Mr Roger Clarke, the agriculture minister, should perhaps just drop the whole matter, forget about any special scheme to address praedial larceny and just let the farmers take their chances with the rest of us.

For it seems to us that there will never be any perfect arrangement to deal with this form of crime, stealing the produce of farmers, notwithstanding the grandstanding of those who blustered in Parliament this week.

They may well be right. Receipt books are perhaps too complicated for farmers, who, we were reminded, are mostly illiterate - in itself a sad commentary on the state of agriculture.

And maybe it is asking too much of farmers who want to be covered by this scheme to have themselves, and their area and type of production, registered with the Rural Agricultural Development Agency (RADA).

Everything is too difficult for everyone. Especially if that difficulty opens an opportunity to score a political point.
Demand teeth and gumption, but hope for nude gums.

In any event, having given it a good shot, Mr Clarke can claim to have done his best. The geniuses can now come up with their own plan.

So farmers can claim to be losing $4 billion a year to thieves. But that is not the only area of production in Jamaica in which there is pilferage. Or outright theft.

Ask, for instance, the manufacturers. Indeed, pilferage showed up as an area of cost that hurt off-shore garment assembly in Jamaica. Theft also contributed to the cost of security.

The manufacturers may say that no one ever offered to put in a special security arrangement for them and nobody has gone to Parliament to vent that what is being done is not good enough.

Maybe it is getting back to square one, as Mr Clarke puts it. It is perhaps, really, where we should be.

Let the authorities use the existing laws to the best effect, possible.

Forget about registration and receipt books, the need to trace the source of produce and all such "cosmetic dressings".
The cops can detain someone they have reasonable cause to suspect has committed a crime - like having a few goats, a cow or two and a few tonnes of bananas in a truck.

But if probable cause doesn't stand, then so be it. Tomorrow, when the farmer discovers that the farm has been reaped and that the pens are empty he can always report the theft to the nearest police station. And off they go to solve the crime, subject to the "clear-up" rate for such things.

That's the way it is for the rest of us. The mandate, it seems, is to level the playing field.

All the rest is mere humbug.

That, at least, seems to be the message.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World