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The fatal shooting of two suspected crop thieves at Three Houses Plantation early Tuesday drew attention to the plight of farmers in the area who have lost tens of thousands of dollars in produce in recent months.
Tales of serial vegetable thieves depriving at least half a dozen frustrated farmers of significant investments of money, time, energy and equipment in planting and cultivation began to emerge just hours after the duo were shot dead by a patrolling farmer at about 12:20 a.m. on Tuesday in a yam field.
The shooting brought into sharp focus a culture of stealing other people’s produce which the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS) condemned as a crime of both reapers and buyers.
Police said a farmer who leased the yam field from the plantation in St Philip was on patrol after a string of thefts, and came across two men harvesting his crops.
Barbados Police Service spokesman Inspector Rodney Inniss said when the owner confronted them, an “altercation” ensued, resulting in the two men being shot, both dying at the scene.
Up to the time of publication, police were still seeking the public’s help in identifying the dead men, while requesting that anyone who could assist should contact District ‘C’ Police Station at 418-8200 to make arrangements to visit the morgue for official identification, police emergency at 211, or Oistins Police Station at 418-2612.
Responding to the deadly confrontation, several farmers who make a living from the wide expanse of fields that adjoin each other at Three Houses and Groves, spoke of the “many” times they, too, have been hit by crop thieves.
When Barbados TODAY toured the scene on Tuesday, one farmer was selling off all the watermelons from his plot of land for “fear that thieves would come during the night and reap them”.
“I fear being hit again because they got me already,” said Bishra Kisu. “I grow sweet potato, melons, cucumber.… But I… come at night and watch. However, I getting rid of all the melons today – 100 bags today – so the thieves wouldn’t get them tonight.”
A stone’s throw away, another farmer who spoke on condition of anonymity blamed farmers outside the area and vendors for multiple thefts from him and other crop producers.
“You getting a lot of [thieving] up in here,” he said. “This is the second time somebody come and carried away all of his yams or attempted to. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I bought $1 600 in drip lines, had the drip lines down there resting on the ground, went home and come back; somebody carried away all.
“The other gentleman there…pulled drip lines out of the ground the morning and the night time somebody come and carried away all that were there. The other gentleman next door… had some sweet potatoes and for about four weeks straight, somebody was just digging them, digging them, digging them. There is a lot of stealing we got down in here.
“I had melons planted because I now just started farming. The morning, I went and I picked some, the evening time I come back, all the melons gone,” he added.
But the farmer said he was not convinced that the thefts were being committed by the same individual or individuals.
“It’s some different people that doing it,” he contended. “For instance, a drip line that got carried away… that [has] got to be a farmer, but like the vegetables, the yams, the melons, the sweet potatoes…from what I realised that is going on, there are some hawkers coming and buying vegetables from you and they sending back someone in the evening to go and steal them. So, that is really going on. And as I said, some of the farmers doing the stealing too. But the majority of times it is the hawkers that doing it too. It is rough, and it causing real money in drip line, fertiliser, ploughing the ground and all of your time.
“Sometimes I leave up here 6:30, 7:00 at night. You plant things and somebody just coming and carrying them away. There is a guy, he had some cassava, and every time you look ‘round, somebody just coming and digging up the cassava and taking them away. He had sweet potatoes and somebody just digging them and taking them away. It is rough, it is rough with the farmers. Right now, there are five farmers that are complaining about the stealing that is going on, including me.”
BAS Chief Executive Officer James Paul told Barbados TODAY that while the shooting of the two men should not be applauded, Barbadians should ask themselves why the scourge of crop theft continues.
Paul said: “Those yams would have taken at least six months to reach maturity to the stage that they are at, and I would just want persons in the public to think those who are weekly-paid, for instance, or those who are monthly-paid, that if after the end of a week, we have worked and expect to be paid, that all of a sudden someone comes and take it from you, how do you feel?
“It is also unfortunate that we have cultural nuances in our society that seem to facilitate the actions of these criminals. As a matter of fact, in some parts of the Caribbean, generally, praedial larceny is part of the folklore and is an accepted practice on the part of some people, which is part of the ‘cuh dear’ attitude that seems to permeate our society, that makes people feel they have a right to reprieve people of their properties.”
The farmers’ spokesman is demanding that action be taken to fight this mentality.
“Those persons who steal crops or livestock take it somewhere. And we also have to focus on those persons who buy stolen property. They are just as guilty as those persons who actually take it. I am asking persons within the Barbadian community to avoid dealing with persons who come into property by dubious means.
“So, we within the Barbados Agricultural Society, certainly do not applaud the fact that a human life has been taken but we do understand the circumstances, and I also want to reach out to that farmer and his family [because of] the current trauma that they must be going through at the moment,” Paul said.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
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