Thieves have struck farms belonging to the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC), carrying away about 10 000 pounds of yams between January 2 and the early hours of last Monday.
“We have been advised that this was one of several similar incidents over that weekend, which occurred in the St Philip and St John parishes. These thefts have been reported to the Barbados Police Service and they have opened an investigation into the matter,” the State agency said in a Barbados Government Information Service release yesterday.
It has urged vendors and retailers to be alert to the high risk of handling stolen property.
“Due to the limited availability of this commodity on the island, purchasers are advised to exercise caution when procuring or negotiating with any individual or business claiming to have this produce for sale.
“Large-scale buyers (in excess of 100 pounds) should insist on a formal invoice and actively seek verification of the seller’s identity through valid farmers’ identification cards or, at a minimum, the presentation of a Barbados National Identification Card for record-keeping purposes. Buyers should also demand confirmation of the farm location from which the crop was sourced. These measures are expected to assist the [police] in identifying the perpetrators of this crime,” the BADMC stated.
“Theft at this scale results in potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue to the farming community.”
The release also quoted Minister of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security Indar Weir as saying: “This whole thing comes down to Barbadians wanting to see the end of praedial larceny, because the law is there. It comes down to enforcement. If people are going to tolerate people stealing crops and driving around in vehicles or standing up at a corner and selling it, and don’t help us to enforce the law by asking people to show how they’re obtaining that produce, then we’re never going to get rid of it.”
(BW/PR)
