borg
On a slightly related issue, one should also mention the voucher scheme launched by the government to assist farmers in view of the increase in fertiliser prices due to the war in Ukraine. The European Union did not allow governments to provide such help based on the production of farms, which, in this case, is totally ridiculous.
The use of fertilisers is directly related to the intensity of production and type of crop. Thus, it is obvious that financial assistance on fertilisers should be proportional to production (intensity and type).
Instead, the government issued its financial assistance based on the area of land farmers till.
By way of analogy, should the government issue financial assistance due to increased food prices, should it provide more assistance to a single person living in a half-acre villa or to a family of six living in a tiny apartment?
Six individuals consume more food than a single person even if they live in a tiny apartment and so, logically, they should be provided with more assistance. It’s the same thing with fertilisers – land area gives no indication whatsoever of the fertiliser use and, therefore, of the increased hardship of the farmer due to increased fertiliser prices.
It is truly a pity that farmers – the true and genuine farmers producing food – on whose shoulders we stand and on whose back-breaking work societies rely for their existence – become entrapped in European policies that are visionary on paper but sometimes shoddily implemented or inconsiderate of local contexts and realities.
Malcolm Borg is the coordinator of the Għaqda Bdiewa Attivi.