APS Bank seminar on alternative products

"It is remarkable that Maltese agriculture happens at all".

A senior officer with the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Peter Griffee, was quoting from Matty Cremona's olive oil recipe book at a seminar on future products for the agriculture and fisheries sectors in Malta. He sowed some useful advice - identify and grow alternative crops to establish a niche market for Maltese farmers in Europe and beyond.

Recognising the huge challenge for agriculture to exist at all on a small island where water supply is always a worry and small scale farming is the norm, Mr Griffee urged Maltese farmers to diversify.

How to be different and survive

The director of Malta's Institute of Agriculture, George Attard, spoke of the implications of livestock producers not being landowners. Of around 11,000 hectares of agricultural land only a third is privately owned. Most of the land is used for growing dairy fodder.

Malta's dairy farms are characterised by high stocking density and no pastures. Well over half the dairy units stock under 50 cows which are less efficient to run than larger units.

Dairy farmers depend on a third party to supply roughage. Because the fresh food for cows is supplied on a bale basis, growers of fodder wait until the crop is past its peak nutritive value to get a better price from the higher weight of a more mature, but woody, plant.

Recommendations included greater efforts to improve the nutritive value of fresh fodder grown locally for roughage and stepping up the milk yield per head by means of selective breeding.

A debate ensued with the floor over the use of hydroponic fodder, which can be grown in containers, producing grass from grain in six days.

Another point for discussion was whether the production of buffalo milk could provide a viable niche for Maltese farmers. Italian mozzarella made from buffalo milk is marketed by online gourmet stores as "authentic, utterly sophisticated, acclaimed by chefs and cheese lovers, wonderfully elastic in texture, creates mouth-watering pizzas and the most incredible appetisers."

The water buffalo, originating from the marshes and river valleys of Asia and the Middle East, is exploited by Italian farmers.

The swamp buffalo does well on low quality forage while the river type has better milking qualities. Buffalo are not directly related and cannot be bred with cows. They have fewer sweat glands and may overheat more quickly in hot, dry conditions.

Recommendations for improving the Maltese goat and sheep product included a national programme to reintroduce local breeds with genetic improvement for better yield. Italy has managed to preserve some pure-breed Maltese goats and sheep for their high productivity.

Production could be expanded from gbejniet to milk, yoghurt and an ingredient in cosmetics. Exclusivity of a product made from Maltese goats milk should be reflected in the price which consumers would pay for good quality.

Economy of scale could be achieved in the swine industry by raising the number of pigs per farm unit to 100, the maximum a single full-time farmer can manage.

The poultry industry's 40,000 hens in 5,000 units are, in many cases, of mixed types and ages, producing both brown and white eggs often without grading. Special diets for poultry could be introduced which would produce an egg with better nutritive value. Although there have been a few examples of improvement, in general the industry was being left each to his own with very little planning to meet market production.

Reducing humidity in barns by using the top floor for broiler production would cut down on the amount of imported wood shavings needed. Separate rearing of males and females, which reach marketability earlier due to earlier fat deposit, is advised. Chicken as a local dish needs to be promoted nationally in the same way that rabbit features as a speciality.

Being an isolated island may provide an opportunity to achieve a high status of health which can be attained with help from the government veterinary services. In this light Mr Attard referred to Malta's potential as a breeding station for chickens and rabbits for export. The rearing of ducks and geese could also provide a local supply for Chinese restaurants.

A final recommendation was for a team made up of academics, producers, feed mills, scientists, non-governmental organisations and the processing industry to identify Maltese gastronomy, promote local ingredients and the branding of products.

Healing herbs

Everaldo Attard, who came to the Institute of Agriculture with a background as a pharmacist, spoke on medicinal and aromatic herbs as alternatives for the agriculture industry. Maltese farmers already grow more herbs than are imported but mostly for the culinary market with the top herb being parsley. Some Maltese herb varieties have been abandoned for more vigorous types but reintroduction is essential for the development of Maltese gastronomy.

