---
id: ch6-malta
type: spine
title: "Malta: small farms, scarce water, a digital route to local buyers"
readingTime: 2
standalone: true
core: false
teaser: "Farms under one hectare, an ageing workforce and imported fresh food. Three open-call projects tried to put Maltese producers back in front of local buyers."
voice: universal
parent: null
diagram: fig-malta-path
recallQ: "How did the Maltese pilot's three open-call projects build on each other, and what was the winning idea of the MaYA Agri-Tech Ideathon?"
recallA: "AgriFusion (Outreach) researched farmer and consumer needs, the MaYA Agri-Tech Ideathon (Mobilise) co-created solutions with young people, and MALTESE (Develop) trained 25 people and ran a no-account JackDaw chatbot and an e-market with 61 recorded sales. The ideathon was won by Go(v) Local First, a forecasting and matching platform that gives local producers preference in public food procurement for schools, hospitals and canteens."
highlights:
  - "Only 23.7% of Maltese agricultural workers are under 45; average farms are under one hectare"
  - "The Malta RAP chooses enabling actions (skills, awareness, informal collaboration) over structural reform"
  - "Ideathon winner Go(v) Local First gives local producers preference in public food procurement"
  - "MALTESE: 25 trainees, nine producer stores, 61 recorded e-market sales, soil-moisture sensors linked to JackDaw"
status: accepted
concept: malta-agri-food
conceptTitle: "Malta's agri-food open-call path"
parents: short-food-supply-chains
lang: en
lens: malta
depth: standard
formalism: none
visuality: balanced
lengthBand: deep
genre: story
state: edited
carriers: prose|diagram
---

The Maltese policy brief describes a sector under pressure. **Only 23.7% of agricultural workers are under 45**, **average farms are under one hectare**, arable land is lost to urban encroachment, and reliance on imported fresh produce leaves food security exposed to outside shocks. **Water scarcity** adds to the strain on production. The Malta RAP does not propose large structural reforms. It focuses on **enabling actions**: digital-skills training, awareness raising and informal collaboration ([Malta pilot](#c/malta-pilot)).

## Three open calls, one path

**1. Listen: AgriFusion** (Outreach call, The Veg Box Ltd). The team combined surveys, interviews with farmers, officials and technology providers, and focus groups, and used AI-assisted workflows to analyse the qualitative data. It confirmed that **consumers are willing to support local farm-to-table channels** and drafted a roadmap towards a national coalition that links producers directly to urban value chains.

**2. Co-create: MaYA Agri-Tech Ideathon** (Mobilise call, Malta Youth in Agriculture Foundation). Two webinars in September 2025 prepared the event. The ideathon took place on 3 October 2025 at the DiHubMT innovation facility, with **more than 40 participants** in five teams. They worked with the PoliRural+ Rural Attractiveness Explorer and [JackDaw](#c/jackdaw) on land access, market visibility and water resilience. The winner, **Go(v) Local First**, is a forecasting and matching platform that structures **public food procurement (schools, hospitals, canteens) so that local Maltese producers get automatic preference**. Follow-up consultations with national cooperatives were under way when D6.3 was written.

**3. Build: MALTESE** (Develop call, Projektberatung und Management Expert Assoziation with SEMABLU and Selfhood). The team delivered:

- a **no-account JackDaw chatbot**, so farmers can ask questions without registering;
- a Map Whiteboard with Maltese field and soil layers;
- a PrestaShop **rural-urban e-market** with **nine producer stores and 61 recorded transactions**;
- an architecture that links **IoT soil-moisture sensors** to the JackDaw advisory interface.

A four-day course in Dingli (5–8 May 2026) trained **25 people over 73 participant-days** in digital tools, circular practices, smart irrigation and business-model pitching. **Three participant-owned circular agri-business concepts** came out of it and were presented at the final event at the Malta Digital Innovation Authority on 25 June 2026. D6.3 states that the tools will stay publicly accessible until at least July 2029.

## Where water fits

In the Maltese work, water is part of the skills and business picture rather than a separate infrastructure project. The RAP recommends **peer-led sharing of small-scale practices** such as hydroponics, composting and smart water use. The ideathon treated climate and water resilience as one theme among several, and MALTESE taught smart irrigation next to e-commerce. The binding constraint is still people: in 2022 Malta had **only 1,200 registered young farmers under 40** (pilot website). The public-procurement idea from the ideathon may matter as much as any sensor.

**Sources:**
- D7.3 Policy Brief No. 1, Annex 9 "Transforming Malta's Agri-Food System through Digital Innovation and Circularity". [PDF](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/docs/349/D7.3_Policy_Brief_No.1.pdf)
- D6.3 Comprehensive Report on Funded Activities and Impact Assessment, §3.2 Project results and achievements (Outreach: AgriFusion; Mobilise: M-ATI; Develop: MALTESE). [PDF](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/docs/437/D6.3_Comprehensive_report.pdf)
- PoliRuralPlus website, pilot page Malta – Malta and Gozo (original 2024 text, "Anticipated result"). [poliruralplus.eu](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/)
- Atlas of best practices, prp-108, prp-112. [atlasbestpractices.com](https://atlasbestpractices.com)