Fish thieves causing headache in St Elizabeth
BY GARFIELD MYERS Editor-at-Large South Central Bureau [email protected]
Monday, January 30, 2017 2 Comments
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Fish ponds at Algix Jamaica Ltd, Barton Isle, in St Elizabeth. (Gregory Bennett)
SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth – Farm theft, defined in law as praedial larceny, has long been a scourge of Jamaican agriculture causing annual losses said to be worth billions of dollars.
Fresh water fish producers, not least Algix Jamaica Ltd, the fast-growing company producing Basa and Tilapia breeds of fish is among those suffering.
According to Noel Thompson, farm manager at Algix Jamaica fish operations, located at Barton Isle, about five miles north-west of Santa Cruz, preventive measures as well as actual theft are costing the company many millions of dollars annually.
“It’s a huge problem,” Thompson told the Jamaica Observer following a recent function for the market launch of the Basa fish at the Algix farm. “Presently we employ at least 23 guards and we have 24-hour guard service, we spend about $1.6 million per month on security and it (fish theft) is still a challenge. We are trying to cope but I would say we still lose about five to 10 per cent of our product to praedial larceny,” he added.
How do the thieves do it?
“They will watch us and watch the guards,” said Thompson, “sometimes when there is a change of shift that is when they come in, sometimes when it is raining they will come in, if you slip one minute they will come in. They are on the outside, they are watching us and if we make a mistake they will come in”.
Thompson said that the size of the Algix property, more than 300 acres, about 120 acres of which are in fish ponds, makes it extremely difficult to guard it.
With the demand for fish increasing rapidly both locally and abroad, the plan is for Algix to expand operations to Clarendon, on a 300–acre property on the site of the Spring Plain Farm of the 1980s. Thompson is hopeful that praedial larceny will be much minimised in Clarendon because of logistical differences.
“The Clarendon farm is not very close to any major communities, it’s more isolated so they (thieves) will have to travel from a distance to come,” he said.
For JC Hutchinson, minister without portfolio with responsibility for agriculture, it’s full time to protect agriculture by changing laws so that farmers including Algix can better protect their produce from thieves.
Speaking at the Basa market launch, Hutchinson said that in addition to farmers’ fencing their property, Jamaica should “make legal” certain “security systems”, which he did not name, to allow for greater security. Many at the function interpreted his comments to be suggesting an amendment to Jamaican law which would allow the threat of electrocution to protect property and deter farm thieves. Currently, such use of electricity by property owners can attract criminal charges.
“On top of fencing them (fish ponds) I think we need to make legal, certain security systems to be installed with the fencing of these ponds to deter these scavengers from stealing fish,” said Hutchinson to loud and prolonged applause.
“I am serious, praedial larceny is (causing) havoc as far as agriculture is concerned and strong measures, strong actions need to be taken, and if we just let it continue as it is, we will reach nowhere,” he said.
Pressed by the
Observer after the function as to whether or not he was recommending the use or threat of electrocution as a deterrent to farm thieves, Hutchinson noted that “the law says you are not supposed to be using electricitry to deter criminals”.
However, he noted that “most of the small acquaculture farms have come out of production (during the last decade), many of them because of praedial larceny, we need to find some way to prevent these thieves from coming in to take out the fish out of these ponds”.
According to Hutchinson, Jamaican fresh water fish farmers produced 7,000 tonnes of Tilapia in 2007. It’s now down to 600 tonnes annually. He identified praedial larceny as a big reason for the fallout, though reduced competitiveness caused by the global recession of 2008 from which markets are yet to fully recover, and other factors such as energy and feed costs were also major contributors.
Hutchinson said surveillance using rapidly advancing technology was one way to improve security on farms. He told the Observer that specialists at the State-run Bodles Agricultural Research Station in Old Harbour, St Catherine, were working to strengthen surveillance methods.
“Now that we have the technology we have to look and see what technology we can put in place, we are talking about technology that is available,” he said.
However, he said that, “somehow we need to look at other (aspects) also, especially when you are in the remote parts of the country.”
According to Hutchinson who is a farmer “that is why I am saying we need to look at some of these laws based on the criminal activity taking place now, some strong measures need to be put in place to deter, counteract, prevent these criminals that are causing havoc on the agricultural industry.”
He noted that when some laws were first drafted “we didn’t have the sort of criminality, we didn’t have the sort of praedial larceny that is rampant at this point in time”.