The Gozo cheese co-operative is no more

Malta's membership of the European Union has caused changes to the economy. At the moment Malta is still going through a difficult time because of changes to old, obsolete practices, which have hindered progress in our islands.

Such hard times may be due to some aspects of the Maltese economy, which have become stagnant over the past decades. This may be felt especially in Gozo, where insularity and physical detachment from the mainstream of the bigger island's economy has given it a special status within the EU.

Gozo's economy is based principally on tourism and agriculture. Agriculture has long been considered a sustainable sector, employing more than in Malta on a proportional basis. However, the numbers have dwindled to a handful of full-time farmers in the past two decades.

In the past decade or so, a number of full-time and part-time farmers joined forces to form agricultural co-operatives. These co-operatives aim to enable their members to pool their resources and together shoulder the burdens that EU reforms exert on their particular agricultural sectors.

These unions of farmers will eventually become producers' organisations and turn into commercial entities. A particular co-operative set up specifically in Gozo was that of cheese producers.

Cheese products, mainly Gbejniet, have always been associated with Gozo, together with other agricultural products.

Gbejniet are of two kinds: the congealed, fresh, white cheese and the peppered cheese. They are principally composed of goats' milk and are made at home.

Taking into account the potential inherent in Gbejniet, the cheese producers decided to set up a co-operative with the specific purpose of protecting and boosting the product.

The members were fully aware that the EU allocates funds for such regional products and, as a result, they may avail themselves of these funds to improve the quality of the Gozo cheese products.

But alas, this was short-lived. The co-operative was liquidated, to the detriment of the cheese producers themselves. It bore the capacity of being a surviving and enduring union, which might have improved the practices and standards of this specific sector of the Gozo economy.

This will have a negative effect on the cheese producers and will be the end of the much-sought-after product. One is perplexed at the motives behind such a move. It shows the lack of support and the will to promote the sector of agriculture in Gozo.

This defunct organisation has come under the patronage of the new management of the Gozitano co-operative. The latter did not manage to keep the Cheese Co-operative operating, despite the obvious potential to attract the necessary funds for its survival and save an industry which may have promoted Gozo's agricultural products.

The Gozitano co-operative set up a Producers' Organisation. It could have easily incorporated the Cheese Co-operative into the machinery of the Producers' Organisation because the Producers' Organisation is universal and hence all kinds of agricultural produce of its registered members are listed for grading.

The cheese products will be graded and packed according to the HACP standards, as required by the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. Hence, if the cheese products do not achieve the strict standards of HACP, they will not qualify for packaging and the certification needed for the consumers' market.

Obviously such a lack of standards means the cheese products will not qualify for European funds purposely aimed for this regional product.

I hope that no similar fate will be- fall the other Gozo co-operatives. Such unions of persons of the same trade, especially in the agricultural sector in Gozo, will only be beneficial to the members themselves and to Gozo in general.