Shelly-Ann Thompson, Staff Reporter

In this January 2006 photo, a team of police personnel in Fairfield, St James, reveals the carcasses of two stolen cattle. The discovery was made during a police spot check in the parish. - FILE

From Seaforth, St Thomas, to Windsor Forest, Westmoreland, farmers are pleading for an end to praedial larceny, saying they have lost millions of dollars worth of livestock and crops.

Talk to Frank Dunkley of Mountainside in St Elizabeth and one would consider him to be a patriot to the beef industry. Thieves took 35 cows in one night from his pasture in November 2006. Just months ago, another four were stolen. Two weeks before that, three other cows were filched from Dunkley's farm.

Prized bull

Among the cattle was a $90,000 bull Dunkley bought a day before they were stolen.

"On any day I can go and see cows missing or they kill them right there on the farm," said Dunkley.

Another St Elizabeth farmer, Lorin Gayle, lost his Red Poll bull three months ago. It had won the champion bull title at the Denbigh Agricultural and Industrial Show in Clarendon.

Crops have not been spared. At Bernal Mullings' farm in Windsor Forest, Westmoreland, thieves often make off with sugar cane - sugar cane that Mullings cultivates to make wet sugar to be supplied to establishments islandwide.

Although the farm is fenced, Mullings said his canes are not protected.

"No matter how you secure it, once they want it (sugar cane) they climb the fence," he noted.

Syril Wilson of Seaforth, said as soon as yams are planted by himself and his colleagues, thieves come at night to remove them. "Many farmers often go into their grounds to find yam heads missing," he said.

Tony Browne, a farmer from YS in St Elizabeth, said while large-scale farmers are stumped by the dreaded act, cultivators who spend all they have planting crops or rearing livestock to send their children to school are also bowled.

"Owners kill or sell cows before school opens to find fees for their children. But, what we notice is that before school begins, the cows are gone," said Browne. "These are farmers who are not planting with a tractor but a fork. After a while they get upset, give up and go and work on a bus or tractor."

shelly-ann.thompson@gleanerjm.com