Prickly Pears

One of Malta’s most loved and ubiquitous of fruits is in abundant supply and yet severely underutilized: the prickly pear – remains untapped as a commercial resource by farmers while foreign entrepreneurs have already realized its potential. Granted that thorns are a major deterrent, and so, prickly pears here in Malta are relegated to being used as windbreakers for fields and borderlines between main roads and farmland
Despite growing on the Maltese islands for 368 years, the miracle aspect is yet to be exploited. We know that the prickly pear has come all the way from Mesoamerica. That’s why Mexico has a prickly pear on its flag. The Knights brought it all the way from the Caribbean in 1650 but the first written reference to the plant in Malta is in Francesco Agius de Soldanis’s historical reports sometime around 1750.

The prickly pear grew so fiercely and abundantly in Malta since that time that for a while it featured on Malta’s coat of arms as well. Prickly pears are everywhere you look in Malta. Entrepreneurs have not yet invested in the plant and do not yet know how to market the fruit. And yet the Sicilians on the other hand, are using Malta’s very own prickly pear strains to make jams, syrups, drinks, even cosmetics, and they are making a great deal of money. A recent study led by the University of Malta even discovered that chemicals extracted from the fruit could help delay the two major diseases of aging: Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. No wonder it is dubbed “miracle crop” in dry regions.
In Malta, farmers are not yet ready to invest in the prickly pear so they just plant it in dry land and not as a major crop. Abroad, there are farmlands completely committed to the plant, planted in very fertile land and irrigated regularly to bear the healthiest fruit. Malta is lucky to have nothing less than 15 varieties of prickly pear. Sicily has just five, three of which are Maltese. 

A large prickly-pear tree next to a wayside chapel

This colorful fruit grows abundantly in the dry countryside, and it has been used to produce a liqueur, which is quite popular in Malta. But there is so much more we can do with its potential. Personally, I wait every August for some friends and parishioners who bring me a bunch of them, as they do faithfully with local oranges in December, loquat in June, grapes in September and pomegranate in October.