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Praedial larceny our silent shame?

Published:Thursday | January 20, 2022 | 12:05 AM

THE EDITOR, Madam:

It is true we ought not to isolate the good things which bring blessings for the despicable sinister thing which causes pain and hurt. When we speak of praedial larceny, we sometimes think we are not speaking to an important sector in our society.

So, most of the times it is not addressed further so the people cry until they just stop because there are no strong voices in society to protect them. This is a travesty of justice for a set of hard-working people who seem to operate in a vacuum, called small farmers. We love to say the farmers are the backbone of our society, but what protective mechanisms are we employing to strategise and protect them?

We love to speak in complex terms and address the small farmers and speak of micro, small, medium-sized enterprises as the mainstay of our society. But when they are being mistreated, everybody turns a blind eye. This is so wrong and will continue until we are all dead and buried and a new generation of farmers continue to live in perpetual poverty. The stealing of farm produce is not a joke and it will never be addressed in a practical way wherein persons are fully satisfied with the outcome. The farmers need to be given weapons to protect themselves but they should be trained to use the weapons or it will spell naught and more bloodletting. Have you really seen the number of people being robbed by these people? It is a crying shame. But the number of them who are being killed is alarming now and painful. These people don’t discriminate, they rob from fowl farmers to crab farmers.

PARIS TAYLOR

paristaylor92@hotmail.com