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Malta has some natural assets and it would be a waste not to make use of them. One such asset is natural compost.
Every year we import shiploads of compost and yet we do not make use of our freely available compost - and a rich one at that. I am referring to the compost formed every year under our carob trees. The carob branches have the knack of composting in just one year and the leaves too make a lot of rich compost. I have been making use of this for many years and find that many plants thrive one it. The carob tree is a fairly fast growing indigenous tree and could do with regular pruning. If I am not mistaken there is an Italian company in Malta producing shredding machines of every size which I have seen in action in Italy but not in Malta. These machines shred the branches and apart from making carriage of leaves and branches easier go half way to making loads of compost.
Will someone embark on a project? Will the EU help such a project? Perhaps students could provide a pilot project in the Young Enterprise scheme.
Another useful plant is the prickly pear cactus or Bajtar. Since we have joined the EU and all farm levies have disappeared we are once again seeing prickly pears imported from Sicily. Malta is paying good money for this fruit when Malta and Gozo are both covered in prickly pears. Is it possible that no one has decided to cultivate the prickly pear to produce a larger fruit with less seeds in? I believe what this entails is proper cultivation of young plants and removing most of the fruit from each leaf and leaving only one or two.
Recently I was in Sicily and the fruit was being served in restaurants as a desert - at an atrocious price. We must make use of our assets and stop paying good money for what we often throw away.
George Zammit
Mosta
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