APS Bank organised the sixth annual seminar on the “Development of Agriculture and Fisheries in the Maltese Islands”. The topic this year dealt with insurance in the agriculture and fisheries sector in Malta.

With the advent of a more liberalised trade environment and Malta’s membership of the European Union, a major break with the past is under way. Insurance cover is a policy tool that Maltese farmers and fishermen have to consider carefully in the context of a changing trade and financial environment in their search for profitable economic activities.

“The relationship between government and the sector is transforming itself into one where the emphasis on collective support continues, creating the means to continuously regenerate income through profitable production rather than supporting a sector’s income via price and import controls. Insurance in the fisheries and agriculture sectors is one element in the new relationship,” Prof. E. P. Delia, chairman APS Bank, said in his opening speech.

Maltese farmers and fishermen are not totally new to the concept of insurance cover, but now they are expected to start assessing production and distribution risks much more actively.

The seminar was one of a series organised by APS Bank over the last few years that focuses on specific issues that have a direct bearing on the development of the agriculture and fisheries sector in Malta. This annual event was introduced in 2000 with a theme that at the time seemed totally alien to many, i.e. the role of insurance in agriculture.

Today, employment in these two sectors is for two-thirds represented by a part-time labour force, which in general terms holds for both agriculture and fisheries when expressed in the number of man-hours worked per year.

The seminar was attended by representatives from the insurance sector, other related fields of activity and officials from the Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment.

Guest speakers from FAO, Europeche (EU), and Forestry Risk Management Services (UK) presented an overview of past experiences in the sector and current developments in a European and global context.