Good cattle prices are a blessing, but rarely in life do farmers get bouquets without a few brickbats and as cattle values have soared, so does their attractiveness to cattle duffers.
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The average cow/calf unit is now worth nearly three thousand dollars, so farmers are becoming more exposed to livestock theft.
Sophisticated thieves can load a couple of decks in the night and drive away with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of your property.
Unfortunately, with an increase in property amalgamations and fewer people living in farm houses, the chance of duffers getting sprung have decreased and the risk to criminals for such huge rewards mean the incidence has increased.
Navigating your way around the NSW Police statistics is challenging, but the NSW bureau of crime statistics and research website, BOCSAR, reports 532 incidences of stock theft in 2015, which rose to 647 in 2016.
Crooks can knock off cattle and have them thousands of kilometers away in 24 hours.
This was the case in August last year when thieves stole 72 head worth $115,000 in Cunnamulla in Queensland and were subsequently found in Harden, 850 kilometres south.
Sheep, worth more than $100 a head, and goats, worth $5 a kilogram, are also proving a lucrative sideline for thieves.
In August 2016, the ABC reported that Western Division farmer, Ross Harvey, had $400,000 worth of sheep stolen that have never been recovered.
According to NSW Farmers, more than $1.5 million in livestock theft is reported annually – some sources would say more.
Trespass is another problem on the rise with modern day crims armed with battery operated grinders and bolt cutters that quickly cut through padlocked gates.
This provides access to not only thieves, but illegal shooters and fisherman who have little regard for a farmer’s property.
The problem is when they get in they can readily access tractors and dozers that hold hundreds of litres of diesel, making theft easy.
NSW Police has developed a website with an excellent range of suggestions for prevention, but it is questionable how effective the drive has been to get farmers on board.
This perhaps raises the need for a more proactive stock theft awareness campaign, similar to Crimewatch.
Governments spend millions of dollars on crime prevention in cities to try and stop it occurring.
In rural NSW some steps have been taken, but not to the same degree as in our cities.
It is a tricky situation, with no easy solution, but it is clear that farmers need more support from government and the police force.
Government needs to be more proactive with programs to help farmers and raise awareness, or the problem will only get worse.
- By MAL PETERS
