EDITORIAL - Go after farm thieves

Crime victimisation surveys, it has been found, tend to give a more accurate, and nuanced picture of crime in a country than relying only on incidents reported to the police.

One of these studies was recently completed by Jamaica's national security ministry. Some of its findings are surprising and have significant implications not only for crime management, but agricultural policy.

For example, of the persons who were victims of crime over the past year, the survey found that half of one per cent of them had had their cars stolen, and 1.6 per cent had been mugged. Of those mugged, nearly 63 per cent had been attacked by criminals with guns. Three per cent suffered larceny and another 3.4 per cent had their homes burgled.

This clearly is not a pretty picture of crime in Jamaica, but this data, unfortunately, does not represent the people who are most frequently the victims of crime, particularly theft.

Economic consequences

Indeed, 13.7 per cent of the victims of crime over the past year were farmers who complained of their crops being stolen, i.e. through praedial larceny. That figure jumped to approximately 23 per cent when victims were asked about what had happened over their lifetimes. This was sharply higher than the 14.1 per cent who had suffered larceny.

This raiding of farms by what Roger Clarke, the former agriculture minister, once referred to as " the two-foot puss", has serious economic consequences. A 2007 analysis by the agriculture ministry estimated that Jamaica's farmers that year had around $5 billion worth of produce stolen from them. That is about six per cent of the $79.7 million, which was the estimated current dollar value of all agricultural output.

Five billion dollars is a lot of money. Look at it this way: what farmers lost through theft in 2007 represented 58 per cent of the 2009 sales of cement manufacturer, Carib Cement Ltd, or 61 per cent of Red Stripe's turnover for the three quarters up to the end of March 2010.

At GraceKenndy, Douglas Orane would have to eschew nearly nine per cent of his company's $57.4 billion sales in 2009 to equate to what farmers routinely lose through theft. And with GraceKennedy last year translating around five per cent of its sales to net profit - $2.57 billion - the potential impact on the group's profit-and-loss account would be obvious - supposing it had to take such a hit.

Critical proportions

The point is that, while security is a serious problem for anyone doing business in Jamaica, it is at crisis proportions in the agricultural sector. When farmers plant, they have to presume that up to 10 per cent of their crops is for thieves - unless we deal with the matter forcefully. Which is why this newspaper strongly supports the initiatives recently announced by the agriculture minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, including the establishment of an anti-praedial-larceny unit at his ministry, to coordinate a campaign against the practice.

But this is not a problem primarily for the agriculture ministry. Stealing from farmers is a crime that has to have the full attention of the police. They have to wake up from their slumber and get on with the job of prosecuting the praedial thieves - of which they do very little. The Government also has to make it known that it is serious about agriculture.

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