Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter

ALREADY, news of the Government's plan to implement animal passports has trickled into some farming communities across the island.

But while farmers pray, search and hope for a solution to praedial larceny, some are sceptical that an identification system would work.

"The problem is that you will never find your animal once it disappears. It is not like it is being raised by another man. They steal it and take it straight to the butcher. No tag or chip can solve that," one farmer told The Sunday Gleaner.

Rachelle Cloete, managing member of GMP Traceability Management Software in South Africa, said that the use of a DNA option of identification could be used to catch criminals.

DNA option

The DNA option allows a farmer to take samples from his animal, which would be stored at a central library. In the event of theft, the DNA at the lab is matched against meat at abattoirs. A positive match could lead to the arrest and charge of the butcher if the legislative framework is in place.

Jail for some of these butchers who knowingly receive stolen property is something one St Catherine farmer would welcome.

This farmer claims to have lost over 20 goats in the last few years.

"Dem thief four goats from mi di other day - two a dem in kid," Reginald Douthall told The Sunday Gleaner.

Keep a close eye on livestock

Douthall said that he had to spend his days watching his goats and use his nights to listen to the slightest sound of thieves, who often his livestock away in waiting motor vehicles.

"Di odda day when mi go report it, di policeman tell mi seh dem tief five a fi him goat too," Douthall said.

His mother, Emilie, lamented that she had never been able to earn from her efforts at goat-rearing.

"Mi neva get fi sell dem cause di owner come fi dem," the elderly Douthall said.

The family, which has a yard full of roosters, hens, goats and pigs, is begging for Government to find an ingenious solution fast.

But not the tag, as Emilie is convinced thieves would just laugh at it.

"Dem a go tek off di tag and gone wid di animal same way. Wi want a better system," Emilie said while fiddling with Cho-Cho, a six-week old kid that was left motherless when thieves took away its mother.

Cho-Cho now eats from the family pot and sleeps inside the modest house, unlike his peers who sleep in a nearby pen.

In the past, the Government tried a receipt-book system to combat praedial larceny, but oposition sposkesman on agriculture, Roger Clarke, has admitted that the system has failed.

Under this system, persons found in possession of animals without receipt or proof of ownership may be criminally charged.

However, many farmers could not write up these receipts and, in some instances, thieves wrote their own receipts, rendering the receipt-book system worthless.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com