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www.maltatoday.com.mt wednesday edition €1.00 Newspaper post wednesday • 17 February 2016 • issue 456 • published every wednesday and sunday EDITORIAL PAGE 9 Martina Borg The uncharacteristically dry and warm winter Malta is cur- rently experiencing will have implications on the harvest of summer fruits, farmers at the Farmers Market in Ta' Qali told MaltaToday. "The heat has resulted in very high yields for some crops rela- tively early this year, but we will definitely feel the effects of this dry weather during the summer months," Farmers Market president Anna Zahra told MaltaToday. "The warm winter has eased and hastened the growth of vegetables like marrows, cauli- f lowers, broccoli and cabbages, so that there are currently a lot of them available on the market, making prices much cheaper than usual," Zahra said, add- ing that alternately, cold-loving vegetables like artichokes had had a very bad season. Zahra's comments were ech- oed by all the farmers who spoke to the newsroom, with Stephen Bartolo adding that the weather had been benefi- cial for consumers, given that it provided them with cheaper products. So far so good, you might think, but as the farmers explained, the dry weather will also have a neg- ative impact on summer fruits, because the land is not hydrated enough. "Fruits like peaches, apricots, pears, June pears (bambinella) and grapes will all suffer because of the dry winter we're having," John Borg said. "Trees cannot store water, and the small amount of rain we had this year did not go deep enough for the roots to benefit," he said, adding that the warmth had al- so meant that trees did not go through the period of rest they require in order for the fruits to grow. Borg explained that cold temperatures cause trees to go through hibernation, which is necessary to ensure better fruit production as temperatures get warmer. Adding plums to the list of fruits consumers might miss in the summer months, Gorg Agius added that the trees in question might not even have enough energy to grow f lowers, let alone fruit. Dry winter spells trouble for local fruit production PagE 5 Customs official accused of accepting sugary drink as bribe Mat thEw agius A puzzling case of alleged brib- ery started being heard by a court yesterday, with retired cus- toms official Philip Grech facing charges of having accepted a box of sugary drink as a bribe. The 61-year-old from Zebbug appeared before Magistrate Do- natella Frendo Dimech, charged with having accepted bribes from a Libyan man – in the form of an unpalatably sweet drink – to al- low him access to a restricted area of the airport cargo section in 2013. Prosecuting police Inspector Jonathan Ferris told the court that on 25 September, 2013, he had been informed that a Libyan person had been observed being granted access by customs of- ficials to enter a restricted area of the airport housing a luggage conveyor belt. The man, Jamal Mesdah Bash- er Al Gazale, was captured on CCTV in the act of taking several boxes from the conveyor belt. he was not challenged by customs officers on duty. Ferris explained that the door to the room could not be opened from the outside, but had to be opened from the inside by means of a sensor. The footage showed that Al Gazale was accompanied by a customs official, who the inspec- tor said can be seen assisting the Libyan in pushing a trolley car- rying the items. he calculated 12 boxes to have been loaded on the trolley. however, although the conveyor belt showed 12, Al Gazale is then seen leaving the customs zone with 11. Philip Grech had been the customs offi- cial on duty that day, the inspec- tor said. PagE 2 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Chris mangion EmbRyO fREEzInG: Opposition leader Simon busuttil sees no reason to change law PagE 4 Abundance of vegetables at Ta' Qali market