TOP TARGETS

ATV QUAD THEFT, £2.3M (NFU Mutual)

Quad bikes/all-terrain vehicles “Quad bikes are the dreams of thieves,” says NFU Mutual’s Tim Price. “It just takes two beefy blokes to pick them up, they have few legal markers and you can move them from one end of the country to another or abroad, or just break them up for their parts, with little fear of being caught.”

Farm machinery, tools, 4X4s Teleporters – a cross between a tractor and a forklift, used to move hay bales around farms – have been stolen and used to ramraid ATMs.

Cybercrime Online scams trick farmers into paying for machinery that does not exist, or paying false invoices. “Farmers are savvy but they have a lot to do, as well as sorting out their invoices and IT,” says Price.

Livestock The motivation for livestock theft is changing. “We tend not to find them alive,” says Price. “A few years ago, they might have turned up at an auction mart, but now we think they are being slaughtered and butchered and going into the food chain.”