RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chick­en farmer An­tho­ny Corn­wall hopes to al­le­vi­ate T&T’s egg short­age by rear­ing 14,000 lay­ers in time for the Christ­mas sea­son. How­ev­er, the fa­ther of four says his farm has al­leged­ly been ear­marked for de­mo­li­tion be­cause it is erect­ed on land owned by a state com­pa­ny.

Corn­wall, of Lowkie Trace, Pe­nal, said on Fri­day, an un­marked SUV with flash­ing lights and a siren pulled up out­side his farm and masked men with guns emerged. With­out show­ing any evic­tion no­tice, the men told Corn­wall he had to start sell­ing his birds and dis­man­tling his pens.

“They told me they’re com­ing to break down every­thing on Mon­day if I don’t get rid of the birds,” he said.

Corn­wall said the men told him he had to start pay­ing mon­ey to a com­pa­ny be­cause he was oc­cu­py­ing their land.

“They showed no iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, and there is no ev­i­dence to sug­gest they were rep­re­sent­ing the com­pa­ny,” he said.

Video footage ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia showed heav­i­ly armed men walk­ing past the sur­veil­lance cam­eras as they spoke with Corn­wall.

Corn­wall, who ad­mit­ted that he had built the pens on state lands, said he and his fa­ther had plant­ed on the land for over 50 years. He said there are many more res­i­dents on the land.

“This land used to be Trin­toc and then Petrotrin. I used to plant here with my fa­ther, and in 2019 I built my pens be­cause things were hard and my house was burnt down,” he said.

Ex­press­ing con­cern about the fu­ture, Corn­wall said he is wor­ried about what will hap­pen to his fam­i­ly if he los­es his farm.

“Three of my chil­dren are in school—twins aged sev­en and a five-year-old. It is not easy think­ing about this,” he said.

“Since these masked men came here, I have not been able to rest be­cause I am in fear. If they mash down this place, I have noth­ing. I am ask­ing the au­thor­i­ties to in­ves­ti­gate this and do some­thing to help us,” he plead­ed.

Corn­wall said six work­ers on his farm de­pend on him for work. “We work hard every day. We know the coun­try has an egg short­age, and we’re hop­ing that when this batch of lay­ers comes in, we can sup­ply the na­tion with eggs by Christ­mas,” he said.

His work­er, Ra­keem Ash­ford, said the chick­en farm has en­abled him to care for his fam­i­ly.

“I have sent out my re­sume look­ing for work every­where, and work is re­al­ly hard to get. I work here on a shift, and there are five of us who take turns. If this farm clos­es, where else will we get work? I have a three-year-old to mind,” Ash­ford said.

Jlani Bap­tiste, an­oth­er work­er, said it was un­fair that the farm was be­ing tar­get­ed.

“There are a lot of oth­er peo­ple oc­cu­py­ing Her­itage land, so why come af­ter us?” Bap­tiste asked.

“When eggs start to pick up, more youths will get em­ployed, and this will help the crime sit­u­a­tion be­cause peo­ple can­not find work.”