Senator alarmed at responses to crop theft

Senator Lisa Cummins has expressed concern with the manner in which some Barbadians treat to praedial larceny.

During debate on the Protection of Agricultural Products Bill, 2022, in the Senate today, Senator Cummins said she was alarmed that persons were defending “small farmers” who stole crops.

“We don’t want to see people hurt or we don’t want to see people punished, that is the nature of Barbadian society a lot of times, but I have seen a conversation evolving on social media which I find troubling.

“So a farmer, who is a small man like you in some instances, but you go in a man’s lot and you take what is not yours and somebody out there is saying, ‘but how you expect the man to live?’

“ Would somebody say, ‘but how you expect the man to live’ if you go on Broad Street and take something that is not yours?” Senator Cummins, who is also the Minister of Tourism and International Transport questioned.

“We have to be able to recognize right from right and wrong from wrong and when something is wrong we call it wrong. If there is a societal issue and people are challenged and people are trying to make ends meet and to live, Barbados is still that place where you can go and ask for a breadfruit or where you can go to the plantation owner and ask for some sweet potatoes or yams to be able to feed your children.

“Barbados is still that place where you can get help when you ask for it, but it is not the place where you can go and take up that which does not belong to you because that person that you are stealing from also has a responsibility to their own livelihood and to their families.”

Senator Cummins said similar to how Government had decriminalised vending in the country, the protection of farmers was of paramount importance.

“Equally so we want to ensure that there is an end-to-end process that captures from farmers all the way through to vendors a legitimate process that says these are legitimate people doing legitimate business and who do not deserve to be criminalised, neither do they deserve to have their produce and the fruits of their labour stolen and taken by persons who have not contributed, who want to, in the proverbial term, reap what they have not sown,” Senator Cummins said.
(RB)