Agriculture land affected by Smart City road is of ‘highest agricultural value’

According to Grech, the area deserves this designation because it is unencumbered by greenhouses, has few intrusive agricultural buildings, and is set within the confines of the historic Cottonera Lines. Nearly the whole of the area is under active cultivation and the soil is of a relatively good quality.

Most of the land is irrigated through tapping of groundwater through boreholes. When irrigated, each field may even yield more than two annual crops. Rubble walls in the area are described as being in a good state of repair.

The study cites field surveys, showing that wide varieties of products are, grown in the Tal-Fata area. Amongst these one finds; potatoes, turnips, wheat, marrows, onions, garlic, broad beans, lettuce, celery, parsley, cauliflower, chickpeas, medick and cabbage.

Apart from the direct loss of land due to the road itself, Grech warns of the risk posed by the deposition of pollutants onto the crops growing in the fields. This is especially so in case of leafy crops such as lettuce, parsley, fruit. This could be partly mitigated by the planting of a tree/shrub barrier alongside the length of the new road.

But the most serious impact of the new road is the growing temptation by speculators to buy out farmers in the area. 

According to Grech this is one of the consequences of  turning prime agricultural land with restricted access into agricultural land lying on both sides of a major thoroughfare.

The construction of the road will raise the values of land in question which now have poor accessibility.

“Land owners could feel tempted to buy out farmers over the very long term in the hope and indeed expectation, that the land will sometime in the future become available for building development.”

All this could still happen  “notwithstanding the fact that there is little chance of this taking place at present due to the current strict planning laws”.

At present no development can take place because the area is designated as a “strategic open gap,” but pressures on farmers to sell the land still exist.

This process is already being observed and is bound to increase in future according to Grech. This is described as a very long term impact of a most serious kind. “it is a question of whether the area remains the traditional patchwork of fields with the resulting traditional agricultural landscape that it is at present or becomes a target for speculation”.

Even if the farmers sell the land for a profit as land values rise and maintains the right to till the land until such time a building permit is issued, farmers will be less likely to invest further capital and labour than is minimally necessary to produce crops.

Development may also take the forms of agricultural intensification with requests for greenhouses, vegetable shops, and ‘temporary structures’ that in time assume a more ‘permanent nature’.

This is because the opening of the road would make agricultural intensification a real possibility.

“Thus instead of a building, society in general will get a similar building covered in plastic. One which, as many would point out is not a temporary structure at all”.

Small scale development may also take the form of billboards, where such advertising materials are placed on the sides of fields resulting in a visual intrusion.

The land in question yields an average profit of €850 per tumolo amounting to some €10,931 per annum for the whole area. As a minimum each tumolo gets some €28 in rural development funds. The minimum direct financial loss to farmers is estimated to be €11,291.

One of the options being considered is to compensate farmers  by reclaiming land in the Cottonera Lines Ditch.

But this may prejudice its transformation into a public park and a heritage trail.

One positive impact of the development will be the removal of an illegal cow farm standing next to the historical fortifications.