Register for olive growers

The Department of Agriculture within the Agricultural Services & Rural Development Division has set up a unit to deal with the setting up of an Olive Register in view of Malta's accession to the European Union.

This register is designed to interact with the computerised Land Parcel Identification System of the Integrated Administration and Control System.

This register will ensure that Maltese olive growers will be able to take full advantage of EU accession.

In its negotiations with the EU Malta has been granted a national guaranteed quantity of 150 tonnes of olive oil.

This figure is only provisional and will be revised in 2005 after the introduction of the Geographical Information System and the figures on the basis of the olive tree register.

The Department of Information said that it is therefore important that olive tree growers of both oil and table varieties co-operate with the Department of Agriculture in this registration exercise.

Registration of olive growers will start tomorrow up to June 20, during office hours at Zabbar Extension Service Block C; National Agricultural R&D Centre, Ghammieri; and the Agriculture Branch, within the Department of Projects and Development, Ministry for Gozo.

Farmers are required to submit information such as the number of trees for each parcel of land; varieties; year of planting; production of olives in kilograms; production in litres; type of olive oil; and type of irrigation.