An agricultural lobby group has urged supermarket chains to collaborate more closely with farmers to help the country achieve better food security.
The appeal was made by Malcolm Borg, coordinator of the farmers’ association Għaqda Bdiewa Attivi, in reaction to the news that the country could have faced a serious food shortage in April had the port of Genoa shut down after workers threatened to strike.
In January, Prime Minister Robert Abela said that cabinet had drafted plans for a possible food shortage at the height of the pandemic.
In an interview with Newsbook on Friday, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana admitted that the government was anxious about the implications of a strike at the port.
He said he and the prime minister were left thinking hard about how they could plan contingencies for such a situation.
“Malta has almost never been self-sufficient in terms of food security. It’s almost impossible I think, both due to the fact that we live on an island and that there is a high population density,” Borg said.
“But, certainly, the percentage of food produced locally stands to improve and put us in a better situation than we are at present.”
He said that about three-quarters of the food needed is imported. This is both because a lot of the produce in demand does not grow locally and due to certain challenges that farmers face in their profession.
Farmers struggle to compete with food importers, Borg said, in turn making it difficult for them to meet consumer demands.
Food retailers and chain supermarkets could be instrumental in helping farmers grow, particularly if they were committed to buying local produce instead of imports, Borg is contending.
“The supermarkets could be a great help if they decide to purchase fruit and vegetables from local farmers. The higher the demand is, the better the price on the product will be, not to mention the benefits of local produce in terms of taste,” Borg noted. “Unfortunately, farmers’ produce is bought by very few, the market is limited, and the number of enterprises absorbing the farmers’ products is not very wide.”
He said farmers also needed to look at what consumers were eating and see if they could meet that demand.
“Unfortunately, people don’t favour the Mediterranean diet much. Barring wine and kunserva, we don’t really process anything so it’s difficult to meet that demand,” he said.
The organisation coordinator said that farmers were also limited by external factors such as land availability, which made it difficult to secure the space to grow.