Praedial larceny bill coming soon
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Indar Weir, is on a mission to have a new praedial larceny bill in place before this country transitions to a republic on November 30.
In an interview with The Barbados Advocate, Minister Weir indicated that as early as this week, he intends to present the proposed bill to the Cabinet for approval. He said once there is consensus at that level, he expects that he will be able to lay it in Parliament for debate by mid-November.
Minister Weir’s comments came as he revealed that there has been extensive consultation done on the bill, dating back to 2019. He said that consultations were held with various stakeholders including the farmers, retailers and the Royal Barbados Police Force to ensure that the bill was widely circulated, and that concerns could be raised to ensure that the legislation is robust, and capable of adequately addressing the problem of crop and livestock theft in this country.
“This legislation has gone through a fair amount of consultation, and I’m looking forward to taking it to Parliament to have it debated once the CPC [Chief Parliamen-tary Counsel] has finalised the final statute,” he stated.
Disclosing some of the aspects of the bill, he indicated that drone technology will feature prominently, and there will be a ticketing system, which will either be electronic or paper-based. Additionally, he spoke of introducing a system that would allow for traceability, so as to track agricultural produce from farm to shelf.
“I call it a traceability system, but most of the technical people prefer to refer to it as barcoding or receipts, where you can trace back from where a person did a purchase at the point of retail, or from retail back to the farm. Therefore, through that mechanism, if somebody has stolen produce it is easier to identify it. Under the new bill, farmers when transporting their produce must have some form of receipt or identification on them, because we must be able to also track where they have taken it from; vendors must also be able to show where their produce came from. And then for imported produce, there must be a bill of lading so that we can follow and track where the supplies came from as well, and easily differentiate those that are imported from those that are produced locally. So there is no opportunity to disguise stolen produce,” the agriculture minister explained.
Weir is confident that the new legislation, once enacted, would assist in stamping out the incidence of praedial larceny, which he acknowledged has over the years had a devastating impact on farmers, threatening the viability of the sector.
Meanwhile, the minister indicated that his ministry is also seeking to put in place a suite of legislation to deal with sanitary and phytosanitary measures – the Plant Protection Bill, the Animal Health and Veterinary Public Health Bill and the Food Safety and Quality Bill – which will bring the legislative frameworks in these areas in line with international requirements. While remaining mum on the details of the bills, he said they are “pretty close to completion”.
“The reason why I am not going into detail is that we have not yet finalised it with the Ministry of Health and Wellness and I have not yet gone to the Cabinet with the legislation. But it’s really very close to getting there. In fact, I’ve already got my team on alert that this should be before Cabinet by the end of the month,” he revealed.
The Minister said that through the Government’s thrust to get these various pieces of legislation in place, coupled with their efforts to improve access to water for farmers, they are preparing an environment through which the agricultural sector can flourish. (JRT)