PRAEDIAL LARCENY has been a perennial problem for Jamaican farmers, and Government, in attempting to set up a system to intercept stolen farm produce being transported by the thieves, has tabled in Parliament amendments to the Agricultural Produce Act, which calls for all farmers to be registered and issue receipts for any produce they sell to higglers who take the goods to market.
The theory is that when the police stop vehicles with farm produce at roadblocks, unless the driver can produce the appropriate receipt, the goods will be deemed to have been stolen and treated as such. So far, so good. But a number of Senators, members of the Joint Select Committee set up to examine the Bill, have serious reservations about how it will work in practice.
Higglers perform an important function as middlemen between farm and market. Giving the police discretion to demand the production of receipts for goods they are transporting could result in harassment and inconvenience which, Senator Bruce Golding points out, would ultimately hinder the farmers' ability to dispose of his produce and to earn a living. From the point of view of the farmers themselves, Senator Golding's concerns are a sad commentary on the education deficit which the country is facing and which is the subject of current debate.
Referring to what he describes as the culture of our traditional farmers, Senator Golding makes the painful admission that they are largely illiterate and therefore not able to cope with the proposed legislation requiring them to keep books and issue receipts.
So we are confronted with yet another education-linked problem in the society even controlling praedial larceny, which costs the agricultural sector some $4 billion in losses, is a problem because our farmers are uneducated.
