Know Your Assets – Waste Crime, Farm Records and the Security Calendar

When did you last do a proper head count? 

Not a quick look across the field. A proper count, gate to gate, with every ewe accounted for. 

Recently, sheep went missing from Diddly Squat Farm and it made the national headlines. Then Thames Valley Police closed the case. There had been no crime, and all the stock was accounted for. The sheep simply hadn’t been counted properly. 

In a busy season it’s easy to lose track of something. But it raises a fair question: if you can’t say exactly what you’ve got, how would you prove what’s gone? 

That’s where Episode 29 of Close the Farm Gate begins, and it’s well worth ¾ of an hour of your time. 

What’s in it for you 

Frank and Charlie of Rural Safeguard sit down for an honest and sometimes daft chat about foreseeable crime, and what you can do before it arrives at your gate. 

Waste crime. The episode was recorded during Waste Crime Week. It looks at a Cambridgeshire farmer who had hundreds of lorry loads of processed waste tipped across his field. One load in a gateway is bad luck. Twenty loads is a pattern, and a pattern can be spotted, reported and stopped. Find out why it pays to speak up early to the police, the council and your neighbours. You’ll also hear how a householder who hands rubbish to a man with a van can end up liable for it. 

Know what you’ve got. You’d never run a flock without records, so why run a workshop without them? Serial numbers, photos and VINs for your quad, GPS units and tools can decide whether a theft case goes somewhere or nowhere. 

A security calendar for the farming year. Supermarkets tag the meat because they know what gets taken. Builders know that diesel goes missing during groundworks and cable goes missing later on. Farming has its own rhythm too: lambing, drilling, silage, harvest. Each season brings its own risks. Frank and Charlie talk about matching your farmyard defences to the calendar, so you protect what matters most when it matters most. 

Shutting up shop earlier. Now the nights are drawing in, thieves use the dark evenings while you’re in for tea. Closing the farm gate earlier doesn’t mean shutting people out. It means the people you want on the farm arrive on your terms. 

Does your alarm actually work? We don’t mean the siren. We mean the response. Who picks up, how long do they take to arrive, and what’s your plan for the first 30 minutes on your own? As one wise old farmer put it: better tin than skin. 

Why listen? 

Almost every farmer Frank sits down with says the same thing: “I’ve never looked at my farm like that before. But I will now.” 

This isn’t scaremongering. It’s plain-speaking knowledge sharing from people with backgrounds in policing, investigation and protective security, so you can act before you have to react. A tweak to your evening routine, a list of what’s in the shed, a gate that can’t be lifted off its hinges: none of it costs much, and all of it helps. 

The episode ends on a high. Rural Safeguard has been invited to speak to students at Harper Adams and the Royal Agricultural University, so the next generation of farmers can build crime reduction into their business plans from day one. 

Listen to Episode 29 of Close the Farm Gate now on Spotify, or on the podcast page of the Rural Safeguard website.

So put the kettle on, kick off your boots and have a listen. Your future self, and your stock, will thank you.