The government, through the Parliamentary Secretariat for Agriculture, Fishing and Animal Rights, announced today it has stopped the Sales to Housewives through which housewives could buy products directly from the Pitkalija (Vegetable Market) because of 'abuses'.

A DOI statement said commercial enterprises including restaurants and hotels had infiltrated the scheme.

The Secretariat said it had received a number of complaints from farmers who had been told by middlemen their produce had been thrown away only to find their produce had been sold to the commercial enterprises on the quiet without the farmers receiving any payment for it.

So the Sales to Housewives scheme had been stopped with immediate effect until proper procedures are put in place.

Meanwhile, the Secretariat also said the Pitkalija reform will continue.

As for the bank guarantee, which has been mentioned in recent days, the aim behind this is to ensure that the middlemen do pay the farmers.

As is well known, the bank that had been involved in the Pitkalija (APS Bank) had moved out of the scheme because some middlemen were running up dues to farmers amounting to hundreds of thousands of euros and the whole system was collapsing.