By Ian Parkinson
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff
Agriculture in San Luis Obispo County is growing. Sorry for that pun. But I wanted to bring your attention to an industry that is so vitally important to everyone who lives here. To give you an idea of how important: For the past few years, agriculture has been a billion-dollar business in the county. Strawberries, wine grapes, cattle, and avocados are always in the top 10 agricultural products we produce here. We owe an enormous debt to all the hard-working farmers and ranchers who provide us with the food we eat.
That’s why the Sheriff’s Office has a unit that is solely dedicated to all the various aspects of agriculture. It’s called our Rural Crimes Unit. Their job is to enforce laws and investigate crimes impacting agriculture and rural industries. These deputies are specially trained to investigate crimes against the ag industry. In 2022 alone, deputies in this unit conducted 243 rural crime investigations. They referred 15 suspects for prosecution. And they recovered stolen ag equipment worth almost $300,000.
Recently, we had an incident which showcased what our Rural Crime deputies and our Patrol Deputies can do to combat these types of crimes. First it helps to have an involved and engaged ag community who partners with us to report suspicious activity. They live by the adage, if you see something, say something. And that’s just what occurred in this incident.
Sheriff’s Deputies along with members of the Sheriff’s Rural Crime Unit responded to a report of two men who were actively stealing avocados from a ranch in rural Nipomo. The property owner had seen the men riding bikes into the avocado groves just as it was getting dark and reported it to the Sheriff’s Office. When Deputies arrived on scene, they were able to locate the suspects along with bags of approximately 500 pounds of stolen avocados. The avocados were estimated to be worth between $3,000 to $5,000. The two suspects were arrested for felony grand theft and booked into county jail.
Now this wasn’t the first time this ranch had been the victim of a crime. Theft of avocados from this ranch has been an ongoing issue. And as you might imagine, the losses add up quickly. And because of crimes like that, it increases the cost for the rancher which in turn leads to higher costs for consumers. Some ranches have even resorted to having armed security, using night vision goggles, and thermal imaging equipment to try and fight back against ever-increasingly sophisticated criminals.
Many times, like in this instance, it’s the theft of produce.
Sometimes it’s theft of equipment like generators, trailers, or tools. But in all these cases, the farmer or rancher is out, not only money, but time and patience. It creates headaches for them and at the end of the day it threatens their livelihood. It shouldn’t simply be the cost of doing business. That’s where the Sheriff’s Office and our Rural Crime Unit comes in. These Deputies know those in the agriculture community already have a lot on their plate, just so they can provide us with the food to put on ours. They don’t need an extra helping of hardship to go along with it.
