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Monday, February 24, 2025

Farmers buckling under pressure from bandits

by

Shaliza Hassanali
638 days ago
20230528

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Re­peat­ed­ly tar­get­ed, beat­en and ter­rorised by ban­dits, armed with guns or cut­lass­es, farm­ers are buck­ling un­der pres­sure. Some have been forced to scale down their op­er­a­tions which is af­fect­ing their liveli­hood, while oth­ers, fear­ful for their lives, are con­tem­plat­ing mov­ing away from agri­cul­ture or the coun­try as they have no pro­tec­tion or re­dress.

Faced with a spate of vi­cious at­tacks in the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties of Lopinot, Ch­agua­nas, En­deav­our and Freeport by gun­men, farm­ers have be­come frus­trat­ed as the crime scourge has been push­ing them to the edge.

In the last year, dozens of farm­ers have been hog-tied, beat­en and robbed at gun­point of their farm­ing equip­ment, ve­hi­cles, chem­i­cals, live­stock, crops and cash.

The il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties have caused fear and un­ease among the farm­ing pop­u­la­tion, leav­ing them in lim­bo.

It is al­so putting the coun­try’s food se­cu­ri­ty un­der threat.

Be­tween late last year and this year, Reynold Williams claimed his Lopinot farm was raid­ed more than 20 times by a gang of men in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Lopinot farmer Reynold Williams recalls his experiences with bandits on his field.

Lopinot farmer Reynold Williams recalls his experiences with bandits on his field.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

 Williams, a busi­ness­man, es­ti­mat­ed his two-acre farm was at­tacked on at least 15 oc­ca­sions with­in this year.

Last month one acre of chives was stolen from his farm.

“I al­most got a heart at­tack when I came in the morn­ing to see the land to­tal­ly emp­ty.”

Williams said he be­gan mak­ing in­quiries and was told that one of the men was seen sell­ing the chives on a near­by street.

“When I caught up with the ban­dit, I pulled him in my car and start­ed to beat him,” Williams re­called.

The farmer took the thief back to his farm where he tied a piece of rope around his waist and made him work from 9 am to 1 pm in the blis­ter­ing sun.

That was Williams’ sat­is­fac­tion.

“I make him clean a field of pep­per. I told him to pick up all the stones on the farm and put them in a heap. I told him the next time I see him on the farm I will pelt him with the stones.”

But the crops con­tin­ued to dis­ap­pear.

“He came back two days lat­er and stole again and when I went back to hold him, he said it was not him. He blamed an­oth­er man. I just get re­al­ly fed up.”

The 40-year-old farmer said an­oth­er ban­dit has been in the habit of steal­ing let­tuce, toma­toes, cu­cum­bers, chives, pep­pers, pi­men­tos, sweet pep­pers and cel­ery which he would sell to road­side food carts.

“I catch him about six times in my gar­den al­ready. This man is so bold-faced when I see him with the crops in his hands, he is telling me to do him some­thing. A cou­ple of times he start­ed ston­ing us when we caught him red-hand­ed on the farm. He has a habit of walk­ing around with a blade. You does be fright­ened to work on your own farm be­cause you don’t know if these fel­las would am­bush and chop you.”

On an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, Williams said, he came in time to see the thief fight­ing with two of his un­cles who were try­ing to re­strain him with a bag of let­tuce he had picked.

Williams, a fa­ther of three, said he had to planass the thief to teach him a les­son.

The ban­dit, whom he de­scribed as a “pest”, steals crops three times a day.

“Some­times you just spray the crops with chem­i­cals and the minute you turn your back, it’s gone. The pro­duce ain’t even ma­ture and they pick­ing it. Them fel­las not easy. They just dis­tress­ing you.”

Williams said his farm was close to Windy Hill in Arou­ca, which is a squat­ting set­tle­ment.

“Some­times them fel­las from up there would come and take our crops be­cause the farm opened out. What could you tell them?”

The con­stant theft has forced Williams to stop plant­i­ng cer­tain crops.

“I now plant­i­ng toma­toes and would pick it green and put it to ripe at home. I had to scale down pro­duc­tion.”

Williams said the crim­i­nals have been dis­rupt­ing his liveli­hood.

In ad­di­tion to los­ing crops, he said his pump, weed whack­er and drip lines were al­so cart­ed away. Williams said he was at his wit’s end. He said re­ports made to the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion were use­less.

“When you go and make a re­port the po­lice would tell you as soon as they get a ve­hi­cle they would come. But you don’t ever see them.”

Former wild animals farmer Kathyan Ramroop in tears at her Freeport home last week as she recalled how bandits killed her herd of deer.

