It’s been a long, hot summer, and Chris LaValley has had to spend upwards of six hours a day combing through his tinder-dry corn fields looking for decent ears to sell at his family’s Hooksett farm stand.
He wasn’t happy to find somebody had gone ahead and done the job for him when he arrived at the LaValley Farms Pembroke crop field Tuesday morning.
Thieves took about 700 ears of corn, along with cucumbers, Swiss chard, and tomatoes from one of the farm’s fields in Pembroke sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning. The 10-year-old family owned farm, which LaValley runs with his wife, Danielle, maintains about 60 acres split between fields in Pembroke, Allenstown and Hooksett.
It’s hard to account for what exactly was taken, but LaValley said the stolen corn alone would have sold for about $400 total. Because so much was taken, the couple assumes the thieves are reselling the produce.
The theft comes as the region’s farmers reel from a New England-wide summer drought. Danielle LaValley said the farm’s fields this year have only yielded about half the crops they typically produce – despite a grueling irrigation schedule, and between $5,000 and $6,000 in additional irrigation expenses.
“We always joke that an irrigation schedule is much like that of a newborn baby,” she wrote in a post online, describing how her husband had to move and refuel the irrigation system every four hours, including at night.
While the theft will certainly add to the financial toll the drought has already taken on the young farm, the couple said the crime was ultimately an emotional hit.
“It’s a shot to the gut,” Chris LaValley said. “This is another person that did this to us. And that’s a hard thing to accept.”
A single ear of corn takes a year to produce, he said. The process begins with testing the soil in the fall and planting a cover crop. Later, there’s plowing, planting seeds, fertilizing, weeding, irrigating and, finally, harvesting.
“In the end, they stole our hard work,” he said.
Pembroke police Chief Dwayne Gilman said his department had added patrols to the secluded area to try to keep the thieves from striking twice. But otherwise, he said he doubted police would identify suspects unless somebody came to them with information or the thieves boasted about the act publicly.
“You’re talking about edible stuff – so there’s not much evidence,” he said.
The popular farm is at least finding support with its clientele. A Facebook message about the theft that the farmers posted, hoping to find leads for police, was shared more than 1,700 times.
“It’s awesome to know that our customers and our neighbors – that they want justice for us,” she said.
And shoppers have been showing support in person, too. Danielle LaValley said a few had even chipped in money, coming in to buy just a few items of produce – but deliberately paying for more.
“I just have to let you know how sorry I am,” Hooksett resident Pat Lodi told Danielle, while buying corn at the LaValley farm stand in Hooksett Wednesday afternoon – the third customer in just 20 minutes to offer their sympathies.
Lodi has been shopping at LaValley’s for six years – as long as she’s lived in town – and said she was “really upset” when she read about the theft online.
“It just amazes me how low people can go,” she said.
Anyone with information about the theft is encouraged to call Pembroke police at 485-3421.