The Farmers’ Association yesterday criticised Labour MP Noel Farrugia for his stand on agriculture. It said it had communicated with the two main political parties and Mr Farrugia was asked, at a meeting with the association’s committee, to explain what the Labour Party had in mind on the sector and how Mr Farrugia planned to proceed should he be appointed minister of agriculture if Labour was elected.

The association said Mr Farrugia showed the intention of creating an authority which would handle all agricultural leases, involving some foreign financial institution. The leases would be capitalised, according to their value and loans would be offered to farmers, together with favourable lease rates. Farmers would be “made tax free” and a farmers’ representative would sit on the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development.

The association said farmers did not agree with this scheme and wanted peace of mind by leases being renewed where they were about to expire, land title would be transferred, where agreed, to the person working it, and the process giving lease title should be concluded.

This was being guaranteed only by one party, the association said, expressing disappointment that of six points on agriculture in the Labour Party’s electoral programme, four were already guaranteed by the rural development programme, valued at e100 million, so that these four measures would be implemented by the farmers themselves.

On the first point, relating to water, farmers wanted an assurance that “the money” would not be withdrawn from the e100 million allocated to the sector. Farmers agreed with the fourth point, about delays of certain payments due to farmers. But farmers were not at ease about the preoccupations they had, and Mr Farrugia’s stand was that he would announce a plan after the election.

On the other hand, the association said, the Nationalist Party guaranteed the plan for rural development and if the need arose the agreement on subsidies to farmers would be renewed, in line with EU rules and with the approval of the State Aid Monitoring Board.