Moreover, Mr Alan Caruana, one of the two engineers who developed the system from scratch, said that the software can be modified and improved according to the data collected over the years – how a specific crop has reacted to particular fertiliser mixtures and dosages.
In this way the exact mixture and dosage can be refined according to the information gathered on past crops. Engineer Leslie Spiteri, Mr Caruana’s partner, said that when they developed the system they had no history to go by or other software to use as a benchmark and had to develop everything from scratch.
The end result so far, farm owner Carmelo Micallef explained, is an improvement both in the quality and quantity of the produce, as well as a considerable reduction in the use of fertilisers and pesticides. “The quality of the vegetables grown with this system has improved to such an extent that pesticides are needed less.”The Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries Francis Agius, yesterday paid a visit to the farm, which stretches over 2.5 hectares, mostly reclaimed barren land, and includes 10 greenhouses. The crops, which are cultivated almost all year round, include cucumbers, marrows, green peppers, tomatoes and even strawberries, most of which are produced out of season.Mr Micallef is ready to share the knowledge of his system with any other farmer willing to visit his farm. He said that the only way forward with regard to export was that farmers made a concerted effort and pooled their resources.
Mr Micallef explained that he put aside a yearly amount of some Lm3,000 for research, from which he made the initial investigations into such a system. In fact, he first invited Italian engineers to develop the idea, but “the system they quoted was not up to the sort of quality I had in mind,” he said. They were apparently more concerned about producing a cost-effective system rather than a reliable one.Mr Micallef encouraged more farmers to follow his example, saying that the way to compete – even at international level – was through innovative measures.Before Malta joined the EU, he said, farmers could rely on the relatively high prices they used to get for the crops produced, adding that now that the prices per crop had gone down due to competition, the solution was to increase productivity and get a better yield for the stretch of land cultivated.
“We have the weather on our side,” he said. “Farmers in other countries have to invest heavily in heating their greenhouses to achieve the desired temperature,” adding that this gives local farmers a competitive edge over some of their counterparts in Europe.
He encouraged the use of greenhouses in connection with the principle of getting more out of the land being cultivated. However at this point his father, also called Carmelo, complained about the fact that Mepa seems to interfere unnecessarily with the setting up of glasshouses, to which an official from the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry, who was present, replied that this was something that was being worked out.
Before developing the system the engineers carried out research on the dosing schedules administered in countries with similar weather conditions to Malta, such as Israel and California, and then continued carrying out refinements.
The advantage of such a system is precisely that it can be constantly reconfigured and updated in such a way that it can be refined and customised to the local climate – referring to the Mtahleb area – Mr Caruana said.The next developments are plans to connect the system to an online weather forecast or to have forecasting facilities at the site for an even more accurate evaluation of the area’s meteorological conditions. All this information – weather conditions, the different fertiliser doses for the different areas, the amount of water needed – can be interfaced and managed by the system in a controlled environment.
At one point, Mr Micallef’s wife, who was giving a tour of one of the greenhouses, pointed to the plastic covering the greenhouse which was full of holes as a result of a recent hail storm. Mr Micallef senior asked that more funds are made available to farmers when they are faced with this sort of problem, pointing out that the cover, which would normally need replacing after some three years, would now have to be replaced after just eighteen months.