Thieves Target Farms

Someone is swiping pesticides from growers on the Oxnard Plain, stirring concerns that Ventura County’s agricultural industry has become a prime target for prowlers.

Bandits have committed four large-scale burglaries of farm chemicals since the start of the year, including a heist last week in which thieves stole $50,000 in insecticides and fungicides from an Oxnard-area warehouse.

While the thefts have similarities, it is unclear whether they are related, according to law enforcement authorities. All told, thieves have made off with more than $150,000 in pesticides in the past six months, authorities said.

“These have been planned out, well-organized strikes, no question about it,” said Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail. “They knew exactly what they wanted.”

Despite heightened fears of chemical assaults after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, authorities say there is no indication that the pesticides were taken for anything other than agricultural use.

Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Don Jennings, part of a two-man team dedicated to thwarting agricultural crime, said the pesticides were likely trucked out of the county and perhaps even south of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Jennings would not identify the chemicals that had been taken but said most were being stored for use in strawberry fields.

The crop has been expanding rapidly in Ventura County and across the state.

Jennings said it is possible that the expansion has fueled the demand for black-market pesticides, accounting for the rash of burglaries so far this year.

“In all of these thefts, the burglars didn’t take all of the chemicals that were there,” said Jennings, who has been with the agricultural crime-busting unit for five years. “They took specific chemicals, like somebody more or less had a shopping list. They were probably sold before they were stolen.”

Agricultural crime fighters have been on the job in Ventura County since 1992, and the unit has evolved over the years from a crime prevention program to an aggressive investigative team that handles every farm-related crime in the sheriff’s jurisdiction.

There were 90 such crimes reported last year totaling $156,000 in losses. Jennings said the unit recovered about $40,000 of that amount, leading to 61 arrests and convictions in nearly every case.

While agricultural theft in general is a mounting concern, agricultural officials say pesticide theft is particularly troubling because of the potential for misuse.

Growers are advised not to store farm chemicals unless it’s absolutely necessary and to keep to a minimum the number of people who know what pesticides are on hand and where they are kept.

“Around here, we all take great pains to make sure what we’re using is being applied properly,” said fourth-generation Ventura grower Edgar Terry, president of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “But God knows what could happen in other areas if [the stolen pesticides] were used by someone who just goes out and sprays willy-nilly. You just don’t want that stuff stolen. You don’t want it out there in the wrong hands.”