The potential of organic farming to promote and develop agri-tourism in the island of Malta

Abstract

Malta is mainly promoted as a sun and sea destination however, there is also the potential to develop and improve the agricultural sector. In doing so this will also attract tourists for the agricultural aspect of the island. One way of how this can be done is to increase agri-tourism in Malta. Therefore the aim of this dissertation is to find out whether organic farming would have the potential to promote and develop agri-tourism in Malta. A qualitative research lends itself best to analyse this research. This is done through interviewing a number of local farmers and organisations and discuss issues related to organic farming in Malta as well as their opinions and views whether they think organic farming can help to improve agri-tourism in Malta or not. From the interviews it was concluded that the majority of the respondents believe that, organic farming does have the potential to promote and develop agri-tourism and that it is important to offer organic produce in order to offer a genuine product to the tourist. However an interesting reply from one of the respondents was that Malta should mainly focus on sustainable agriculture in order to promote and develop agri-tourism in Malta.