HAGUE, Trelawny — Farmers’ watch groups are being credited for a decline in reports of praedial larceny in Trelawny in recent years.

“We have a significant decline. We try to encourage farmers because we know that some of them will have incidents and don’t report it… We have encouraged them to ensure that they bring any agricultural theft that they have — whether it be livestock or ground provisions — to our attention that we can have an idea of the true number of incidents that are happening,” Superintendent Winston Milton, commander of the Trelawny Police Division, told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday.

While he did not provide specific numbers, the senior cop noted that years ago the police used to be bombarded with reports of farmers stealing their colleagues’ produce, particularly in the southern parts of Trelawny.

There had also been another issue.

“One of the problems we used to have, we don’t have it for a while now, is that the thieves studied the farmers coming in from market with large sums of money and rob them. So we encouraged them to move away from cash transactions,” Superintendent Milton said.

The decline in praedial larceny has not gone unnoticed by Custos of Trelawny Hugh Gentles.

“I do perceive that it is not as rampant as it was even two, three years ago… I am not sure if the authorities are getting on top of it somewhat,” Gentles told the Observer during the 68th staging of Hague Agricultural Show on Ash Wednesday.

He had his own theories of what may be behind the decline.

“It could be that it’s a result of an abundance of produce. When there’s an abundance of produce, it does reduce incidence of predators because there’s so much produce that the price of products go down, so there’s no incentive for stealing,” Gentles posited.

“I hope it’s not because we have gotten so accustomed to it that people now decided that if you plant something and if you’re to reap 10 pounds, you just make up your mind that three pounds are for the thieves… However, I’m not getting the same sense of urgency and despair and frustration from farmers that I was seeing even three years ago,” he added.

Custos Gentles urged justices of the peace to report cases of praedial larceny to the police.

“Justices of peace can play the role of being the eyes and the ears of the police in the communities because they live in the communities; they’re privy to a lot of information, and this is something that they could pass on to the police. Usually the perpetrators are known fairly well in the community. After a while, people begin to know who are the people stealing the products. So this is something that they could pass on, certainly to the police. If they don’t feel comfortable they can always — as I’ve told them in all matters — call me as a custos to relay information to me, which I will pass on to the police,” he said.