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Understanding how rural crime impacts farmers across the nation is the focus of a new study.
Launched this month by the University of New England's Centre for Rural Criminology, the survey is the first attempt in more than 20 years to build an understanding of rural crime on a national scale.
Following the success of the Centre's NSW farm crime survey in 2020, which had far-ranging impacts on policing of rural crime in the state, the 2023 Australian farm crime survey will ask landholders to detail their experiences of rural crime and gather opinions about the effectiveness of crime prevention.
Centre for Rural Criminology co-director Dr Kyle Mulrooney said in order to combat farm crime, police and policymakers need better information from those involved in farming who have key insights into the important issues.
“Increasing the capacity to fight farm crime is crucial,” Dr Mulrooney said.
"This survey puts the farmers’ voice front and centre, allowing us to gain a better understanding of the scope of the problem, as well as find out what measures might be taken by the government, police, farmers and rural communities to reduce farm crime across Australia."
Dr Mulrooney said several state-based surveys conducted in recent years had highlighted how serious the problem of rural crime is.
"There is a significant dark figure of crime and that is especially true across Australia," he said
"What that means is that we know farm crime is fairly rampant, occurs quite often, but we don't have a clear picture of it largely because it's very under-reported."
The NSW survey found the state's farmers experience very high levels of crime victimisation and often experience this victimisation repeatedly and across multiple occasions.
"The most common forms of victimisation reported by farmers include trespass, illegal shooting and hunting, the theft of livestock, break and enter, and the theft of equipment and tools," the report said.
"Consider stock theft alone, for example. NSW police figures indicate that between 2015 and 2020, an average of 1800 cattle and 16,700 sheep were stolen each year across the state at a cost of nearly $4 million (annually) to farmers.
"If we add the value of stud stock, loss of animal by-products like wool or milk, and loss of future breeding potential, the annual monetary impact on NSW primary producers could realistically be over $60 million.
"These estimates are especially conservative, not least due to under-reporting and the subsequent ‘dark figure’ of farm crime."
Among other issues, the NSW survey highlighted farmers’ frustration at their inability to monitor stock against theft.
In response, UNE supported a smart tag trial which proved that following a theft, stock could be successfully tracked by police.
The national survey is seeking perspectives from landholders large and small, from across Australia.
The information will be used to build an understanding of landholder attitudes towards current policing and justice system responses to rural crime, which may eventually inform future crime prevention measures.