No fewer than 1,264 different vascular plants grow only in Malta and the Mediterranean. With 458 of these being medicinal species, the potential is high. The EU accepts use of the ten per cent requirement of fallow land set aside to be used for growing medicinal or cosmetic plants.

This may be a good starting point for farmers with a main cash crop in the field to gain confidence by starting slowly on a small scale with new alternative crops. Some medicinals can thrive under poor conditions so farmers could use the more fertile part of their land for the conventional crop. Government subsidies to farmers are so far restricted to the main crops with no incentive for farmers to grow medicinals or aromatics.

Some plants could be cultivated as functional foods for their components or metabolytes. Extracts from plants could be used in pharmaceutical dosages and non-edible plants could be grown for cosmetics. The humble tomato is an example of a high-value crop which can meet all these different markets.

Domestication of wild species can be encouraged. Closer spacing of borage plants would effect seed production but not the marketable oil produced by this traditional healing plant used for coughs. It is important to find new products with no competitors. One example is the nettle, which is used for the treatment of chilblains with no competitor in the conventional medicine market.

Processing of medicinal plants is another opportunity which could be explored by Maltese industry. East European countries are interested in importing North African herbal medicines. Malta could play a strategic part using our historical background to formulate and market these in Europe while keeping in line with the EU directive on traditional medicines.

The government farm at Ghammieri has gone some way to increase awareness of medicinal plants and trials are being carried out on establishing plants from the wild for commercial use. Any venture that has processing of medicinal plants in mind must first look at it from all aspects of producer, industry and consumer or the idea will remain stuck in the research field. An association or co-operative for alternative products needs to be set up to collaborate on how to bring alternative crops to the market.

A future for fisheries?

Could Malta's large flotilla of small day trip fishing boats be completely replaced in a few more years by a smaller fleet of large long-haul fishing vessels spending up to 20 days at sea?

Although this is a viable option, Matthew Camilleri, head of the government centre for fisheries research, cautioned that it is one to be avoided. Freshly caught good quality fish brought back from short fishing trips is the pride of our restaurants. But tourist attractions such as Marsaxlokk fishing village with its brightly coloured boats could disappear. "It has happened in other countries, it could happen here," Mr Camilleri warned.

Product certification of fish legally harvested by traditional fishermen would help deter illegal fishing by some larger operators. An eco-labelling scheme could provide a seal for products which can boast fewer impacts on the environment.

Co-ops in Spain and Malta

The situation of Spanish farmers is similar to Maltese farmers as only a small percentage are occupied full-time in farming. The Brussels office of Spanish farming co-operatives has a sharp eye on the fact that the top 30 agricultural co-ops in Europe are concentrated in the North. Danish and Swedish co-ops want to merge with the Dutch to form possibly the biggest agricultural co-operative in the world. By comparison Spain has 4,000 co-ops but sadly they do not work with each other.

"The co-operative is the only tool the farmer has nowadays in the European Union to be competitive," said Gabriel Trenzado Falcon, director of the Brussels office. He added that co-ops must play an increasingly proactive and market-oriented role while finding ways to reduce costs and make the necessary investments. Animal welfare, quality agreements and food safety are very important for the EU. Eight per cent of products, a rather low figure, can be protected if shown to be sensitive. In 2013 the EU will eliminate this protection.

Spanish co-operatives are now looking to supply products from countries like Turkey while improving the social economy of those countries. Such alliances will help meet the competition from the big mergers in the North European countries.

During 2004-2005 a senior adviser on rural development was brought to Malta by APS Bank, organisers of the seminar, to work with government and farmers on strengthening organisational and business capacities of agricultural co-operatives. Cyprus has managed to build 12 producer organisations for the poultry industry but in Malta not one has been set up yet. The attention should be more on setting up institutions to lead others and less on handouts.

"We have used the distributed resources but we have left an institutional vacuum," observed the APS bank chairman. "Farmers and herdsmen may be getting government funding but then they are on their own."

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