Agri players say praedial larceny threatening food security in west
Published:Wednesday | April 12, 2023 | 1:04 AMHopeton Bucknor/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Thieves preying on livestock and agricultural crops are threatening the viability of farms and have been causing some smaller farmers to rethink their continued investment in the sector
Industry players agree that the situation could pose a threat to food security and stymie efforts to reduce the island’s food import bill, estimated at more than US$1 billion annually.
An estimated $6 billion is lost to praedial theft annually, with 82 per cent of farmers and fisherfolk being affected on average.
On Monday, several farmers and Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) parish managers at the Montpelier Agricultural Show in St James told The Gleaner that getting a permanent fix to praedial larceny was their foremost concern in building out the sector.
Tiffany Moorhouse, the JAS parish manager for Trelawny, spotlighted farm theft as the biggest challenge faced by farmers in that parish, especially in the northern side, where livestock farmers are suffering huge losses as crooks circumvent their security measures and steal their animals.
“Currently, praedial larceny continues to be a big issue, especially for livestock farmers. On a weekly basis, we have persons saying that they are losing cattle and goats valued at over $300,000,” said Moorhouse.
She said that even though the police have established an active Praedial Larceny Unit in Trelawny, the thieves have found creative ways to keep the police off their track.
“When they normally steal from one area, they would not normally go back there until the following month, so they (the police) are unable to track these thieves as to what they are doing,” said Moorhouse.
“We need to put more patrols in some of these communities where cattle farming is in abundance,” she suggested.
“I think the Government can assist some of these farmers with tracking devices,” continued Moorhouse. “And, not just tracking devices, more persons should be assigned to the Praedial Larceny Unit.”
She also wants the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to educate farmers on their rights so they can better protect their farms as “ ... sometimes these farmers are fearful that if they do something to these thieves, [something] would happen to them”.
Otis Sherman, the JAS parish manager for the island’s Breadbasket Parish, St Elizabeth, and his Westmoreland counterpart, Noel Hamilton, said praedial larceny is also rampant in those two parishes, which has prompted farmers to start utilising technology to monitor their farms.
“Farmers have come up with various methods to ward off thieves, such as camera placement and various other technical placements,” said Sherman, who declined to provide details on the strategies publicly.