Crop vandals wreak havoc on Lowmans farm

by Christina Smith

Two Lowmans Windward farmers have condemned what they describe as a spiteful action which has resulted in countless damage to their farm and hundreds of dollars in losses.

Rohan and Kemita Samuel, husband and wife, made a shocking discovery when they arrived at their farm on the morning of Thursday, April 18,2024, to discover that many of their crops had been uprooted and discarded.

In an interview with SEARCHLIGHT, Kemita said the person or persons are believed to have come on to the farm, about three quarters of an acre in size, and uprooted 15 eggplant trees, 30 tomato vines, 15 to 20 pimento trees, and around 50 pounds of chive sometime around 5:00 a.m.

They posted on Facebook live a video of the damage to their crops on the farm that they have been operating full time for around six years on and expressed how disappointed they were at the lengths that the culprit went to inflict the damage.

Kemita told SEARCHLIGHT they do not believe the incident to be a random attack, pointing out that it was most likely an act of revenge taken against them for highlighting a previous incident of attempted crop theft.

“What we think spark this outrage is, we did a previous video two days ago where someone, we don’t know who, went into the dasheen. The person who did this we believe they were watching the [Facebook] live ‘cause where we show on the farm is exactly where they went and pull up the stuff. I guess they vex because we spoke out against whosoever stole the dasheen. This was done out of spite because they did not take anything of the chive, nor tomatoes.”

The video mentioned by Kemita was posted on Facebook on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, showing dasheen plants on the farm uprooted. She explained that up to seven plants had been pulled out of the soil, and speculated that the culprit abandoned the attempted theft when they realized the crop was not yet ready for harvest.

She explained that the dasheens were only around two months old and would not have been ready until around September. She described both incidents as disheartening.

“It is very hard to be working as a farmer and at the end of the day you cannot reap what you sow.”

On the first video posted, her husband, Rohan, chastised those who were engaging in acts of praedial larceny, as well as those who were benefiting from the theft.

“Farmers are suffering a lot with the price of manure and other fertilizers. Farmers are going through a lot right now. There are farmers who don’t even want to plant anything right now. When farmers cannot plant anything, we will have to import.”

He said farmers in the South Central Windward area are experiencing many incidents of crop and animal theft. The couple said they will move ahead with replanting the crops and trying

to get business back to normal.

Earlier this week Minister of Agriculture, Saboto Caesar, speaking on dasheen exports, said the ministry is willing to work closely with farmers to ensure that they receive the best prices for their crop on external markets, and advised farmers not to settle for $40 to $50 a sack for local sales.

He also disclosed that a meeting was convened in the community of Lauders recently to discuss the

vexing issue of praedial larceny, and plans are to be put in place to assist farmers in the area.