Shameful acts!

Crop thieves are not only preying on local farmers, but have also relieved some primary schools of the crops they have been growing.

That’s according to Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS), James Paul. He spoke to this in an interview with The Barbados Advocate, as he lamented that the actions of those who are seeking to reap what they have not sown, has the potential to discourage those primary schools students from seeing agriculture as a viable job opportunity.

“We have been working with schools for Agrofest on projects and we have situations of persons going on school grounds and stealing the produce that the children are working on. This is a disgraceful act that should not only be frowned on but condemned. But part of the problem is we have some members of our society who are encouraging the thieves in this type of behaviour,” he said.

Paul, who last year in an interview with this newspaper, suggested that the declining values and morals in society are to blame for ongoing acts of crop and animal theft in this country, reiterated that stance, as he contended that society has to be prepared to highlight the cases of theft in order to help root out the practice. Failure to put the spotlight on this issue, he maintained, is to condone it. His comments came as he suggested that those buying produce have a responsibility to ask the origin of what they are purchasing, so as to ensure it was acquired legitimately.

“As a society we need to take responsibility for the fact that we are producing criminals and the fact is, we have persons who encourage others in these criminal activities and we need to deal with it,” he said.

Given that farmers in general are still falling victim to thieves, he said he is looking forward to seeing the recently passed Protection of Agricultural Products and Livestock Bill being fully utilised to help to curb the practice. He said while it will likely not cut out praedial larceny altogether, he is confident that it would be instrumental in bringing more offenders before the court and help to deter others. (JRT)