Someone Is Stealing Avocados

Avocado thieves in Southern California - from the NY Times (registration required): bq. VALLEY CENTER, Calif. � The thieves come in the dead of night, after it rains and the hillsides are empty, or during a full moon. They disappear into jungly thickets on steep, remote hillsides, stepping carefully through the groves to avoid crunching leaves before doing their dirty work. They operate stealthily, without clippers, amassing warty, thick-skinned booty by the hundreds. bq. Allen Luce, a retired beekeeper, suspected the worst recently when he spied an unfamiliar red pickup truck parked beside the lush canopies of his neighbors' thousand-acre avocado grove. "At a dollar or more a pound, it adds up pretty fast," he said, speaking of the Hope diamond of these parts: the avocado. bq. They call it green gold. bq. "When the Super Bowl comes, there is going to be thievery," Mr. Luce said. "People want guacamole." And more: bq. California is no stranger to agricultural theft. In an eight-county area of the Central Valley last year, for instance, an estimated $8.4 million worth of pesticides, sprinkler equipment, diesel fuel, tractors and other farm property was reported stolen, including $100,000 worth of gnarled walnut burls, prized for furniture, which had been yanked out of the ground with chains and pickup trucks. bq. But nowhere is agricultural theft taken more seriously than in San Diego and Ventura Counties, which together grow 68 percent of the nation's avocados and where at this time of year the grove roads are literally paved with guacamole from vehicles squashing fallen fruit. And more: bq. "It's a tough type of investigation," said Clyde Kodadek, a lieutenant in the Fallbrook substation, one of several county sheriffs' stations where "guac cops" track avocado thieves, a mission that includes periodic undercover investigations with code names like Operation Green Gold. bq. "It's like identity theft," Lieutenant Kodadek said. "The problem is, when God made avocados, he didn't put serial numbers on them." And more: bq. Fed up with thievery, some growers, like Richard Price, a retired firefighter, are taking an aggressive stance. Most nights between the waxing and waning moon, Mr. Price stakes out his 6 acres of avocados and 14 acres of cut flowers with night-vision goggles, accompanied by Mugsy, his 130-pound Rottweiler. After thieves stole flowers from him recently, Mr. Price, who could become the Charles Bronson of guacamole, planted his hillsides with long-thorned finger cactus � "enough to completely engulf the valley," he said. bq. Other nights, he keeps a decoy camper parked with the lights on near the entrance to the grove, where some $30,000 to 40,000 worth of avocados await harvesting. His baby cactuses glint menacingly in the moonlight. bq. "You nurture something, water it, deal with all its problems, and right when it's perfect and ready for picking, someone in a truck with no overhead comes along and takes it," Mr. Price said. "I'm going to make life real difficult for them. I just really resent being stolen from."