Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1542981
15 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 1 FEBRUARY 2026 OPINION JP Fabri Economist When the shelves emptied, the system spoke THE images were jarring not because they suggested panic, but because they revealed fra- gility. A few days of rough seas interrupted shipping routes from Sicily and supermarket shelves began to thin. Almost at the same time, Storm Harry swept across the islands, dev- astating local crops, damaging boats, and wiping out weeks of agricultural labour overnight. Imports stalled. Domestic pro- duction suffered. Both pillars of Malta's food system faltered simultaneously. Therein lies Malta's vulnera- bility. This was not a food crisis. It was a systems stress test. And the system responded exactly as fragile systems always do— with brittleness, not resilience. When redundancy is absent, when buffers are thin, when planning is short-term and co- ordination weak, shocks expose structural weaknesses. Malta imports around 70% of its food. That fact alone should already frame food security as a strategic national issue, not merely an agricultural one. Yet food remains trapped in policy silos, discussed largely in the context of farmer subsidies, compensation schemes, or ru- ral nostalgia rather than supply chains, logistics resilience, land use strategy, innovation ecosys- tems, institutional design, and national preparedness. The government's appeal for EU support following the storm is understandable. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more dis- ruptive. But if every shock is treated as an exception requir- ing emergency relief, rather than as evidence of a new struc- tural reality demanding sys- temic redesign, the country will remain permanently reactive. Support can soften the blow. It cannot substitute for strong foundations. Food systems do not fail be- cause of climate alone. They fail because their foundations are weak. Agriculture is not simply soil, rainfall and sunshine. It is an ecosystem. Governance, in- stitutional strength, land use planning, access to finance, knowledge transfer, market coordination, infrastructure, cooperatives, and long-term policy stability all determine whether agriculture becomes productive, resilient and in- vestable or fragmented, fragile and dependent. Where these foundations are strong, farm- ing becomes dignified and stra- tegic. Where they are weak, fragmentation creeps in, and fragmentation is a death sen- tence. Malta's challenge is not the dedication of its farmers. It is the architecture surrounding them. Small disconnected plots. Short-term leases. Weak incen- tives for consolidation. Limited coordination between land use, water management, education, finance and food strategy. In- consistent policy signals across electoral cycles. Underdevel- oped storage, processing and logistics capacity. Insufficient institutional depth dedicated to long-term stewardship of the food system. The result is predictable—low productivity, limited resilience, increasing dependency. Food sovereignty The announced Nation- al Strategy for Resilient Food Systems is therefore a step in the right direction. It recog- nises that Malta is structurally exposed as a small island with limited land, fragile water re- sources and heavy import de- pendence. It acknowledges that climate volatility, geopolitical disruption and logistics fragility are no longer distant risks but present realities. That level of honesty matters. But recogni- tion is not transformation. The test will be whether Malta is willing to elevate food from an afterthought to a strategic pillar of national resilience. The true test lies in its implementation, its evaluation loop and correc- tive action where and when needed. Population growth and tour- ism recovery have intensified demand pressures. Consump- tion patterns have shifted. Meanwhile, the agricultural workforce is ageing, fragment- ed and increasingly disconnect- ed from younger generations. These are not marginal issues. They are structural pressures that will intensify unless ad- dressed deliberately. Without intervention, agriculture risks becoming not only economi- cally marginal but strategically irrelevant. The conversation must there- fore move beyond nostalgia. The future of food securi- ty for small island economies will not be solved by preserv- ing yesterday's model alone. It will be shaped by governance, technology and institutional imagination. Agritech, food- tech, precision agriculture, controlled-environment sys- tems, aquaculture innovation, vertical production, circular systems, traceability platforms and smart water management are no longer experimental ide- as. They are becoming main- stream tools for countries that treat food resilience seriously. Singapore offers a useful lens. Not because Malta can repli- cate its model directly, but be- cause the underlying mindset is transferable. Singapore did not approach food security emo- tionally. It approached it stra- tegically. Its investments were not limited to output but ex- tended to research, innovation ecosystems, public-private col- laboration, urban integration and education. Food became not merely about supply but about capability. About sover- eignty. About preparedness. The result is that resilience there is not built on volume, but on intelligence. Malta can adopt the same log- ic at its own scale. The national strategy already gestures to- ward innovation in controlled environments, aquaculture, and digital systems. But ges- tures must become commit- ments. Strategies must become institutions. Ideas must be- come infrastructure. And most importantly, these efforts must be insulated from short-term political cycles if they are to succeed. Food beyond sentimental heritage This is why food must be un- derstood as strategic infrastruc- ture. Not sentimental heritage. It shapes public health out- comes. It underpins economic resilience. It reduces vulnera- bility to external shocks. It con- tributes to social cohesion. It reflects national sovereignty. It carries dignity. If Malta genuinely cares about wellbeing, resilience and long- term stability, then agriculture cannot remain peripheral. Its foundations must become a national priority. Strong insti- tutions. Clear land use vision. Reduced fragmentation. Long- term stewardship. Policy con- tinuity that survives electoral cycles. Coincidentally, I have just returned from a week with farmers in Brazil exploring ag- riculture insurance. This visit sharpened the above perspec- tive. Although the scale is in- comparable, the challenges are familiar: Climate volatility, market pressure, rising costs, geopolitical risk, water stress. What differentiates resilience from fragility is not scale but structure. Cooperatives that aggregate bargaining power. In- stitutions that invest in knowl- edge. Financial frameworks that reward stewardship. Gov- ernance that thinks in decades, not quarters. The empty shelves and the storm were not disasters. They were signals. A warning that Malta's food ecosystem remains fragile not because of individual events but because its founda- tions remain underdeveloped. The question now is whether Malta will treat this moment as a fleeting inconvenience or as a strategic inflection point. In a world increasingly shaped by climate disruption, supply chain fragmentation, geopolit- ical uncertainty and resource constraints, food systems will separate the prepared from the exposed. Countries that treat food as strategy will endure. Those that treat it as an after- thought will remain vulnerable. Malta had a glimpse into that future and the response should not be anxiety but ambition.