Securing a future for food and farming: ‘A battle worth fight for’

Two months ago, a young firstgeneration Gozitan farmer said, while being interviewed, that if helped financially by the EU, he would be encouraged to thrive more in the sector.

For him, the EU is the lifeline to secure his future in a sector which locally has reached an average age of 55. Over the past weeks, I have met several young people who are willing to get into farming, and with other established farmers and producers who shared with me their challenges and proposals to overcome such limitations.

I went back to Brussels and worked closely with my EPP Group colleague MEP Herbert Dorfmann, who was the rapporteur within the Agriculture Committee, articulating a number of proposals on the future of food and farming at a very pertinent time as the EU’s agriculture policy faces reform ahead of the new EU’s seven-year budget for the sector post-2020.

Among other issues, we asked the European Commission to grant special consideration to all farmers and producers who face extra challenges due to specific constraints linked to less favoured areas such as islands and outermost regions to maintain farming activity in such areas.

To my satisfaction, the various proposals on the future of food and farming, spearheaded by this young Gozitan farmer and other local farmers, were adopted by the Agriculture Committee and later by the entire European Parliament. In global terms, thanks to this vote, the European Union is being called to retain funding at least at current levels. It will structure its action on two pillars, the first – fully funded by the EU contributing to the competitiveness of European farmers, with a higher environmental added value and strong conditionality also in terms of food safety and animal welfare; and the second pillar respecting the different competencies within Member States, maintaining a level-playing field within the Single Market, and entailing a genuine simplification for farmers.

We adopted a new method, incentivising farmers to deliver goods in accordance with evolving needs of consumers, dovetailing with an overall simplification of the regulatory jungle, as farmers rightly call it, towards streamlined obligations to keep them competitive. Such worry is a recurrent remark raised in my presence over the past weeks during conversations I had with several farmers and producers. Their disappointment with respect to delays for payments is evident, a recurrent headache which needs to be addressed through a new policy making financing speeder, fairer and more efficient.

To strengthen farmers’ role within the food chain is a synonym to securing a decent renumeration of produce and providing peace of mind for longterm investments against the price fluctuations that are threatening farmers’ income. Such is also a vital part of encouraging the new generation to step into farmers’ shoes.

I am pleased to already note that the legislative proposals presented by the Commission just days ago already put as one of its top objectives, the need to support small and mediumsized family farms which are considered at the heart of the EU’s agricultural way of life.

While all this spadework is going on in the EU in the interest of our farmers, producers and their families; we learn about cases back home which goes exactly the opposite direction. Let me mention two cases.

Firstly, instead of protecting arable land from development we have agriculture terrain which is constantly under threat and that if it was not for PN leader Adrian Delia’s effort, a big stretch of agricultural terrain at Bulebel in Malta would have been lost.

Secondly, it is unexplainable that instead of fresh and local fruit and vegetables, the Maltese government decided to provide children with frozen products, to the detriment of the local farmers. This contradicts recommendations by the European Commission that EU funded scheme should focus on local product and on short supply chains. No wonder why a report by Friends of the Earth Malta last year mentioned that on the local food chain they fear our country is becoming completely dependent on imports. The government is unfortunately rendering the future for the family farm bleaker.

Although farming contributes just to two per cent of gross domestic product, its value goes beyond the measure of GDP, and if we lose our farmers, we will be jeopardising the day-to-day protection of our countryside because we will not have people producing local fruit and vegetables.

My efforts in the European Parliament are intended to help our farmers and producers maintain the island’s agricultural landscape as well as producing local delicacies, such as sun-dried tomatoes, capers and ġbejna cheese; and in so doing, earn a decent living for them and their families.

Hand on heart, I experienced the clear majority of them who are genuinely honest, hardworking and want nothing more than to make a living. That is why when choosing my battles in the European Parliament, I chose agriculture as one worth fighting for.