Former wild animals farmer Kathyan Ramroop in tears at her Freeport home last week as she recalled how bandits killed her herd of deer.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

El­der­ly cou­ple grieve as herd of deer killed

Re­peat­ed­ly ter­rorised by ban­dits last year, pen­sion­ers Kathyan Ram­roop and Kr­ish­na Ma­haraj had to give up their deer farm af­ter sev­er­al of their an­i­mals were shot and killed.

The farm was es­tab­lished in 1997 at Hong Kong Av­enue, Freeport, by the cou­ple to save the an­i­mals from be­ing slaugh­tered by hunters.

They al­so al­lowed stu­dents of the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) to re­search the deer.

As a reg­is­tered wildlife farmer with the Forestry Di­vi­sion, Ma­haraj, 78, a for­mer IT spe­cial­ist, was al­lowed to keep the deer in his pos­ses­sion.

“We were breed­ing them in cap­tiv­i­ty and study­ing their be­hav­iours. We got to like these an­i­mals as our chil­dren be­cause they were do­mes­ti­cat­ed and tamed,” said Ram­roop, a for­mer banker.

From eight deer, the farm grew to 30 over time.

How­ev­er, in 2012 the el­der­ly cou­ple wrote the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment ask­ing to as­sist in pass­ing the an­i­mals to any group or agency where they can be used as sub­jects for study and so­cial­is­ing.

They were hop­ing that a park would be es­tab­lished, so the an­i­mals could be re­leased in­to the wild. They nev­er got a re­sponse.

“So, we con­tin­ued to take care of them. These an­i­mals were our pride and joy.”

But that joy turned in­to hor­ror last Au­gust when gun­men be­gan shoot­ing and steal­ing the an­i­mals for their meat which is priced at $100 a pound.

The thieves start­ed cap­tur­ing the 70-pound deer us­ing nets.

Then they came with pel­let guns.

“Kr­ish­na was in the hos­pi­tal at that time, and I was pre­oc­cu­pied with his health. I knew some­thing was wrong with the deer be­cause they were not eat­ing all their food,” Ram­roop said, wip­ing away tears.

“When Kr­ish­na came out of the hos­pi­tal, we de­cid­ed to check around the farm on­ly to see a hole in the fence which we mend­ed.”

They lat­er dis­cov­ered that 13 of the deer and two fawns were miss­ing.

The steal­ing of the an­i­mals brought Ram­roop to her knees.

“I felt as if part of my life had been tak­en be­cause these an­i­mals meant much to us,” Ram­roop said as she clutched her chest.

Dur­ing a heavy down­pour, Ram­roop said, the men re­turned and killed three deer us­ing pel­let guns.

“We didn’t hear a thing.”

A doe that had re­cent­ly giv­en birth was sprayed with pel­lets. The fawn died nine days lat­er.

On Oc­to­ber 6, Ram­roop said the ban­dits re­turned and fa­tal­ly shot three more deer.

Re­al­is­ing that the thieves were not giv­ing up, Ram­roop, 60, said she gave two of the fe­males to a na­ture park.

“We start­ed to give them away.”

Days lat­er, the cou­ple was awak­ened by a loud ex­plo­sion near their bed­room.

“When I checked the CCTV cam­eras, I saw men with shot­guns and called the po­lice. By the time the po­lice got here all we saw was a trail of blood.”

Up­on check­ing, Ram­roop said her heart sank when she re­alised that one of her fe­males that had sur­vived a pre­vi­ous shoot­ing had been tak­en.

“That one left me in a mess. I still can’t over­come what they did.”

In less than a month, Ram­roop said, sev­en of her prized deer were wiped out.

The pen­sion­ers were ad­vised by the Freeport Po­lice to get rid of the oth­er an­i­mals.

“We gave away the rest of the deer and a few geese to a na­ture park be­fore these crim­i­nals were hell-bent on killing them all.”

Former wild animals farmer Krishna Maharaj shows a pen where he used to breed deer.

Former wild animals farmer Krishna Maharaj shows a pen where he used to breed deer.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the po­lice nev­er ar­rest­ed any­one.

Af­ter giv­ing away all the an­i­mals, Ram­roop said to her sur­prise, the men showed up at their prop­er­ty again.

“What you com­ing for? There is noth­ing left.”

Ram­roop said every time she looks at the emp­ty pens, her eyes be­come filled with tears.

“It has been too much … too much.”

Asked how much they have in­vest­ed in the farm, Ram­roop burst in­to tears and replied “Our lives.”

This was their par­adise. “Now it has be­come hell. We have be­come pris­on­ers in our homes be­cause we are scared to go out­side.”

The cou­ple feels it would be safer if they mi­grate, stat­ing that T&T has be­come a failed state.

“At our age, it’s hard to start all over again. So, we are in lim­bo as to what to do.”

Crimefarmers


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