Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein sent a warn­ing to crop and live­stock thieves that law en­force­ment of­fi­cers would be ramp­ing up ef­forts to com­bat prae­di­al lar­ce­ny across the coun­try. 

Ho­sein spoke at a grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny for a new batch of 67 prae­di­al lar­ce­ny of­fi­cers at Na­pari­ma Bowl, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day.

He said he was mind­ful of the chal­lenges faced by farm­ers due to ram­pant thefts in re­cent years.

De­fi­cien­cies in man­pow­er with­in the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad had been an is­sue and Ho­sein said this was one of the first prob­lems he tack­led when he as­sumed of­fice more than a year ago.

Em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of bol­ster­ing the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad’s re­sources, Ho­sein an­nounced a sub­stan­tial in­crease in the num­ber of of­fi­cers from 30-plus to 104, along with the ac­qui­si­tion of four ad­di­tion­al ve­hi­cles for pa­trols. 

“To­day in my view is a his­toric day, es­pe­cial­ly for the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad,” he said, as he out­lined a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to com­bat­ing agri­cul­tur­al theft.

“We can­not af­ford to put a Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad by every farmer, every fish­er­man, and every live­stock own­er but we can take col­lec­tive ac­tion to safe­guard agri­cul­tur­al liveli­hoods,” the min­is­ter added.

He sound­ed a warn­ing to the thieves: “Mind your own busi­ness and en­sure that you plan your own pro­duce. Mind your own an­i­mals, and leave the farm­ers and their live­stock alone be­cause they are mak­ing a liv­ing. They are feed­ing the na­tion.”

Ho­sein said he hoped to com­plete the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fice at Carlsen Field with­in the first two weeks of April once fund­ing is made avail­able.

“We are al­so fo­cus­ing on the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and out­fit­ting of our east of­fice at El Re­poso and our south of­fice at Craig­nish. These projects will en­hance the op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy of our of­fi­cers and pro­vide the pub­lic ac­cess to fa­cil­i­ties,” he said. 

Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Fa­rook Ho­sein said they sift­ed through thou­sands of ap­pli­ca­tions and metic­u­lous­ly screened can­di­dates be­fore se­lect­ing the fi­nal group to safe­guard agri­cul­ture.

“Fol­low­ing the re­cruit­ment ex­er­cise, this group em­barked on a rig­or­ous train­ing reg­i­men through col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, the T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

He ex­plained that the can­di­dates were able to mas­ter po­lice pro­ce­dures, un­der­stand traf­fic and crim­i­nal laws, delve in­to be­hav­iour­al sci­ence, ethics and com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing as well as en­gage in spe­cialised ses­sions on live­stock iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and ad­vanced firearm train­ing.

The grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny was at­tend­ed by Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris and pres­i­dent of the Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety Dar­ryl Ram­per­sad.