[WATCH] Lands minister invokes 2006 local plan change, skirts question on farmers who work Żurrieq land

Lands minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi has refused to comment on the fact that government agricultural land in Żurrieq will be taken from the farmers who work the land after an application for part of the land to be developed.

On Saturday, two farmers who’ve worked the field in Żurrieq’s Tal-Bebbux area, along with activists protested government’s “short-sightedness” in front of the Lands Authority. 

The protestors slammed politicians who allowed developers to build on public agricultural land in the midst of an EU drive to safeguard food supplies. The protestors displayed vegetable boxes filled with rocks, saying that in case of a war, these are what will be reaped from Maltese fields.

On Monday, MaltaToday doorstepped lands minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, who contests the district, about the matter.

Zrinzo Azzopardi insisted that the government land will remain government land and will not be handed to developers. Here he invoked the 2006 local plan changes which classify the area in question as part of the development zone, saying that it was the Nationalist Party who had introduced this change.

Referring to the planning application, he said that the government land will be “preserved” in case of a project that benefits the Żurrieq community after consulting with the local council.

This newspaper asked whether government taking the land away from the farmers that work it sends the right message, however the minister refrained from speaking about the farmers’ concerns. 

Instead, he took issue with the phrase “taking away,” and repeated that the land will be “earmarked” for future projects that benefit the locality.

“Is food not enough for the good of society?”

The minister was individually singled out during a protest on Saturday, as Robert Bondin Carter, one of the farmers who works the land, warned him that the people of Żurrieq will never forgive him if he doesn’t do what’s right.

Similarly, Annalisa Schembri, who is also a farmer working the field in question, described their fight for justice as “absurd” because “this is a matter of common sense.”

“The farmer, the citizen, and the Lands Authority should be on the same side,” she emphasised.

“Why should young farmers be threatened with losing part of their income and identity because the developer’s land next to ours can’t fit his grand plan?”

Meanwhile, Għaqda Bdiewa Attivi president Malcolm Borg told protestors that he was dumbfounded at how agricultural land is seen as a place with potential to develop.

“Is food not enough for the good of the society?” Borg asked.