2023 is a dark year... Last year, the theft of agricultural equipment increased on farms in Loiret and the FNSEA is sounding the alarm.
“We are almost all affected.
I had the electrical cables from my watering bar stolen.
It costs 12,000 euros.
In addition to the cost of the franchise, I spent four weeks without being able to irrigate and I had losses in quality,” explains Olivier Parou, farmer in Huêtre.
Bitter, he has just been informed that his complaint had been dismissed by the courts.
“We would like this to change, otherwise we will organize ourselves and it will not be good,” he warns.
Cameras and safes
With the recent rise in the cost of metals, these copper cables have become a prime target, with three times more thefts last year than in 2022. But criminals also attack GPS installed on tractors, easy to resell, or fuel.
“We need to be better protected because we are very impacted, our department is the third most affected in France,” adds Sébastien Méry, president of FNSEA 45.
Also read: In Eure-et-Loir, “people fill their car trunks” with vegetables stolen from the fields
The gendarmerie claims to be mobilized.
But with 3,000 farms covering 55% of the department's territory, “we cannot have a gendarme behind each of them.
Farmers must also participate in their security,” insists General Philippe Ott, head of the Loiret gendarmerie group.
Since last year, a series of actions have been taken, cameras have been installed, some farmers have equipped themselves with safes to store equipment, and a WhatsApp group has been created to centralize alerts.
But this is not enough.
In mid-January, a theft of irrigation cables was again reported in the Beaune-la-Rolande sector.
Hence this call for help, in the hope of obtaining more resources…