| Security
Countryside under siege as new wave of brazen
thieves targets farms
Latest figures released earlier last month reveal that
despite a 4% drop last year, the cost of rural theft has
risen sharply in the first half of 2017.
ccording to NFU
Mutual’s Rural
Crime Report,
early theft claims
statistics for the
first half of this
year show a sharp rise of over 20%
raising concerns that a new wave
of rural crime is hitting the
countryside.
Being ‘staked out’ is the biggest
worry for country people, followed
closely by longer police response
times in rural areas, according to
the leading rural insurer. Criminals
continue to target Land Rovers,
quad bikes, tractors, tools and
livestock despite increased
security on farms.
The report reveals that the cost
of rural crime to the UK economy
fell by 4% to £39.2m in 2016 as
farmers turned their farmyards into
fortresses to protect themselves
from increasingly brazen attacks
from rural thieves. Successful joint
initiatives involving police forces,
NFU Mutual and other
organisations also contributed to
the fall.
“While the fall in rural theft in
2016 is welcome news, the sharp
rise in the first half of 2017 is
deeply worrying,” said Tim Price,
NFU Mutual Rural Affairs
Specialist.
“Countryside criminals are
becoming more brazen and
farmers are now having to
continually increase security and
adopt new ways of protecting their
equipment. In some parts of the
country, farmers are having to turn
their farmyards into fortresses to
protect themselves from repeated
thieves who are targeting quads,
tractors and power tools. They are
using tracking devices on tractors,
video and infra-red surveillance in
their farmyards and even DNA
markers to protect sheep from
rustlers.
“The threat of becoming a
victim of rural crime, and regular
reports of suspicious characters
watching farms is causing high
levels of anxiety amongst farmers
who know their rural location
makes them vulnerable to attacks.
“As the main insurer of the
countryside, NFU Mutual has
responded to its members’
concerns and has invested over
£1m to tackle the menace. The
results of initiatives we support
show clearly that when police,
farmers and other rural
organisations tackle rural crime in
A
an organised way these schemes
can be extremely effective.”
The North East, South West and
the East of England were the
regions to see a rise in the cost of
rural theft in 2016 of 8.7%, 5.6%
and 3.7% respectively.
In Scotland, where NFU Mutual
and Police Scotland have joined
forces to form the SPARC (Scottish
Partnership Against Rural Crime)
initiative, the cost of rural theft fell
by over 32% last year. There was a
similar good result in Northern
Ireland – where a Rural Crime
Partnership including NFU Mutual,
PSNI (Police Service Northern
Ireland), MOJ (Ministry of Justice)
and other organisations has been
set up – with the cost of rural theft
down by 14.9%.
Quads and ATVS
Quads and ATVs (All Terrain
Vehicles) are disappearing from
farms in large numbers – thanks to
being easy to transport and lack of
registration plates
The cost of Quad and ATV theft
claims to NFU Mutual rose to £2m,
an increase of 11% from 2015 to
2016
CESAR marking and tracking
devices are the most effective
security measures – once basic
measures of keeping vehicles out
of sight in a building with the
machine secured to have been
addressed
Land Rover Defenders
Since Land Rover’s iconic
14 | Farming Monthly | September 2017
www.farmingmonthly.co.uk