An initiative aimed at teaching schoolchildren how to take care of poultry and livestock – while providing the school with much needed funds – may be forced to end after thieves stole 40 chickens from the institution’s premises.
The incident reportedly occurred between Sunday evening and Monday morning.
Yonette Patrick, Agricultural Science teacher at the Seventh Day Adventist Secondary School, who reported the incident to the police, said she is becoming discouraged by constant thefts.
“We have previous footage from … the previous break-ins and so on; the police have those footage too, so it is just a recurring problem that one of these days, I think, we might get fed up and give up,” she said.
The pen on the school grounds was said to originally house around 90 chickens, meaning the latest theft has left the school losing nearly 50 percent of its potential income.
“We have been plagued with praedial larceny from the time we started our farm and that is just a recurring problem.
“Last weekend, we had two break-ins — one was done between Friday evening when I left, to Saturday when I came back,” Patrick explained.
The teacher said more emphasis needs to be placed on the importance of agriculture education to students, and on giving police assistance to crack down on persistent farm thefts.
