On Friday, Friends of the Earth (FoE) Malta launched a report called Agro Katina. As the name suggests, it looks at agriculture, and in particular, at vegetable and fruit supply chains. The research, which was in part funded by the Ministry for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties, involved interviews and survey work with farmers, suppliers and people in the know generally.
One of the reasons why I found it an excellent and useful read is that I have recently got in the habit of taking walks across the fields at Pwales, certainly one of the most intensively-farmed and productive places in Malta. It never ceases to impress me how abruptly the cacophony, traffic and stacks of flats of Xemxija give way to a profoundly rural landscape.
In some respects, it is a landscape that preserves memories and looks to the past. The chapel of St Anna is immaculately kept and tells of a time when the sacred punctuated everyday rhythms. There are three old and tall palm trees that mark the breadth of the valley. Re-reading a work on Pwales by Rachel Radmilli, I learnt that locals tell stories of how a farmer who had moved to Australia and who occasionally visited would climb them by way of reconnecting to his old home.
And yet, time in Pwales does not stand still. Unlike the palms, the fig trees haven’t survived the recent invasion by insects that bore into them and sap them of their vitality. Greenhouses and plastic polytunnels have spread and covered large areas of what used to be red soil. Most of the men I come across working in the fields are African. And so on. The point is that, in Pwales as elsewhere, farming and the landscape are very much of their time.
As are the end products. Today, even the smallest vegetable van will sell you coconuts from the Philippines, peaches from Sicily and strawberries from northern Europe. It will also stock a very white garlic from China that costs next to nothing and can be found any day of the year.
The variety of geographical origin, the absence of seasonality, and the mushrooming polytunnels are among the concerns of the FoE report. The reasons why anyone should care are not immediately obvious. Farming contributes less than two per cent to Malta’s GDP. The value of what is produced locally is around €33 million a year for vegetables and less than a quarter of that for fruit. Miniscule numbers considering the going prices for property, or the foreign currency cornucopia that is tourism.
And yet farming matters. Some of the reasons have to do with the value of rural landscapes and what they produce. More broadly, what we eat defines us – and I don’t just mean Maltese ġbejniet and the rest of the quaint endemics.
Many consumers have lost touch with the fact that fruit and vegetables have their own rhythms and cycles
To import porcelain from China is one thing, to import garlic quite another. Local garlic grows readily, tastes fine and costs very little. Sourcing it 5,000 miles away says a lot about unsustainable choices that carry huge human costs.
Refreshingly, there is nothing technophobic or nostalgic about FoE’s recommendations for a more sensible agriculture. The report does not suggest that we spend our Saturday mornings walking from farm to farm to buy fresh tomatoes. Rather, it explores ways in which farming could be made more sustainable while still being of its time, so to say.
Take transportation. The FoE report refers to the notion of ‘zero miles’ – in other words, the wisdom of shorter supply chains that make it more likely for us to consume fresh, untreated produce and to avoid the costs of unnecessary transportation. (Traffic doesn’t just happen.) In the process, farmers get better prices as the chains of middlemen are shortened.
Another thing that matters is seasonality. The report notes that many consumers have lost touch with the fact that fruit and vegetables have their own rhythms and cycles. We’re told that broad beans (ful) have become less popular, simply because they are too seasonal for people to pay attention.
Part of the remedy is for farmers to invest in technology that prolongs seasons (that’s what polytunnels and greenhouses do), but the rest is down to learning to cook with whatever happens to be in season. Rather than some kind of eco-sacrifice, this actually adds value to food. Broad beans taste of bean, but also of spring.
I think this point on value is fundamental. People will never buy local to cut down on the carbon emissions from long-distance shipment. They will, however, do so if local means better food, in the sensual sense of the word.
There’s a reason why a jar of jam at the farm shop at Chatsworth costs double that on a supermarket shelf. To buy jam at Chatsworth is to buy into the whole idea of a working estate and its history and lore. Somehow, the jam tastes better.
This invites all manner of experiments with food and locality. Maltese farmers could, for example, set up interactive websites that described their localities. Labelled produce would make it possible for consumers to experience place through fruit and vegetables.
I’ve a feeling that tomatoes from Pwales would taste better if people could be transported to the chapel, the palm trees and the biographies of the Maltese and African farmers who work in that valley.
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