A ST MICHAEL SMALL FARMER says he has been terrorised by stray cows for the last seven years and the time has come for action.

Since 2001, Bertie Moore, resident of Thompson Gap in Spooners Hill, has been complaining of unrestrained cows trespassing onto his property and wreaking havoc on his crops at night.

"Sometimes these cows come four nights a week, sometimes they come seven nights a week, sometimes they come one night, but they come every week," said a peeved Moore.

The owner of just over 5 000 acres of agricultural land, Moore has now unfortunately found himself at the crossroads, saying that he was not sure what to do with the land if the cows continued to eat his produce.

"I am accustomed to having this whole place eaten down by cows in a night and I don't know whether to plough and start again or give up," he said

From tomatoes to peas, cabbages to lettuce, the uncontrolled cows have spared none of Moore's produce.

And the man who has spent most of his life in the Spooners Hill area can find no reprieve.

According to the small farmer in his 60s, attempts to reach the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Senator Haynesley Benn on the matter have been futile.

Ironically, Moore said, the same unrestricted animals were being kept on Government property in the neighbouring Codrington area.

"[I would like] the Government or the Ministry of Agriculture [to] ask the people who own these cows that are stationed on government property to find somewhere suitable to put them to prevent them from destroying other people's crops," Moore pleaded. (JM)