(Trinidad Guardian) 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.
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.”
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.”
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.”