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Thieves targeting expensive farming equipment are being tackled under a police initiative.

Wokingham police have been working in close partnership with local farmers to create a network of information and crime prevention among landowners since last year. The latest development in the initiative will be to offer SmartWater, which marks items of property and enables them to be returned to their owners if found. The technology also acts a deterrent to thieves, as people who are arrested and taken into custody by Wokingham police are all scanned for traces of SmartWater, along with any property found in their possession.

Inspector Pete Oliphant, deputy commander of Wokingham police, said: “SmartWater is about deterrence as well. Considering every prisoner is scanned for SmartWater, it sends a clear message to them there is a system in place.”

Police will be distributing SmartWater among farmers free of charge so they can mark machinery and other expensive items of farming equipment.

PCSO Suzie Carr, who has been working on the project, said a Farmers Forum had been launched in Swallowfield last year and this had made police realise the problems facing farmers in the area had been overlooked. She said: “Farmers are generally very private people. They do not often cry out for help and the general feeling from the forum was farmers need our help.
“They generally decide to look after themselves if anything happens. They know who is on their land and they know who shouldn’t be."

“Things have escalated and they have decided we need to be involved with them. The first thing I did was go around the whole of the Swallowfield and Farley Hill area and established a directory of every farmer in the area, which the parish council have also taken. We sent Farm Watch and Country Watch packs so we could get them all signed up and help them through community messaging.”