Hugh Martin THE 107th Annual General Meeting of the JAS held on July 10 was hardly any different from the others that preceded it except perhaps in the number of Government Ministers in attendance.
Three Ministers and the Prime Minister slated to address one meeting would seem an over-kill unless matters of major national importance were to be announced. But the major announcement, made by Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke and supported by National Security Minister Peter Phillips, was simply that the long expected legislation to deal with the problem of praedial larceny would be put in place within the next three to four months.
The Gleaner reported the following day that it was met "with much snickering and cynicism by the large number of farmers who attended the meeting." The response of the farmers is understandable. Praedial larceny has been the bane of the farming sector for far too long. Government has made far too many unfulfilled promises and far too many stillborn schemes have been put forward and half-heartedly attempted. The reneging recently on a promise by the Cabinet to provide financing for an Agricultural Development Fund which included the praedial larceny control programme may have been the last straw that broke the back of the farmers' confidence in the sincerity of Government's commitment to tackle the problem.
Minister Clarke, himself a farmer and a former member of the JAS Board of Management, knows his farmers well. He would have expected them to come to the meeting in a militant mood and that he would be at the receiving end of their wrath. His masterstroke to disarm them was in getting the Minister of National Security to come and declare responsibility for the programme. He had, after all, promised that in his budget presentation a couple of months ago. The presence of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Land and the Environment, Horace Dalley, did not hurt either. Had he managed to get the Minister of Finance to join the party he probably would have been carried shoulder-high to the platform in the manner of the Leader of the Opposition at a party conference. That would have been the ultimate coup (and no mean feat considering the gravitational challenge to these farmers in their quite senior years).
And there, perhaps, lies the rub. Where is the money to fund the programme? The Ministry of Agriculture clearly doesn't have it and our last check at the Ministry of National Security failed to confirm such an allocation. One is left to wonder therefore if the Ministry of Finance, stretched to the limit of its meagre resources, has bought into this JAS-driven programme. The Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) which works closely with the JAS in the delivery of Extension Services to the farmers and farm families, operated last year with a less than adequate budget. That situation has worsened this year so no help can be expected from that quarter either.
The proposed merging of the present diverse and largely ineffectual units of agricultural, environmental and traffic wardens under the umbrella of the Island Constabulary Force, as announced by Minister Phillips, seems a compromise that could be a move in the right direction. This will allow for a more cost-effective employment of limited resources for a greater focus on the sadly neglected areas of farm theft and environmental abuses. In addition the promised legislation, when it comes, will give the combined forces more authority to perform the duties assigned them.
The truth is that the legislation relating to praedial larceny is archaic dating back to periods when the theft of farm produce was infinitesimal and confined to a few coconuts, oranges or a bunch of bananas. Nowadays it has assumed levels of sophistication involving truckloads of commodities manned by armed and dangerous characters. New approaches are needed to deal with this frightening development and cannot come too soon. But three to four months from now is looking very much like national elections territory. If that event arrives before the promised legislation the farmers can forget about the programme for quite a while to come.
The Prime Minister is reported to have reiterated the promise of his Ministers. In doing so he has placed his credibility and that of the government on the line. Good governance requires confidence of the citizen in the word of the State. He must therefore ensure that there is no faltering in the process of legislation and implementation. There is only just enough time.
Hugh Martin is a communications specialist and farm broadcaster. E-mail: humar@cwjamaica.com
