A market where farmers can sell directly to consumers is good news for both of them but middlemen and greengrocers are not buying it.

The Farmer’s Market is planned for October in Ta’ Qali, opening on Wednesday afternoons and all day on Saturday, when farmers can sell their produce directly to customers, eliminating the middleman.

This would bypass the Pitkali market, which has often been blamed for unreasonable hikes in the price of greens. The government had tried to address the situation last November by posting the wholesale price online.

Speaking to The Times, greengrocer Joseph Caruana, who obtains his wares from the Pitkali market, his family’s fields and imports, said greengrocers should go on strike if this came through, “but a strike won’t happen, as we’re too intent on tripping each other up”.

“I wouldn’t get my produce from the Farmers’ Market either, because if I’m getting the same price as consumers and selling them at a higher price from my shop, I’d be robbing customers,” Mr Caruana said.

Rosario Baldacchino, another hawker working in Valletta, said he could not just go to a farmer and buy the produce directly from him, as farmers did not give VAT receipts, and this would amount to illegal practice.

And even though the farmers’ market was going to be operating in Ta’ Qali on only two days, this would still affect business.

“In Malta, every drop counts. Even a shop in Mellieħa can affect a shop in Valletta,” the greengrocer says.

The situation is not as clear cut even for some farmers, according to Doris Borg, a greengrocer whose husband is a farmer.

“It’s better the way it is, as this will spare farmers the hassle of dealing with clients’ complaints.”

Hawker Mario Cachia said it was already difficult for greengrocers to go to the market in Ta’ Qali in the morning and leave the shop unattended; a Farmers’ Market would be another nail in their coffin.

Meanwhile, Peter Axisa of the Ta’ Qali Producers Group said this had been something which his group had been pushing for all along. In fact, the 500 members of the group sold their products directly, eliminating the need for a middleman.

But the latter is precisely what worries middlemen, known as pitkali, for whom this would represent a huge blow if it became more widespread.

Paul Fenech Gonzi, director of the wholesale markets section within the Resources and Rural Affairs Ministry, said this would give customers and farmers a better deal.

“The Pitkali operates on an archaic system using middlemen whose job should be to auction produce taken there by individual farmers for hawkers to buy. In theory, there should be a bidding system whereby the hawker with the highest bid takes the produce to sell to his customers. However, this system has long been discarded and the prices are fixed. Farmers receive a fixed price. Any changes we are proposing are being strongly resisted,” he has told The Times.

Edward Fenech, who works with a middleman, said middlemen clearly did not want this development to take place. He was echoed by Alfred Azzopardi, another middleman.

Mr Azzopardi, however, doubted whether farmers would find the time to sell their produce themselves.

“Every time farmers tried to sell their own products, they ended up losing money and their produce. Let them try, that way at least they’ll learn,” Mr Azzopardi said, adding the government always did what it wanted, such as when “it made (middlemen) work even on feast days”.

Clement Azzopardi, from the Farmers’ Central Cooperative, which works with middlemen, said the cooperative would “wait and see”.

But while on paper this initiative might mean farmers could get more for what they sold, it entailed sacrifice.

“I like the idea, I was one who pushed for it in the first place,” farmer Raymond Grima said, “but who will take care of the fields?”

“Our children won’t keep up farming, as they don’t want to work 18 hours a day. We’re not machines,” he complained.

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