Food security is of critical importance for Malta as an insular country.
The UN defines food security to mean the physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for an active and healthy life. An estimated 690 million people around the world suffer hunger and spend days without food. Not having enough food happens. The availability of healthy food should not be taken for granted.
Over the coming decades, a growing global population, rising food prices, plant and animal biodiversity losses and worsening weather patterns are expected to have significant and unpredictable impacts on food security. All these stress points are present in Malta.
In 2020, the EU launched the Biodiversity and Farm-to-Fork strategies for a more sustainable EU food system. Targets to be achieved by 2030 have been set to reduce air, water and soil pollutants such as pesticides, fertilisers and antimicrobials and to avoid nutrient run-off. This necessitates a substantial transformation to organic and sustainable plant, livestock and fish farming. These are also Malta’s obligations.
All EU members, including Malta, have fallen foul of their own policies when, in December last year, the fisheries ministers approved target fish and by-catch quotas that again exceeded scientific advice, thus sanctioning the overkill of already depleted fish populations in European waters for another year.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation points out that “a sustainable food and agriculture policy designed to meet the needs of present and future generations is essential for food security”. There is little doubt that the Maltese government’s policies fail this sustainability test. Malta imports three-quarters of its food. Food security must be local in order to make any sense at all.
Maltese consumers should have healthy and sustainable food choices easily available. One in five deaths in the EU in 2017 was attributable to unhealthy diets. “A healthy, plant-based diet reduces the risk of life-threatening diseases and (reduces) the environmental impact of our food system.” This much is declared EU policy.
The value of soil as a food source can hardly be overstated. The farming community is the custodian of Malta’s soils. For decades, we have witnessed a persistent assault on Malta’s arable and outside development zone land and on farming communities. Recent examples of this are projects in Rabat, Marsascala, Mrieħel, Dingli, Qormi, Attard and Burmarrad, just to name a few.
The typical justifications for the destruction are the increasing traffic and population numbers. The unspoken inconvenient truth is that the growth of both traffic and population is not a natural growth of Maltese society but the result of a discredited policy of economic growth at all costs, adopted by successive Maltese governments. Policymakers must change course.
Our farming communities need to have secure land tenure, affordable prices for the purchase of agricultural land and assistance to grow and transform their farming practices to be more sustainable and regenerative.
Farming should be free from pollutants and an extension of the islands’ natural habitats that are hospitable to biodiversity in a Mediterranean island nation.
Farming practices also have an important part to play in carbon capture and should be part of the fight against global warming.
There is a young generation of farmers that is ready to embrace this transformation with enthusiasm. They should be encouraged.
Importantly, farming profit margins must reflect the valuable contribution this sector makes to the country’s food security.
This government is playing dice with the health of Maltese people.