In Tulare County, agricultural crime, ranging from packaging to copper and vehicle theft, poses a persistent threat to rural vineyards and farmland.
“Here in Tulare County, the majority of our farmland is relatively rural,” said Lieutenant Randall Gunderman, commander of the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office Ag Crimes Investigations Unit. “There may not be a house for 5, 6 or 10 miles, and it’s all open. Criminals can get to and from these locations with ease. There’s nothing to really stop them.
“The question becomes, how do you deter them from your property by making it difficult enough to where they say, ‘It’s not worth it. I’m just going to go somewhere else?’ ” Gunderman said. That’s the challenge.
“I tell people the best tool we have is surveillance, but I understand that with the rural nature of most of these places, the electricity isn’t there to hook up a good-quality surveillance system,” he said. “So, what do you do? Maybe you invest in some good-quality trail cameras and set them up in a way that captures entrances and exits. They have to be set at the right level to potentially get a license plate on a vehicle, so there is a little bit of training involved to ensure they are set up correctly.”
Vineyard Packaging Theft
“Particularly in vineyards, we deal with a lot of theft of packaging materials,” Gunderman said. “The reason is that processors and growers typically set packing materials out in the vineyards on the sides of the road the day before harvest begins. That gives other smaller or competitive farm labor contractors the opportunity to take that material and use it for fields they have contracted, cutting their overhead and saving them money.”
Styrofoam packing boxes and SO2-generating pads are the usual targets, and a vineyard’s competitors are often the culprits, according to Gunderman. “Without a doubt, I would venture to say that more often than not, when packaging materials are stolen, it’s by another contractor or grower,” he said.
“What we’ve told growers in the past is if there’s any way you can refrain from setting that material out the night before, do it,” he said. “Don’t set it out there. Don’t bring it to the field until the packing crew is there, ready to harvest and pack. When you’re done, clean that stuff up and get it out of there.
“But it becomes a logistical issue, and I get it,” he said. “It’s hot outside, so these crews get in the field at four o’clock in the morning, and that packing material is already there and staged for them. If you’re running a business, you have to do what you can to make it as efficient as possible.
“But if you end up losing an entire truck of packing materials, that sets you back even further as the day begins,” he added. “So, if there’s a way to avoid putting it in the field the night before, that’s probably the best way to handle it.”
Crime by Employees
“We had a case a few years ago where employees would come back at night and pick fruit for themselves,” said Rocky Pipkin, president and managing general partner of the Pipkin Detective Agency in Visalia, Calif.
“They would use the equipment and the packing boxes to pack the grapes. One of the things we learned from that was to not leave any equipment out in the fields.
“Even if you have to rent a temporary fenced-in area and put a temporary alarm on it, you would be money ahead from a prevention standpoint because they would likely move on to somewhere else where the vineyard was not protected,” he said.
Vineyard owners usually don’t screen their seasonal employees to prevent theft.
“Because they’re temporary, it’s very difficult to justify doing a background investigation,” Pipkin said. “You’re dealing with labor contractors. They have their own people, and there’s an insulation point between the grower and the labor contractor who is hiring to provide the labor to pick the fruit.”
Pipkin strongly advises grape growers to put up fencing.
“You’re not going to put a fence around your whole vineyard, but you should put it around packing material, boxes, tools, tractors, and bins that have to be moved by a forklift,” he said. “You put that behind the fence and then lock the gate.
“You have to make it difficult for criminals to get on your property,” he said. “One of the most important things is to make sure your cables prevent access by vehicles across the roads into your fields. Make sure that you have a cable or chain that goes across to prevent entry by any driven vehicles.”
Copper Wire Theft
“Copper wire theft is a nationwide problem,” Gunderman said. “They’ll go in and cut the power to the irrigation pumps, then cut the wire at both the pump end and the panel end, and rip it out of the ground.
“The wire itself isn’t a huge loss,” he said. “300 ft of wire might only be worth a couple thousand dollars, but when they do this, they completely destroy any conduit under the dirt. To retrench, lay new conduit, pull new wire, and hook everything back up, a 200- or 300-foot pull of wire can cost the grower $30,000.”
To minimize this type of crime, Gunderman advises growers to “harden the target” with fencing, lighting, surveillance, cable gates and other security measures to make access more difficult.
Some Central Valley growers have started replacing copper wire with significantly cheaper aluminum wire. However, this alone did not stop all the damage, so some growers painted or posted information about the change on their equipment. When Tulare County District Attorney Tim Ward was informed of this, his office began distributing stickers reading “This equipment only contains aluminum wire” in both English and Spanish.
Vehicle Theft
Although most vehicle thefts in Tulare County are referred to the California Highway Patrol, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office is sometimes involved.
“We do at times deal with stolen vehicles,” Gunderman said. “And most of the time when that happens, it’s because they burglarized the shop or a home and got the keys from there.”
“My experience has been that quads are probably the No. 1 thing to steal because they’re quick and easy, and they don’t have license plates if they’re kept on farms,” Pipkin said. “Thieves will target those, and the more organized groups will go after tractors, forklifts, trailers and trucks.
“If you have a tractor out there and the keys are missing, that typically means a crook has taken them and is making a duplicate,” Pipkin said. “That way he can have access to your tractor and come steal it anytime he wants.
“Make certain all vehicles that require keys have those keys kept in a locked box inside a locked building,” he said. “Whoever is leaving the ranch last needs to check every vehicle to ensure that the keys are not left inside and that the vehicles are locked.”
“As far as keys being left in farm or ranch vehicles, I’m sure it happens,” Gunderman said. “And my first suggestion is don’t do that.
“It’s not smart practice to leave any vehicle unsecured or unlocked with valuables inside,” he said. “Some of these growers have their own service trucks, and the loss of the truck is substantial in itself. But when you start factoring in $30,000 to $50,000 worth of tools, welders, air compressors and other items on a service truck, GWthat loss jumps significantly.”
Being Vigilant
“Every day, and I know this becomes boring and mundane, but every day, check your fields, especially during the harvesting season and early spring,” Pipkin said. “You’re planting, irrigating and checking for harmful pests. You need to go out to your fields daily and look.
“A lot of farmers, just from old-school habits, would check the dirt roads for tracks. If they noticed an unusual tire print, they knew someone had been on their property,” he said. “That’s how vigilant you have to be in today’s world.”
