Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1013924
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 12 AUGUST 2018 NEWS JEANNETTE Borg – a founder of social enterprise Merill and an advocate for young peo- ple in agriculture through the MaYa foundation – recounts an incident that happened to an 11-year-old boy whose father is a full-time farmer when the students in his class were asked to mention different profes- sionals. "All the kids started naming conventional professions such as being a lawyer, a police offic- er, a mechanic, and the teacher concurred. Then a boy raised his finger and told his teacher 'a farmer'. Guess what answer he got from his teacher? 'No, be- ing a farmer is not a profession'. The boy was very disappointed since he knows the reality of be- ing a farmer," Borg said. This incident embodies the stigmatisation of farmers in society as backward looking or ignorant. Yet the times are a changing. Students in secondary schools can choose agribusiness as a subject on equal footing with other SEC subjects. And while difficulties persist Borg brims with confidence while speaking about the countless opportuni- ties, which arise from the busi- ness of growing food. Her vision of agribusiness as a creative enterprise offers a refreshing contrast to the bleak picture of a sector often associ- ated with a declining breed of elderly farmers struggling to earn a living from increasingly fragmented holdings. She does not ignore the many challenges facing the sector. The draft agricultural policy published some months ago, which she commends, made so- ber reading of these challenges. Diversification and facilitat- ing land ownership for young farmers are among the recom- mendations made at policy level. But growing food can also be a thriving business for en- trepreneurs who may not even own land but whose ideas can bring 'added value' to existing farming activities. Borg started off Merill, an agritourism venture set up in 2010, which is still up and run- ning eight years after it was set up. For five whole years Merill was her main occupation. Borg is also active in the Ma- YA foundation (Malta Youth in Agriculture) which acts as voice for youths studying or working in agriculture and a strong advocate for innovation in the sector. Despite not owning any land, Borg created a co-operative business, which involves farm- ers. This has created a network of farmers and artisans who pro- duce food and goods offered to tourists during rural tours. "There are so many business ideas that can be taken up lo- cally. I know entrepreneurs who have limited access to land and still make wonders." For Borg success in the field is "all about creativity and en- trepreneurship". For example, the growing in- terest of tourists in rural areas triggers an ever-growing de- mand for traditional skills like restoring rubble walls. But can one realistically earn a living from farming activi- ties? According to Borg it depends on the level of commitment one is ready to put in the busi- ness activity. "Having assets like land and water surely makes a huge dif- ference but being creative is also crucial." Yet to succeed farmers, like other entrepreneurs, need to understand markets. That is why Borg advocates agribusi- ness and not farming for its own sake. "If the market is showing us that certain vegetables are not profitable then why do we (the farmers) keep producing them? If it makes more sense producing a variety of crops rather than one product, let's diversify, if possible". The same counts for irriga- tion. "In areas where water avail- ability is an issue, we can still grow trees that require very little water and even process products from them". She gives two concrete ex- amples of products, which are ideal for Malta's arid condi- tions, which offer much scope for diversification; the carob and the prickly pear. "We barely harvest carobs anymore because of our short- sited mentality and thus we are ignoring many opportunities which would add value to this product." Not only can one produce health products from carob pods but also selling carob flour can transform an under-uti- lized tree into a money-making unit. With regard to the prick- ly pear, both its fruits and the leaves can be transformed into other products. Surely Malta suffers from diseconomies of scale as the quantities potentially produced from such endeavours locally are small compared to that pro- duced in other countries. "Nonetheless, working hard on marketing and focusing on sales at domestic level can help to achieve better prices. Health shops are full of products which we can do ourselves". Unfortunately, red tape lim- its development in this sector. This includes a very stringent process for setting up a small- scale processing unit. Meet the new farmer: confident, entrepreneurial and proud PHOTOS BY CHIARA DALLA FONTANA / MERILL RURAL NETWORK JAMES DEBONO