![\"Agricultural](\"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/CRIME1-articleLarge.jpg\" "\\"Agricultural")
Steve Mello, whose corn and alfalfa farm has been hit by thieves over the past year, says, \u201cIt's difficult to lock up 1,400-plus acres.\u201d<\/p><\/div>BAKERSFIELD, Calif. \u2014 Sgt. Walt Reed said he could tell right away that the grapes were stolen. They looked like an ordinary bunch. Except, he said, for the way they were dressed.
\n\u201cUsually grapes are put into plastic bags,\u201d said Sergeant Reed, a 28-year veteran of the Kern County Sheriff\u2019s Office. \u201cBut these grapes were just thrown in a Styrofoam box.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sergeant Reed \u2014 who eventually arrested a suspect after staking out a Kern County vineyard \u2014 is just one of dozens of deputies on the front lines of agricultural crime in California, home to the nation\u2019s most productive farms and the people who prey on them. While thievery has long been a fact of life in the country, such crimes are on the rise and fighting them has become harder in many parts of California as many grants for rural law enforcement have withered on the vine.<\/p>\n
While other states have their own agricultural intrigue \u2014 cattle rustlers in Texas, tomato takers in Florida \u2014 few areas can claim a wider variety of farm felons than California, where ambushes on everything from almonds to beehives have been reported in recent years. Then there is the hardware: diesel fuel, tools and truck batteries regularly disappear in the Central Valley, the state\u2019s agricultural powerhouse, where high unemployment, foreclosures and methamphetamine abuse have made criminals more desperate, officials say.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of our ag crimes are up,\u201d said Sergeant Reed, who oversees a unit of two full-time detectives \u2014 down from three a year ago \u2014 all patrolling a county about eight times the size of Rhode Island. A wet winter and warm summer, after all, have meant healthy crops, he said, and a healthy market means happy thieves.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything this year is doing well,\u201d Sergeant Reed said. \u201cAnd if it\u2019s doing well here, there\u2019s somebody looking to steal it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Counties up and down the state also are dealing with a surge in copper theft \u2014 a perennial problem made all the worse of late by the soaring price for the metal. Such robberies are remarkably simple. Bandits simply snip copper wires running between outdoor wells and their power boxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo repair them is anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 a whack,\u201d said Greg Wegis, a Kern County farmer. \u201cWe repaired one, and it immediately got ripped off again.\u201d<\/p>\n
And copper is not the only tempting metal.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo hundred pounds of iron might bring them 75, 100 bucks,\u201d Sergeant Reed said. \u201cThat\u2019s money they can use to put gas in their trucks. They can get some food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nor are the crimes limited to poorer areas; in Napa County, where fans of the good life flock for the wine and warm weather, the police set up a tip line in June to combat a raft of thefts, including solar panels at some vineyards.<\/p>\n
In other areas, deputies say they have witnessed a kind of Robin Hood effect, where some small, struggling farmers filch materials from their better stocked competitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s typical during certain times of the year: you\u2019ll see a surge in theft from bigger farms,\u201d said Deputy Sheriff John H. McCarthy, a rural crime investigator for Santa Barbara County. \u201cChemicals, fuel and the type of things you need to put in a new crop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not even insects are immune. In Madera County, about 130 miles east of San Francisco, officials saw a rash of bee burglaries this year, as a shortage of able-bodied pollinators drove up the price. \u201cThey\u2019d just go in there and they smoke the bees, sedate them and take them,\u201d Sheriff John Anderson said. \u201cAnd they wear protective gear just like the pros.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brian Long, a beekeeper based in Colorado, was one of those hit, losing more than 400 hives \u2014 valued at about $100,000 \u2014 in California in January. And while Mr. Long later recovered the hives, and most of the bees therein, he said the thieves were getting bolder. \u201cThis is way more than we\u2019ve ever had to deal with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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