The thorny issue of how land is used in Malta and Gozo has been silently evaded by one administration after the other, especially since the focus has been on maximising its take-up by construction.
The pressures on this very limited resource of ours stem from multiple directions. The onslaught of construction after the relaxation of various planning laws was favoured by the ridiculous rationalisation policy which allowed large swathes of agricultural land to become available for development, a full 10 years after the harrowing local plans were drafted.
The government has pitched in by allowing the construction of sports complexes, old people’s homes, schools and other ‘essential’ buildings in ODZ areas, through a series of stealthy amendments to the already flimsy planning laws.
Throughout the last five years, roads were also a main contributor to the loss of agricultural land, with projects such as Central Link spearheading further roadbuilding projects which, after a change at the helm of Infrastructure Malta, are no longer on the drawing board; perhaps, an admission that sacrificing more land will not solve the impending gridlock.
Agricultural land has always been a playing field for speculators. The rationalisation exercise of 2006 ultimately favoured those who owned, or bought that land at ODZ rates, only to sell it off at a hefty profit once it becomes available for development.
Similarly, some rather ingenious policymaking over at the Planning Authority resulted in applications for the transformation of derelict rural buildings into full scale ODZ dwellings; many “agricultural stores” have been proposed, a warning of more buildings to follow through more regulatory tweaks carried out by stealth.
The recent trend is the sale of agricultural land for recreational purposes. The lack of public open spaces and the congestion surrounding the remaining ones have led to an immense pressure on farmland, with a series of applications foreseeing the construction of a swimming pool, stables and greenhouses.
Although the application for the construction of structures to hold animals, greenhouses and stores is in line with some policies, their use has little to do with farming. In Marsaxlokk, for example, some farmers were forced to leave the land they tilled for decades after facing a price tag of €65,000 per tumolo; applications which have nothing to do with farming have now sprouted on the same land.
The long-awaited land lease reform has addressed, at least in part, the painful situation of the eviction of farmers, although questions arose on the inflated prices in what is being treated as a market for future development.
Besides the lack of any logic, let alone policy, in the way our most precious resource is being used, there is no attempt to revive an ailing industry. Studies published by the NSO in 2022 show how the land utilised for agriculture dwindled by 6.2% while holdings decreased by 14.8% over a 10-year period up to 2020. The workforce declined by over a quarter, while 55% of the agricultural holdings have no succession plan in place.
These figures have surely increased since 2020, despite the pandemic and the successive warnings on the security of our food supply; while Malta cannot expect to be entirely food sufficient, increasing the national agricultural output could at least mitigate the impact of shocks to the worldwide supply of grain and, therefore, the national spend on subsidising importers.
Unfortunately, despite the laws and the good intentions behind them, there seems to be no vision to manage land effectively. One also wonders why agriculture has been dedicated its own ministry if no effort is being made to protect the basic resource on which it depends.