November 6 (JIS): Farmers are being encouraged to report losses resulting from larceny to the police, in order to bolster efforts to address the issue. Chairman of the Jamaica 4-H Clubs Island Advisory Council, Reverend Roy Wickham, says existing measures being implemented by the Government may not be as effective unless the farmer makes a report. “There are those farmers who will tell you that they don’t bother to make the report because nothing is coming of it. But that’s a challenge to our system of policy as well as a system of nipping the whole matter in the bud,” Rev. Wickham said. He was speaking during a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Get the Facts’ interview. Rev. Wickham, who is also President of the United Agriculturalist and Farmers Association of Jamaica (UAFAJ), noted that the Government continues to implement measures to improve efforts at managing and reducing farm theft. “The Government has put in place the matter of traceability, where they tag cattle. There’s also the development of the Praedial Larceny Unit of the Police Department. Notwithstanding [these], however, there is a need to strengthen the structures so that you can have more effective [management of] the matter at the community level,” he said. Meanwhile, the UAFAJ is estimating that the $6-billion figure associated with farm theft in Jamaica is five times higher when opportunity loss is considered. “We have been able to look at this economic loss to farmers and recognise that it is about $30 billion and not $6 billion,” Rev. Wickham said. He explained that if a farmer brings in a healthy bull for use on their farm to get better genetical output and that bull is stolen, the thief only sees “money in his pocket and food on the table”. “But for the farmer? That’s a great loss, because what the expectation was has been reduced, not only with animals but also with plants or other produce. There are farmers who may have brought in certain genetical ideas or concepts that they wanted to improve in their crops, and when these crops are stolen then you have that problem,” he indicated. Rev. Wickham said because food security and safety will always be challenged by farm theft, preventing it requires “all hands on deck”. “The business of the agriculture sector is too important for us to just give it mere lip service. Never be too quick, I would say to our people, to buy a lower cost food, because this item may just be the difference between your health and the country’s productivity,” he added.

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