If we are going to have a major impact upon the increase in local food production we must address the major disincentive to growing food and raising livestock. The continual plundering of local farms with relative impunity.
The Ministry of Agriculture must lead the charge in this in cooperation with the Ministry of Home Affairs. This should be done in such a way that it involves the whole community for Government can not do it all without the cooperation of the wider public and the business community.
For many years we have witnessed small scale theft of crops with a tolerance that was born out of empathy for a hungry man feeding himself or his family in a time of hardship. In recent decades however we have witnessed an increasing industrialization of the process where truck loads are carted away to be sold in markets or to hotels across the island.
Farming is hard work. It is risky business fighting the vagaries of the weather and the assault of pests. It is no easy task to bring a crop to maturity or to raise sheep and cattle to be ready for slaughter. To have months of hard work wiped out in a night of pillage is soul destroying and with little redress, economic ruin.
This is the fundamental problem that must be addressed to give our farmers the heart to invest and get on with the task of feeding us. Lawyers and bureaucrats refer to predial larceny I prefer to use the Anglo Saxon words to describe what it is. Crop theft, rustling livestock and plundering farms. That resonates with the man in the street. It is each and every one of us that pays for this criminal activity that drives up the cost of food and creates scarcity in the market place as farmers withdraw from farming and produce non food crops that range from grass to houses.
There is no silver bullet that will solve this issue but we must make a start by developing structural and legislative solutions to aggressively tackle the problem. There is no use developing land for the landless farmer programs unless adequate security is ensured. More tax breaks will not solve the problem of loosing a whole crop in one night. Barbados is a small place with a closely knit society where the information about illegal harvesting of crops must be widely known. What seems to be lacking is the will to crack down on farm thieves and those that sell stolen goods.
It is time for us to step up to the challenge and work to solve the problem. A good first step might be for the Ministry of Agriculture to have a brain storming session with the farming community, members of the judiciary and the legal fraternity, the Royal Barbados Police Force and members of the distributive trade. In so doing they will develop an understanding of the magnitude of the problem and the hurdles that must be overcome to successfully prosecute crop theft.
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