MEP candidate urges strategy on agriculture

Nationalist MEP candidate Stefano Mallia emphasised the need for a strategic plan for local agriculture, during a visit to a farm in Zebbug. This way, Mallia said, farmers will know and understand exactly in which direction their sector was heading.

Mallia said that the government had used farmers and breeders to maximise political gains, without maximising the farmers’ gains.

Trading its integrity for political mileage, Mallia said that when the government was in Opposition it had promised farmers compensation in the event that their crops would be damaged by inclement weather and yet the farmers were now being told that there is no money for such payments.

Stefano Mallia also spoke about how the previous government had worked on a nationwide insurance scheme for the agricultural sector yet a year into Labour’s legislature, the government had done nothing about this insurance scheme.

He also salted government's lack of action to transfer land ownership to farmers actually tilling the land.

“Today, most farmers have a temporary lease that is extended on a yearly basis. This is hardly the ideally scenario for a farmer to invest,” he said.

He said that, ironically, Electrogas - the consortium chosen for the new power plant - was given a concession on public land for 18 years to invest in a new power station. According to Mallia, farmers should be treated on the same level so that they too can “invest and improve the local produce”.

“They can only do this if they have some form of security on the land they operate from,” he said. “Today, the government has failed again to deliver on agriculture and has left farmers and breeders in limbo.”

 If elected, Mallia vouched to be a prime voice for the local agricultural sector and would seek to become a full member of the agricultural committee within the European Parliament to make the voice of the local producer “heard and understood”.