It's a sad fact of life in our industry that the high-value machinery we deal with on a daily basis is a target for thieves. Both end user properties such as farms and homes can fall victim, as of course can dealers' premises.

Thankfully The Plant & Agricultural National Intelligence Unit is leading the battle to combat this threat. A specialist police unit, the PANIU is fully funded by the Construction and Agricultural Insurance industries and from funding directly from the Construction Equipment Association and the Agricultural Engineers Association via the Industry standard 'Construction Equipment Security and Registration Scheme' (CESAR).

The primary aim of the unit is to reduce plant theft across the United Kingdom. It does this in two ways, firstly by assisting the Police Officer on the street to identify stolen equipment and tackle the organised criminal networks responsible for targeting plant and agricultural machinery equipment. Secondly, by enabling the industry to have a direct access to specialist Police officers who are dedicated to reduce plant theft and understand the complexities of their respective industries to work in partnership in crime reduction initiatives.

The Unit releases regular quarterly reports which they say are a true reflection of the machinery theft problem. The most recently released report (which can be accessed via the AEA's website here) covers the period of October to December 2015 and makes for fascinating reading. Some of it is rather depressing obviously, but there certainly does appear to be positive progress being made which deserves acknowledgement.

Essentially it appears that thefts of big ticket items such as tractors are proving less appealing for the criminal gangs now because they have become much harder to steal. The report says, "The 'One Key Fits All' no longer applies to the high value machinery now being manufactured. Many of the top end products have telematics fitted as standard which of course further discourages theft. Most of the manufacturers are fitting CESAR as standard or offering it as an option."

Certainly from reading through the report the increased use of the CESAR marking and identifying of machinery is cited as key reason for a reduction in the larger items' theft statistics. The latest figures show that over 200,000 units have been protected by CESAR, with only 1741 of those being reported stolen - and of that number 413 marked items were recovered (which is a recovery rate of 23.7%).

It seems because of this increased difficultly in the stealing of large tractors and the like, the thieves have unfortuntely moved their attention to smaller items such as ATVs, ride-on-mowers and utility trucks - all items which can be concealed in the back of a panelled van.

Caroline Clooney, Detective Inspector of the PANIU says of this move to smaller items, "We must all remain alert to this fact and do all we can to minimise the risk of theft. Prevention is the key. Stop it from being stolen in the first place. Secure it properly, remove and lock the keys away when not in use. Ensure the machine is protected by CESAR."

The report shows that in this last quarter when you add machinery thefts and quad thefts together you have a total of 949. Just 103 of these were fitted with CESAR. That is just over 10% of machines stolen were fitted with CESAR. That starkly shows how valuable a resource the system has become.

So the message seems to be get protected - the more difficult life is made for these thieves, the better the chance that machinery will stay where it should. And I guess that dealers can help by educating and encouraging staff and customers to take all precautions possible at all times.