Caribbean Review: The Growing Problems Of Crop Theft In Barbados

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In Barbados, large crop theft has been affecting farmers’ livelihoods and future crop yields. One instance, where thieves stole 10,000 pounds of yams between January 2 and January 5, 2026, led the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) to put out statements to local farmers to be wary of similar crimes and make sure they aren’t handling stolen products. The farms that have fallen victim to crop theft include private farms and those owned by the BADMC.

BADMC was established in 1993 to facilitate and develop crop and livestock production, processing, and more for local farmers and food companies in Barbados. They have urged vendors and retailers to exercise caution and request formal invoices to prevent sales of stolen yams. The yams, worth roughly 29,971.50 Barbadian Dollars, or $ 15,000 USD, are staples in Barbadian dishes and a significant part of Barbados’ agricultural economy. 

“This whole thing comes down to Barbadians wanting to see the end of praedial larceny, because the law is there. It comes down to enforcement,” Minister of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security, Indar Weir said. “If people are going to tolerate people stealing crops and driving around in vehicles or standing up at a corner and selling it, and don’t help us to enforce the law by asking people to show how they’re obtaining that produce, then we’re never going to get rid of it.” 

Career Crop Thieves

Crop theft has been an issue in Barbados for decades. Barbadian union, community, and work leaders were calling crop thieves organized criminals back in 2023. In 2022, Barbados introduced the Protection of Agricultural Products Act to combat increasingly frequent praedial larceny (or crop and livestock theft).

This massive crop theft was not an isolated incident. Alongside the theft of 10,000 pounds from BADMC farms between January 2 and January 5, thieves stole up to 15,000 pounds of yams from Richard Armstrong, one of the leading producers of yams and sweet potatoes in Barbados, around the same time. Armstrong said that around the Christmas season, farm theft tends to sharply increase. He also said that large-scale and organized theft led to him having to scale back crop production.

“Without a doubt, I think I’ve pretty much made up my mind that we’re going to have to reduce the amount of food that we grow and base it on just what we can secure or secure as good as possible,” he said. This scale back could be up to a quarter of Armstrong’s product.

Armstrong also claimed that crop thieves are making careers from stealing from farmers over weeks at a time. He also said that yam theft in particular is very hard to quantify once the vines dry out, suggesting even more yams could have been stolen. St. John and St Philip parishes are often targets for yam theft, where the fields are too large to effectively defend from thieves.

“Even if we were in one area, we could get stealing on a night from one half of the ground when the security is patrolling the other half,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong argued that while the security costs rise, yam prices have stayed around the same for the past 40 years. He called for more legislation and an armed force to protect fields. He warned that continued inaction would undermine national food security as large producers scale back.

A Call For Action

Though in recent years Barbados has been pushing for a more tourist and manufacturing-based economy, Armstrong argues that a strong agricultural sector is necessary. Dependence on other nations to import a majority or even just a large percentage of food would have detriments to a nation's ability to feed itself. The Haitian food crisis provided an example of this: since the 1980’s, the nation has depended on foreign rice and meat imports, ruining their domestic production and becoming one reason behind the widespread hunger present in Haiti today. It is important for Barbados to maintain these large parish farms that supply both jobs and a good domestic source of food. 

As of January 20, 2026, no individuals responsible for large yam thefts have been publicly caught, but communities are echoing Armstrong in that more must be done to combat this growing issue in Barbados, so as not affect crop yields and the livelihoods of the farmers that feed the island.