Hugh Martin TUESDAY'S "LETTER of the Day" winner, Mr. A. S. Jackson, clearly frustrated with the unceasing incidences of praedial larceny, resorted to hyperbole to express his disgust at the ineffectiveness of measures employed over the years to contain it.
I am deeply concerned, he wrote, about the apathetic and feeble attempts being made by the government to help farmers rid themselves of this scourge which has descended upon us like a swarm of locusts." (Emphasis mine).
Praedial larceny is indeed a major scourge to the farming sector but to claim that it has descended upon us like a swarm of locusts is to grossly overstate the situation. As many as 25 years ago, then JAS president, Courtney Fletcher, described it as the greatest disincentive to agricultural investment and development. It was at a time when heavily-armed men would invade farms and the produce transported away in large trucks. This prompted another farm leader to declare that it was no longer praedial but grand larceny and to call for sentences to match that crime.
The problem goes back much further as in the 1950s it was so important that it was the subject of one of Jamaica's early forays into the film-making industry. Lloyd Reckord, one of Jamaica's leading actors of the day (and is still today), should recall that Martin Reynolds film.
So, Mr. Jackson, praedial larceny has not descended upon us like a swarm of locusts. It has been with us from a longer time. Indeed, you may say it began in Eden. When Eve picked that famous fruit she was committing the first act of praedial larceny and, contrary to what you may have believed up to now, that, and not the other thing, is original sin. It is because of this and not so much the "apathetic and feeble attempts by the Government why we have never been able to eradicate or even contain this crime. It is part of the curse that came with the fall of our first parents. There have indeed been numerous measures put in place to address the problem including new legislation every decade or so. Every Minister of Agriculture since Independence has made praedial larceny one of the priorities on his must-do list. Every one of them has put in place at least one measure intended to rid the country of this plague on the farming sector. Every one of them has had the same result - failure.
Let's face it. Praedial larceny is a crime just like any other; burglary, purse-snatching, bank robbery, fraud, murder. If the Government has not been able to control these why should we expect them to have more success in controlling theft on the farm?
What it all boils down to is that individual farmers will have to take responsibility for the security of their properties and produce. In previous times those who had no problems with the praedial thief were they who made use of a piece of red cloth in combination with a gourd painted black and white and hoisted on a tall pole placed prominently at the four corners of the property. Only a foolish or ignorant thief would dare to trespass on those protected grounds.
But times have changed and no self-respecting thief is any longer deterred by hocus-pocus. Armed guards, 24-7 with vicious dogs loose at night are now the only protection on large and medium-sized farms. It requires no strain on the imagination to estimate the effect on cost of production. No wonder local farm produce cannot compete with the imported stuff that has flooded our supermarkets and green groceries.
The answer for small farmers lies in their collective community effort. Thieves, no matter how well armed they may be, are very reluctant to prey on communities they know are vigilant. There are too many instances of very rough treatment to persons caught stealing in such communities. But vigilante justice resulting in deaths of the wrongdoers cannot be condoned. Level-headedness must be exercised by these groups at all times such as with an incident in a rural St. Andrew community. Apparently there was a spate of cow stealing in this district and the residents decided to put a stop to it. They organised themselves in groups to take turns watching all night. The first night they struck gold. Three o'clock in the morning the thief was seen tying a cow to a tree. They didn't stop him but watched quietly while he slaughtered the animal, cleaned it up, cut it in two halves and took it to a van he had parked nearby.
Then they descended on him. They didn't beat him. They hardly said a word to him. They simply put him in one side of the carcass, put the other side over him, tied it together and took him in the van to the police station where they handed him over to the police. When he was taken from the carcass it was discovered that in spite of the citizens' careful and level-headed behaviour he had, out of fright, foolishly held his breath all the way to the police station and had therefore suffocated.
Hugh Martin is an agricultural journalist.
