California — like many states — have cut back drastically on agricultural programs, including crime prevention, and hard times and expensive food lead to farm crime. In the absence of feet on the street, many are turning to low-cost surveillance equipment:

Jesse McKinley, Farm Felons Pick Off California Crops

Chris Wadkins, the president of the California Rural Crime Prevention Task Force, a nonprofit coalition of law enforcement and agricultural organizations, echoed that sentiment. Mr. Wadkins, a deputy sheriff in San Bernardino County, said his department had been battling what he called “an organized crime ring of sorts” with a very specific target: avocados.

“You always get your mom and pop who might stop and pick one or two for dinner,” Mr. Wadkins said. “That’s not what we’re talking about here.

Danielle Rau, the director of rural crime prevention for the California Farm Bureau, said the nonviolent nature of farm theft often made it a low priority when it comes to financing. “Violent crimes have to come first,” Ms. Rau said.

California provides grants to some coastal and Central Valley counties for rural crime prevention. But the California Emergency Management Agency, which administers the grant program, says the amount allocated has shrunk from nearly $4 million in the 2008-09 fiscal year to a little more than $2 million in 2010-11.

The cutbacks are not limited to California. Florida officials recently lost or left vacant more than a dozen positions from their agricultural crime units. In Texas, which also has seen an increase in agricultural crime, the authorities rely on groups like the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, whose Special Rangers investigate livestock and equipment theft. 

With many California counties cutting back, some rural dwellers have taken matters into their own hands. Take Steve Mello, for example, a charmingly crusty corn and alfalfa farmer on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta who said thieves have taken about $15,000 worth of his property in the past year. “It’s difficult to lock up 1,400-plus acres,” he said. “The value of the fences would be worth more than I’m worth.”

Still, Mr. Mello was so frustrated that he briefly took to sitting sentinel on his tractor with a shotgun. Not that he ever saw anyone, thankfully.

“Death for thievery is kind of a severe sentence,” he said. “I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

Instead, Mr. Mello is now relying on a camera system, something professional lawmen like Sergeant Reed also use. The Kern County Sheriff’s Office also uses hidden tracking devices in seemingly defenseless pumps and other decoy equipment.

I would expect that the level of agricultural crime will continue to rise as the economy sputters, adding just one more major headache for farmers in the modern world. But at least low cost tools, like surveillance cameras and tracking devices, can help.