osses from stolen crops and affects younger persons who are still learning all that they can about what it takes to function in the sector.Ryan Straughn, Minister in the Ministry of Finance, shared this view as he spoke on the floor of the House of Assembly on Tuesday on the Protection of Agricultural Products Bill 2022. In his remarks, Straughn lamented the seemingly wide-spread instances of praedial larceny in the country, and singled out in particular a situation at the Milton Lynch Primary School, where stakeholders at the school needed to spend $2200 on barbed wire to protect the crops in their kitchen garden.“I said to myself ‘who in their right mind, seeing a very positive project which would teach young boys the importance of being able to do farming in a very small space… who would steal produce from young students in this country?’ I still can’t fathom that. The school had to spend $2200 not in buying more seeds, or to expand the garden, not in buying more fertilizer, but $2200 in order to try to prevent people from stealing the produce of the school.“That alarmed me,” he said.
