More than a snack: farmers fear produce thieves in Manitoba are well-organized

WINNIPEG — From cucumbers to onions to leeks, produce is being stolen in some parts of Manitoba this summer, and there are concerns the thieves may be getting more organized.

While rural farmers and city gardeners are accustomed to having curious snackers help themselves to a handful of food, stories of a recent mega-heist of more than 250 kilograms of cucumbers from a farmer’s field are raising eyebrows.

“One of my producers called to tell me … the cucumbers he intended to harvest had all been stolen overnight,” Erin Crampton, who owns a farmer’s market in Winnipeg, said Tuesday.

“I grew up on a strawberry farm and every now and then, we’d come out in the morning to pick strawberries and we’d find empty beer bottles all over and we’d realize people had come in and had a snack and a drink in the middle of the night. But this is something different … this is — go into a field, pick cucumbers for several hours, and then take them somewhere to sell them.”

Small communal gardens in the city are not immune either. At the Riverview Garden Society south of downtown Winnipeg, thefts jumped three years ago, prompting organizers to put up more signs to remind people that the food belongs to those who rent the garden plots.

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Society president Rod Kueneman said he has noticed much of the thievery seems to be targeted, bulk removal of specific items — a sign that the thieves may be stealing food in order to resell it.

“In the last four days, we’ve had two incidents where they’ve come in and picked a couple of gardeners clean out of their onions and leeks,” he said.

Some thieves visit the gardens during the day and scout for certain produce — “doing recon,” Kueneman said — and then return under the cover of darkness.

Kueneman and Crampton say thefts are not often reported to police. Farmers in a small community may fear repercussions, Crampton said.

At the Riverview gardens, some reports have been passed on to police when gardeners spot a thief getting into a vehicle and jot down the licence plate. Otherwise, it’s hard to find someone who walked away with onions.

RCMP say it’s not a widely-reported problem.

“I believe it happens more often than it is reported to us. The fact that produce or crops are almost impossible to link to a specific field or area is probably the reason for most victims to not report it,” Sgt. Bert Paquet, with the Manitoba RCMP, said in an email.

Crampton said the farmer who was robbed of cucumbers has put in new security measures, such as gates, around the large property.

Kueneman said some of the city garden plot owners have taken to working their gardens in the late evening or early morning to keep an eye out. And some have technological help.

“We do have people that have infrared cameras … and I know there are gardeners that are walking down there after dark now.”

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press