Agricultural Protection Branch to step up patrols in southern Trelawny amid yam theft concerns
TRELAWNY, Jamaica — Head of the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) Agricultural Protection Branch (APB) for Area One, Inspector Orville Bushay, announced plans to beef up patrols in the southern parts of Trelawny, the nation’s top-producing yam communities, to address mounting concerns of the theft of yam heads.
Speaking with reporters, Bushay noted that starting next week, the APB will be dispatching teams to patrol the farming communities in the hilly parts of the parish.
“Our team will be up there from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 in the night to do stop and search of all the vehicles that are travelling in and out [of the communities]— and that will be an ongoing thing,” the senior cop revealed.
The head of the Area One APB also revealed plans to organise three farmers’ groups in Albert Town, Warsop and Troy, respectively.
“We will be meeting with each group, starting with the Warsop group, the second Tuesday of next month. We [will be] meeting with them and we’ll be organising a farmer’s watch group for each zone, for the Troy area, the Warsop area and the Albert Town area,” he said.
“In these farmers’ watch groups now, we will be working with them closely at nights to patrol the farming district. So it will be a collaborative effort between the police and the farmers’ groups,” Bushay noted.
“Our team will be going up there at nights to assist them to patrol the farming districts. Also, we are going to organise them in groups by themselves, [that] at times will patrol the farm district,” he added.
The yam farmers are in recovery mode from the devastation of crops caused by Hurricane Melissa. According to one farmer, who spoke to Observer Online, the scarcity of the tuber has caused the price to skyrocket to $50,000 per hundred pound. The farmer added that currently the rate of yam heads attract a similar price.
“The stealing of yam heads from yam hills is always the case when the price is high,” he bemoaned.
“The thief them just wait until we plant and go into the field and dig out the yam head,” he added.
— Horace Hines
