Different municipalities in Camp de Tarragona have reinforced surveillance in the countryside to prevent theft from farmers during the olive harvest, which is taking place these weeks.
In a campaign marked by the increase in the price of olive oil in recent months, olives have become a prized fruit that has aroused the interest of thieves.
Constantí (Tarragonès) is one of the municipalities that has extended the hours of its rural guard. Until now it worked during the hazelnut and carob season, but this year it will operate until mid-December. Always in coordination with the local police of the town, the Mossos d'Esquadra and the farmers, who are generally the ones who raise the alert.
Pere Guinovart, territorial coordinator of Unió de Pagesos in Camp de Tarragona, explains that the thefts in recent years during the carob harvest this season are being concentrated in the olive fields.
The most affected areas today are Montbrió and Mont-roig del Camp (Baix Camp), and with somewhat less incidence Tarragonès municipalities such as Constantí, Vila-seca or Vilallonga del Camp.
For five years now there has been coordination between councils, police and farmers, and during this time the system has been perfected.
"It is about the operations being connected. Sometimes what is stolen can be in Morell and after a moment be in Baix Camp," he details.
One of their strategies is to share the license plate numbers of the thieves' vans so that when a farmer notices the presence of a suspicious vehicle, he can quickly prevent a theft.
For farmers, the situation is delicate. First because they steal their harvest, which is the work of the entire year. Also because when they find a thief they can suffer attacks.
"We have had to tell them not to act, even if they find them on their lands stealing their fruit, and that makes us suffer because if they act they could have problems," Guinovart acknowledges. For all this, and despite recognizing that the devices "have had an effect", the union leader demands "increasing the number of employees."
With a municipal area of about 30 square kilometers, monitoring all of Constantí is not easy and they have noticed an increase in thefts in the countryside. In fifteen days of olive harvest they have had nine, of which in five cases they have been able to catch the thieves on the farm thanks to the coordination between farmers, rural guard and local police.
"We have reinforced the surveillance service in the countryside, the farmers asked us for it. We have expanded the number of hours of the rural guard that we already had for the hazelnut and carob campaign," comments Alfonso Riscos, Councilor for Security and Civil Protection of the location.
The rural guard points out that "from the first second" that the service begins he is in contact with the rest of those involved. "Collaboration with farmers is essential for my work. If someone calls me because there is a car they don't know or sees people picking fruit, we contact the local police and start action," details the security guard.
He affirms that vehicle chases between the fields are not strange, but he is confident because they generally end up getting caught. "They know some roads but we know the territory well and since we work together, we can wait for them in certain places and surprise them," he says. Furthermore, he assures that their presence is a deterrent: "they see us and change course." However, he states that generally the thieves are from surrounding towns and that they change from one year to the next.
