Legislation to deal with crop theft in the works

After several months of lobbying and pressure from local farmers and other stakeholders around the issue of widespread crop theft, a new piece of legislation framed to combat praedial larceny is being drafted to address the problem.

This promise came from Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir as he addressed farmers virtually, on Tuesday, at the beginning of talks to iron out a new set of protections and safeguards to stamp out crop theft.

Weir said that based on reports from farmers, praedial larceny is costing the industry millions of dollars annually.

“Many farmers have reported to me that they are counting hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses, and in the last set of numbers that I have seen at the Ministry, the losses are into the millions, as we seek to quantify how many people are losing as we address this matter of praedial larceny.

“I want to call on all Barbadians, supermarkets, shops, vendors, restaurants, hoteliers, everyone, I want to call on all of you to recognize that if you are purchasing agricultural produce from people engaging in praedial larceny, you are equally as guilty as the person who is committing the offence,” Weir said.

The Minister added that it was “really very unfortunate that our society today would find itself in a place where so many of our citizens would seek to use all sorts of shortcuts toward economic enfranchisement, [with] praedial larceny being one such shortcut”.

He said these actions were making it difficult for farmers to get a just return on their investments.

“Oftentimes, people who are engaged in praedial larceny are doing it at zero cost to them and are therefore able to gain significant profits from this activity,” the Agriculture Minister noted.

Weir said the situation has escalated drastically in recent years, with produce thieves now using off-road vehicles to traverse uneven terrain during their heists. He said there were also increasing cases of thieves being heavily armed while committing their criminal acts.

Weir stressed that his Ministry was committed to using all available technology, with the assistance of law enforcement, to crack down on these perpetrators, in conjunction with the proposed new legislation.

“In dealing with this piece of legislation, I have determined as Minister that I would like for us to be able to use technology as far as possible, to be able to give us certain guarantees. One, that any produce being sold to the public, be it by a vendor, be it by a supermarket, be it in a minimart, be it in a shop in the community or wherever, that item should be traced back to a farm; that we have some form of traceability that would transform this sector from one that is driven by technology, into one that embraces technology for all of our deliverables,” he said.

In addition to having tracking technology from the seed level, drone use and other forms of technology are being invested in to safeguard the sector. (SB)