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Communications |
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Closing Speech during MALSIS Seminar |
Date:
18/03/2004
Closing Speech As Delivered By The Hon. George Pullicino, Minister For Rural Affairs And The Environment During MALSIS Seminar ‘A Soil Information System For The Maltese Islands’
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and gentlemen,
First of all allow me to thank you for your attendance and participation in this Seminar, intended to bring stake holders up to date with the developments and outcomes following the conclusion of the MALSIS Project.
MALSIS is a project that over the last two years has seen an activity and commitment by all involved that have contributed in no small way to its successful conclusion, well within the time-lines planned at its initiation. We are now in a position to look back with satisfaction and to look forward with optimism, knowing that we now have a modern tool in the form of an information system that has mapped out the soil resources of the Maltese Islands.
The two-year MALSIS project came to be after years of concern and various attempts at soil protection and consolidation. As far back as the Knights’ period, and as recently as the 1950’s, with the Lang survey, we have had a series of legislative and scientific reflections of our concern with this vital resource. Now, with the help of funds from the European Union’s Life III programme, and the technical assistance of our colleagues from the National Soil Office within Cranfield University, we have a state of the art soil information system, that I am proud to say, should serve as a standard setter in the formulation of soil information programmes on an international level.
As Minister responsible for both agriculture and for the environment, both fields that are fundamentally rooted in the subject matter of the project - soil, I can well appreciate the value inbuilt within such a project. I’m informed that the National Soil unit has collected and analysed samples from a comprehensive grid that is based on squares as small as 1km by 1km in general, and even closer where two special zones were identified. Thus the same unit now has detailed information about the soil covering all our landscapes, whether cultivated, uncultivated or so called wasteland.
Individual farmers and even their organisations can also find MALSIS to be a treasure trove of data useful for them in the planning of their production, based on the suitability of suggested crops for the soil on which it is being considered, or even by planning crop production on the basis of the soil’s potential.
This information is not only useful for farmers or agriculture officers but useful also with land or environmental planners concerned with planning for development and the environmental considerations upon which they base their considerations. At the touch of a button, they as well are going to be in a position to assess the physical and chemical properties of the soil on any parcel of land that they are considering.
MALSIS however is only a first step. Having successfully collected, analysed and registered the samples in a geographical database, the next step is the setting up of unit a competent authority that can interrelate with all the stakeholders in soil matters in order to ensure that this data is administered in appropriate manner. The database will form the backbone for the setting up of the National Soil Office within the Agricultural Services and Rural Development Division.
This Office will have the responsibility for soil monitoring, research and protection on these Islands, giving due consideration to all areas of relevance, principally agricultural, but also to the integration with environmental and land management issues.
We attach great attention to soil as a resource of paramount importance in our environmental portrait. I hardly need to mention that, out of consciousness of this fact, we seek to keep in place the crop rotation pattern whereby the last year in this cycle, our soils are left uncultivated. In these respects, our soils will regain their structure while at the same time we give breathing space to our flora and fauna. It is in fact on this basis that this government has succeeded in obtaining from the EU a derogation on the minimum area for fallow land which in our circumstances has been set at 0.01Ha. Land for fallow qualifies our farmers for direct payments and it is estimated that no less than 98.5 per cent of our land will be entitled for such payments. Such benefits for set aside land are estimated to reach no less than LM 4 million by 2013.
This project is further evidence of the structural changes and developments that have taken place within this Ministry in recent years. Not only has the Ministry’s reputation been enhanced, but we are witnessing a silent revolution with young and promising gradutes being recruited and occupying challenging and very relevant positions. It is impressive to note that the number of qualified personnel, i.e. individuals holding a University degree or diploma, has increased four fold, that is from 30 to more than 120 within the last 8 years. Many of the new recruits are present at this seminar today and this project is only one of a long lists of projects this Ministry is involved with.
I came here to deliver the concluding address for this seminar, signifying the successful termination of the project. However I do not feel that this is an end but rather a beginning. We have concluded the phase whereby we have acquired a tool that can in itself be developed further, and that is intended to serve the agricultural and environmental interests of our Islands for years to come.
Finally I take this occasion to thank all those who collaborated in the project, the European Union’s LIFE programme, headed by Mr Bruno Julien, for co-sponsoring the project, Professor Mark Kibblewhite, Head of the National Soil Resources Institute of Cranfield University, who were the MALSIS Technical Advisers, and Ms Sonya Sammut and her team who carried out the bulk of the work required. Thank you for giving such an important and useful tool both for our agriculture and environment. |
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