If you’ve ever been tempted to stop alongside a farmers’ field when nobody’s around and help yourself to a few melons or heads of broccoli or ears of corn – don’t. It could cost you at least $1,000.
That goes for swiping a seasonal beauty from a Christmas tree farm, too.
The penalty is part of a bill (House Bill 394) making its way through the state legislature, starting with a public hearing that took place before the House Environment and Agriculture Committee on Wednesday.
It seeks to boost a long-standing law against crop theft and farm damage, a problem that dates back to our agricultural beginnings but hasn’t gone away.
“In one case I heard about, people came in from a waterway in a boat, they entered a field that way” before helping themselves, said Shawn Jasper, commissioner of the Department of Agriculture.
The bill would create a minimum penalty of $1,000 for conviction – the current minimum is “up to 10 times the market value or repair cost” – and would add Christmas trees to the list of crops that are covered.
Christmas trees have become an important agricultural commodity in New Hampshire: The most recent agricultural census, in 2012, listed them as the fourth most valuable crop in the state, even ahead of apples.
A note attached to the bill makes this clear: “The Judicial Branch indicates historically few cases have been prosecuted under RSA 539:9, I, but the addition of Christmas trees increases the chances of additional misdemeanor or felony cases.”
Another change that would be made by the bill is to add the verb “consume” to the list of acts which are considered criminal if done on a field or farm without permission. That is designed to close an unexpected legal loophole, Jasper said.
“There are several occasions where a farmer had actually caught somebody in the process of stealing food, crops from the field. When police attempted to prosecute, the judge said because the crops hadn’t actually left the property, it hadn’t been stolen,” Jasper said.
That, he added, is ridiculous: “When you pick the vegetables, they’ve lost their value.”
