Many full-time farmers are facing eviction from land which they currently work, hence putting their livelihoods at risk, Ghaqda Bdiewa Attivi said in reaction to an article by The Malta Independent on Sunday.

A landlord, who operates his own agricultural business but who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Malta Independent on Sunday of his struggle to regain control of land rented out for a pittance to farmers on protected agricultural leases.

The landlord detailed how certain farmers simply ask someone to grow animal feed for them, and never set foot on the land themselves, leaving farmhouses there to fall into ruin, while others have even sub-letted the land out to other individuals.

While the landlord interviewed by this newsroom said he wouldn’t think of evicting farmers who genuinely make a living off the land, Ghaqda Bdiewa Attivi said that this is not always the case, and that many landlords are reasoning differently.

In a statement on Facebook, Ghaqda Bdiewa Attivi, who represent farmers and have frequently spoken on this issue reacted to the article through four points.

“It’s true that there are field owners who would like their fields back to work them themselves, however this is an exception.  Who knows how much food JC Properties – a real estate company in the famous case where they managed to evict farmers from their land – will produce,” the organisation lamented.

JC Properties is the company which led a case against two farmers, ultimately succeeding in getting the protected lease rescinded and in later evicting the farmers from the land altogether.  It is the case which is being considered as the new precedent for other, similar cases.

The group said that the argument on animal feed must be properly analysed.

“It’s true that those who don’t have an interest in the fields which they have a title on can ask someone to work the field with animal feed,” they said.

However they added that there are a number of herdsmen who have fields where they produce animal feed for their animals, meaning that it is an important part of their enterprise, and pointed out that even the product which is produced in cases such as those mentioned in the article are sold to those who do rear animals.

“In the absence of this animal feed, we will have to import it instead”, they said.

They noted that it is better if the land is used for animal feed rather than for other non-productive reasons, but noted that it’s good to discuss the cases where the landowners wants the land for productive reasons and the farmer in question would have no interest in the land.

The group said that the landlord interviewed by The Malta Independent on Sunday is a principled one on the basis that there is no intention to evict farmers who make a living through proper farming from his land.

“However, many of the farmers who are contacting us with these cases are full-time farmers and their landowners reason differently,” they said.

Finally, the group said that it was far more likely that fields where farmers are evicted will end up parcelled and sold to different people for use as recreational areas.