Rural crime: Share your farm protection tips and stories
© Tim Scrivener Rural crime is on the rise, and farmers and landowners are having to smarten up to defy organised criminal gangs.
The latest figures from NFU Mutual show the cost of rural crime hit £44.5m in 2017 – the highest for four years.
Farms are often targeted for machinery, livestock and fuels. Fly-tipping, hare coursing and trespass are also major concerns for farmers.
See also: Farm security advice to combat rural crime
Many farm businesses have already taken steps to reduce the opportunity for crime, ranging from simple measures such as locks fitted to gates and lighting in yards, to more sophisticated technology such as CCTV and DNA marking of livestock.
As part of our ongoing series looking into rural crime, Farmers Weekly is inviting farmers and people within the farming industry to share their best rural crime prevention tips and stories on Twitter using the hashtag #ruralcrime and tag @farmersweekly
Share videos
By sharing best practice, we hope farmers and landowners can learn from each other and improve security on their own farms to decrease the chances of becoming the next victim.
Please accompany your submissions with any photos and/or short videos, along with the reasons why you believe they are worthwhile for others to pursue.
The best tips will be pulled together for a feature in Farmers Weekly magazine and on our website.
Rural crime prevention tips can also be emailed to philip.case@proagrica.com