Ah, fall. The pumpkins ripening in the field and the tomatoes bountiful – though the dry summer set the corn leaves to rattling earlier than they should. The harvest moon is overhead and by its light the thieves work, stripping farms of as much produce as they can haul by night and harvesting community garden plots as if they owned them.
Earlier this summer, Monitor reporter Elodie Reed profiled Woodward Family Farm, one of the many small farms that are part of the state’s agricultural renaissance. Its owners, Landon Woodward and Jocelyn Therrien, ages 19 and 20, recently purchased the 1,000-chicken egg farm opened by Chris and Danielle LaValley a decade or so ago. The LaValleys, old-timers at age 30, wanted to focus on the 57-acre vegetable farm they operate on land in Pembroke, Allenstown and Hooksett.
New farms like the ones begun by young people with a love of the land are the future of agriculture in New Hampshire. Drought, crop disease and storms that can flatten fields all threaten that future, but no threat is as dispiriting as theft.
Earlier this month, thieves stole 700 ears of corn worth $400 plus cucumbers, Swiss chard and tomatoes from a LaValley field in Pembroke. That means the theft was no misdemeanor, as the filching experienced by almost anyone with a plot at a community garden would be. It is grand theft, which in New Hampshire means $500 or more. It’s a felony.
Compared with big-time agriculture thievery – the fraudulent re-routing of trucks filled with tens of thousands of dollars worth of California pistachios, almonds or walnuts, or the $18 million Quebec maple syrup heist – agricultural crime here is a small problem. But small problems, if they occur often enough, can put a small farm out of business or convince their owners to give up a dream that contributes to the state’s food self-sufficiency.
When large quantities are stolen, like the LaValleys’ corn, or the entire plots of carrots, beets and garlic dug up by night in the community garden on Clinton Street, the produce is not for personal use. It is being sold at farm stands or markets, or to no-questions-asked grocers. If marked “organic,” as it probably is, it can be worth hundreds of dollars.
The LaValleys’ customers and neighbors have been supportive, paying more at times to help them recoup their loss, and we congratulate them for it. We urge people who want to keep agriculture alive to shop at farm stands and markets, and to be vigilant. See a truck and people in a farm field at night, call the farmers if you know them or the police. Same for community gardens. Theft went down at the Clinton Street garden after the posting of signs warning that thieves will be prosecuted.
The committee overseeing that garden is considering the discrete installation of infrared cameras like those hunters use. Farmers should consider doing the same. A few prosecutions, with mug shots in the paper and online, and the theft of a farmer’s or gardener’s hard work will no longer be treated as a prank but a crime against us all.