Monkey raids on farms persist as ministry seeks regional, AI solutions
A worsening problem of monkey raids on farms is pushing agricultural authorities to explore regional collaboration and artificial intelligence solutions, as Minister of Agriculture Dr Shantal Munro-Knight acknowledged there is no quick fix for the growing losses faced by farmers.
Crop theft and monkeys are longstanding challenges in farming and will not be resolved overnight, she told reporters at the ministry’s Graeme Hall headquarters on Wednesday.
“Praedial larceny is one of them, monkeys is another but these are things that are — I’m going to use the word systemic — that plagued the sector for quite a long time and are not going to be easy things to address in one shot.”
The minister revealed that the government has been examining approaches used in other Caribbean and South American territories.
“I recently visited Guyana, I recently visited Suriname, and every country I’m asking, what are you guys doing about praedial larceny? What are you guys doing about the monkey situation? Everybody is struggling. Nobody has the big solution or the right solution. Everybody does different things. Everybody trying a thing.”
The ministry is now exploring several technological options aimed at protecting crops and reducing losses suffered by farmers:
“So we’re talking about how do we leverage AI. There’s AI technology that is out there that is available. Some of it is already in use in terms of drones, in terms of creating perimeter fencing, signalling, sometimes using some fancy guns to, you know, give a low pellet spray. All of those measures are out there, and we want to be able to examine them, look at cost as well, because we can come up with measures, but the farmers can’t afford them, then it doesn’t make sense.”
The ministry will host a small expert meeting during the second week of June involving internal and external stakeholders to review current measures and discuss additional solutions to tackle both predial larceny and monkey-related crop destruction, she said.
The agriculture minister also acknowledged concerns surrounding monkey culling and said Barbados must balance crop protection with humane treatment.
“I think all of you would know that we would increase the bounty as well on those that are involved in culling of the monkeys. But we also as well are a humane society, right? And I don’t know if those efforts again are at scale, we are going to be able to tackle the pervasiveness of what we have now with that particular challenge.”
The farm ministry on Wednesday launched a new data platform in collaboration with the state-run Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC).
Dr Munro-Knight noted that the ministry cannot yet accurately estimate the economic impact monkeys are having on farmers because of insufficient data collection.
“We have to work with the farming community to be able to collect that data so that we actually have those estimates and those figures. One of the challenges that I’ve put forward to the ministry and to BADMC is to do exactly that, be very, very systematic in terms of our data collection, and that’s why we did… this tool to begin to develop that in a more kind of comprehensive way for us to be able to have that data,” she said, referring to the newly launched platform.
Many farmers experience significant losses because monkeys often damage crops beyond use.
Dr Munro-Knight stressed that the issue goes beyond the Ministry of Agriculture and requires collaboration with other government agencies, including the Ministry of Environment, universities and development partners, to find long-term solutions.
(LG)
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المصدر: Barbados Today