Humberside Police warn farmers of rising machinery thefts this summer
The rural crime team says that criminals often strike during peak farming season
Humberside Police are urging farmers to stay alert – with thieves targeting farm machinery during the busy summer season.
The rural crime team says criminals often strike when farmers are most distracted by harvest work.
Sergeant Kevin Jones, from the Rural Task Force, says now’s the time to tighten up security and keep an eye out for anything suspicious.
Sgt Jones, said:
"You have a lot of expensive machinery that is vital to farmers to conduct their work. And this machinery that's being used in open plain site is opportunists for criminals that basically want to cash profit in lucrative second hand markets.
"It's this machinery gets stolen that is a vital bit of farmers' equipment and they can't do their jobs works, gets laid off and they get behind timescales, and ultimately we all suffer because it's the food industry that basically has the knock on effect and it affects everyone."
The team was at Driffield show giving out advice to farmers yesterday (Wednesday 17th July)
Sgt Jones added:
"Look after yourselves if you have any concerns, whether it's in relation to rural crime issues, wildlife crime issues, but also more importantly to basically understand that the team are there. Also, we have various referrals to partner agencies. We also work very closely with the Yellow Wellies Foundation.