Zabocado Wars...

As if we did not already have enough madness to deal with in this crazy place, earlier this week we were confronted with the story of a farmer, frustrated at having his crops continuously stolen before he could get them to market, took it upon himself to poison two thousand of his own avocadoes to teach the bandits that have been preying on him a lesson. At the end of his rope and with nowhere else to turn, the gentleman, armed with a syringe and a container of weedicide injected them all one by one by hand to make the proverbial fruits of his labor inedible. Had the story ended right there it would have been fodder enough for the talk circuit, but really, how bad must the praedial larceny be in this country that he could have relied on the theft to occur, and, were it not for his conscience after the fact, how many unsuspecting people could have been very sick or even dead right now because of it?

The lack of anything from the Ministers of Health, Agriculture and National Security on this issue demonstrates the contempt with which we still treat our agri-sector, and mark my words this one continuous act of stupidity is going to come back and bite us hard one day soon. Food production and food self sufficiency are the real hallmarks of a developed nation, and were we not so intent on making our own lives hard we could be very close to that goal by now. 



They say all things happen for a reason and the discussion prompted by this incident is raging. Many people are calling for Mr. Farmer to be prosecuted for his act, but as the burden of proof will have to be based on his intentions, other than his own possible self incrimination, how can anyone prove what was in his mind?

- Did he not poison his own property?
- What contract did he have with the thieves to provide them with edible fruit?
- Had any of these fruit been consumed and the worst occurred, would it not have been the thieves themselves providing tainted fruit?
- And what of the buyers, do we not have laws against purchasing stolen property? 



In my view the only way to make a case against the farmer would be to prove that he intended to hurt, and as stupid and dangerous as his idea was, based on his own subsequent actions and report t
o the police I don't think it was. As of this writing we are no closer to knowing what he was thinking or what may have transpired to trigger this desperate and costly act, and while others will disagree and others still more learned than I may have to sit in judgement on this, what I do know is that he may have accidentally accomplished something far more important in that the national community has now been made aware of the situation.

If anything we have learned how hard it really is to be a farmer. We've learnt that State support in this vital sector of our economy is woefully lacking and despite the fact that we have the 'sugar-belt' Party in government, farmers still 'ketching dey nennen' to survive. If any government ought to know that cheap politics with food production is a foolish endeavor it should be this one, and one would hope that as a result of this situation they would stop, refocus and intervene in the security of our nation's food.

The Ministries of Agriculture and National Security are going to have to quit passing the buck and come up with a solution that works for all stakeholders; Vendors are now going to have to be more circumspect with whom they deal for produce, and consumers themselves are going to
 be more wary when purchasing fruit from 'hustlers,' the link in the chain that makes agri-theft lucrative.



The food industry is quickly becoming the most important industry, and this act and others demonstrate the glaring shortfalls in the delivery of support to our farmers; this needs to change and change now. We are already in a global food crisis and any and all of what we grow needs to be secured and safeguarded. The onus is on us to let those in power know that this is no longer good enough. Time is of the essence.