CROPS & ROBBERS
How UK farmers and smallholders are finding smart new ways to stop rural crime in its tracks
You couldn’t make it up. “Police chase stolen combine harvester for five miles, slowly” read the headline. The criminal in question had nicked a combine harvester from a farm and then attempted a getaway, only to find out the machine wouldn’t go any faster than a stately six miles per hour. The police, who initially gave chase on foot, followed the combine – which was weaving erratically down narrow country lanes – for five agonising miles before the thief got stuck down a dead-end lane and tumbled out of the cab smelling strongly of cider. After all the excitement had died down, one police officer quipped drily: “It had to be the slowest getaway attempt on record.”
It’s a brilliant news story and yet behind the humour lies a darker truth – rural theft is on the rise. According to a report published by NFU Mutual last year, rural crime cost the UK over £54 million in 2019, an increase of nearly nine per cent on the previous 12 months. Most of this rise has been driven by the theft of high-value tractors, quad bikes and other farm vehicles. (For the farmer who had his combine harvester stolen, it must have been a heart-stopping moment, watching half a million pounds’ worth of machinery smash through his field gate and trundle out of sight.) And no one, it seems, is immune. Only last summer, television’s Yorkshire Shepherdess, Amanda Owen, woke to discover that her quad bike had been swiped from their remote hillside farm.
LIVESTOCK TARGETED
Four categories are particularly picked over when it comes to rural theft: agricultural vehicles (tractors, diggers and transporters, for example, but also GPS systems), quads and all-terrain vehicles or ATVS, Land Rover Defenders (entire vehicles and parts) and, perhaps most upsetting, livestock. Sheep, it seems, are being stolen and slaughtered outside of regulated abattoirs before illegally entering the food chain. Not only is this a grave risk to human health but the effects are devastating for farmers who have spent years building up breeding lines and nurturing their flocks. And, while sheep rustling was a minor issue only ten years ago, the market for illegal meat has rocketed and farmers are regularly finding their farms emptied of 50 to 100 lambs at a time or, even worse, discovering them killed on site. Unlike many crimes, which dropped during lockdown, sheep rustling actually spiked as gangs exploited the deserted roads and worries about food shortages.
Far from being opportunistic local crimes, rural theft is big business and often the work of organised criminal gangs crossing county borders. PC Mark Atkinson, of
North Yorkshire’s Rural Taskforce, sees his area “being hard hit by organised gangs coming into the region, predominantly from West Yorkshire, to steal quad bikes and horse trailers, which then have their identity changed and are sold on”. Tractors and other farm vehicles are also being stolen nationwide and then doctored to appear legitimately owned before being shipped out of the country.
MAKING A STAND
Police, farmers and smallholders, however, are fighting back. As every farm is unique in both size and location, a nuanced approach to crime prevention is needed. A winning combination of community involvement, technology and security measures seems to be giving rural criminals a run for their money. On a regional level, farmers are being encouraged to engage with their local police rural crime officers, report suspicious sightings and incidents, join schemes such as Farm Watch or Rural Watch, and create social media groups with other farmers to share news.
PC Atkinson has seen, first hand, the effectiveness of North Yorkshire’s Rural Taskforce, which was set up five years ago to tackle rural and wildlife crime. “Great strides have been made in that time to engage with our local
communities, assisting with crime prevention advice and targeted patrols in areas.” Police and existing rural watches are also sharing information on Whatsapp groups. “By doing this together, we can throw a larger net over an area,” he continues, “with more eyes and ears looking out for suspect vehicles and behaviour.”
Technology also has its part to play. “You can’t take what you can’t start,” explains rural affairs specialist Rebecca Davidson, and so immobilisers and trackers are absolute musts, while the CESAR registration scheme (cesarscheme. org) is helping to aid the recovery of stolen agricultural equipment. CCTV linked to a mobile phone can provide farmers with extra surveillance, while ‘geo-fencing’ apps alert owners if their kit goes out of a designated area. Sheep thieves are also being thwarted by a smart new invention called Tectracer, a special paint that contains a digital code linking livestock to a particular farm. And, of course, there’s no substitute for good old-fashioned physical security. Anti-theft devices such as steering locks and ram locks on vehicles deter thieves, while basic measures such as fitting locks to workshops and barns, using security gates and lighting and not leaving kit in sight of a public highway will all help.
It’s frustrating that they’re necessary, but by taking these steps and working together, we might just prevent a ciderfuelled chancer taking someone else’s combine for a spin.