Crop Theft Forces Family to Sleep In Fields

A spike in the amount of fruit and vegetables being stolen fresh right from farmers’ fields has forced members of one family to sleep in their own fields near the northern Adriatic town of Umag during the summer.  

As daily Glas Istre reports, members of the Vuch family spend the night on an improvised bed made out of carboard, after deciding enough was enough when over 400 kilograms of watermelon went missing one night. Since they have decided to sleep in the fields, thefts have dramatically decreased. When they first begun the all night vigilante patrol they would catch robbers red-handed on a nightly basis they say. Many trying to get away with cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, garlic and paprika.

Maurizio Vuch says that one night he caught a group of youngsters returning from a night out eating his watermelon in the field, and also a foreign tourists picking a bag of paprika at 1am. Vuch has had enough of people using his fields as their own self service supermarket and is looking forward to the end of the season in a few more weeks when he can finally sleep in his own bed. The global recession has led to farmers all around the world tightning up their security measures, with many hiring security guards to man their stock overnight. Last year in Spain more than 20,000 thefts were reported from farms.