Crop theft shows no signs of slowing, with farmers reporting brazen thieves are undeterred by existing laws, the head of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS) has said.
BAS Chief Executive Officer James Paul told reporters that criminal boldness is being fuelled by a perceived lack of scrutiny from law enforcement.
“Predial larceny, I want to tell Barbadians, is not under retreat. These thieves are getting bolder,” he said. “We have a situation where a location in St George, where the car number of the thieves have been identified, the matter has been reported to the police; this has been going on for a matter of weeks. Even up to [last] Wednesday night the thieves [struck], and [the farmer] cannot get any response at all from the police.”
He added that farmers’ frustrations were compounded by challenging economic conditions that have seen anticipated sales increases fail to materialise as a result of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.
“And we have a situation where right now we have a farmer out there who has been hit on weekly by thieves and we can’t get no response from the authorities,” Paul lamented.
He also questioned the motives behind crop theft at a time when vacant agricultural jobs are plentiful.
“You have a situation where farmers cannot find people to work, and yet you have things like theft going on; you hear about how people say how hard things are. But I have to wonder if there are two Barbadoses that we are living in where we are making excuses for people going and stealing, and saying that somehow the reason this is happening is that they cannot find work, but at the same time you have farmers being prepared to pay a reasonable rate [for work].”
The BAS boss implored the government to support producers if increased production is the aim: “If the government is going to say you need to increase your production, you at the same time must give those farmers some level of comfort to ensure that if you are going to produce, that you can reap what you produce. It is a significant disincentive to the farming community; you need to stop giving these double standards to them,” Paul said. (SB)
