~~Adz:Left~~ BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS (September 5, 2007): This month, the Ministry of Agriculture in St. Kitts is conducting a survey of farmers to strengthen its Agricultural Development Strategy, which was launched back in November. The Agricultural Development Strategy identifies six broad policy objectives, which include promoting sustainable development in the agricultural sector and rural communities, as well as increased food production and food security.

 

Against this backdrop, the Ministry of Agriculture is carrying out the survey under the theme "Raising the Profile: Food Security, Our Priority."The Ministry of Agriculture’s Policy and Planning Unit is spearheading the survey as well as the subsequent registration of farmers. As its name suggests, the Policy and Planning Unit, which was launched July 19, is responsible for overall policy and planning in the agricultural sector. It is also responsible for managing a data bank, which will include information that’s gleaned, for instance, from the survey in progress.

 

This information will provide a baseline or foundation upon which many of the policies of the Policy and Planning Unit shall be built. After the survey, the Policy and Planning Unit will eventually develop a registration card for farmers similar to that, which the Fisheries Department gives to registered fishers. Identification cards can reduce the incidence of praedial larceny, a crime that blights developing agricultural sectors in the Caribbean. A Google search of praedial larceny brings up references to Jamaica, Grenada, and St. Lucia, and that’s just on the first Google search page.

 

Praedial larceny is such a big problem in Trinidad and Tobago that Prime Minister Patrick Manning has promised that a praedial larceny unit should come on stream in the Police Force by next year. Here in St. Kitts, police received 51 reports of praedial larcency between 2003 and July 2007. Between January and July 2007, there were eight reported cases of praedial larceny. However, police sources here say that the stealing of things attached to the land or farm goes "greatly underreported."

 

Ashton Stanley, a livestock extension officer who is helping to conduct the survey of farmers, says preadial larceny is on the rise. He hears accounts of this during his frequent interaction with farmers in St. Kitts. Both crop and livestock extension officers in the Ministry of Agriculture spend much of their time in the field, working with farmers to develop agricultural production through advice, training, and technological innovation.