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Introduction
Are you looking for ways to curb theft on your farm?
facing difficulties on your farm with your workers and how they steal from you? Do you want to curb theft on the farm but don’t know how? Well, read on and get it right.
One of the major reasons why most businesses fail is the workers and sometimes owners of farms don’t know and those that know don’t believe it.
Most farm owners trust their staff so well that if a consultant tells them something is wrong, they’ll wave it off until they reck them. I do tell them, YOUR WORKERS ARE THIEVES and they’re killing your business. Unfortunately, I’m not apologetic about it.
This is for those who are not always available or do not reside in the country where their farm is located. Some things need to be taken care of especially if you don’t want to run out of business.
Farms And It’s Workers
Whether you own a pig farm, poultry farm, or a fish farm, except it is a backyard farm, you need workers to help you out in the running of the day-to-day activities of the business.
In reality, you can’t do it alone. But you wonder, how do I get the workers for my farm? Well, there are different ways to recruit people to work for you, I have an article on it already, you can go ahead and read it HERE.
Hiring staff for your business is important and should be based on trust but beyond that, there are measures you need to put in place for you to be able to safeguard your investment at least.
I need you to know something, no matter how hard you try, workers will always steal but you want to reduce it to the barest minimum so that it doesn’t affect you so much.
A couple of weeks ago, there was a video that circulated on Social Media where a farm worker was caught stealing. When asked, he said he had been doing it for long before he was eventually caught.
Imagine how many fish he has stolen before he was caught and he will be complaining about the farm not doing well. The mindset of most workers is to steal from you cos they’ll say you have the money already and you’re one way or the other ripping them off with whatever amount you are paying them.
Common Farm Thefts
There are different ways workers can steal from you depending on your line of agribusiness.
Workers can steal eggs or steal birds if you’re into poultry farming. They can also steal fish, money, or feed if you’re into fish farming.
The ways they steal are numerous and you have to be extra careful how you manage them before they run you dry.
I know you’ll be shouting in your head, they can’t steal from me, I know what to do, and even if they want to steal, what can they steal? I’ll give you just 3 ways and instances workers can steal from you without you knowing.
i. Produce
A worker can first steal from you through your produce (grains, birds, fish, eggs, and so on). The final produce of a farm entices them so much and they help you calculate how much you’ll be making when you sell them.
There are ways you can manage this type of theft but you can’t rule this out.
ii. Money
Another way workers can steal from you is through cash.
If your workers handle cash most of the time without a second check from you or someone you trust, they can easily steal your money.
You might be wondering how they’ll steal your cash without you noticing. These workers are smart when they deal with money, they won’t take a large sum that you will notice easily, they’ll take a little chunk
Running a business that deals with cash every day will probably ruin your investment if you’re not careful.
Workers are not nice no matter how well you treat them. They want everything to themselves.
People just want to take advantage of you. If you let them handle cash, they’ll deal with you in real-time.
Ways To Curb Theft
- Have A Security Camera
One way to reduce theft on your farm is to install security cameras in key point areas of the farm.
Although doing this does not eradicate stealing it will reduce it because it will make them conscious that someone is watching them closely.
On our farm recently, one of the workers stoles 5 eggs and said “I don’t have any money on me and anything to eat for Iftar the next morning, so I decided to take 5 pieces of the egg so I can cook the next day”
It was so heartbreaking because we tried to treat everyone fairly, pay well, and gift the workers handsomely yet this happened. We captured this on our CCTV, we saw where he dropped the eggs and left so he could come for it at the end of the day.
He was shocked when we confronted him about it and apologized, the memories cannot leave his mind. If we didn’t have a security camera, we might not know up to date. It will gradually graduate to stealing one crate per day.
If you’re finding it difficult to decide on which security camera for your farm, you can read this article on the best farm security camera here.
2. Have An External Auditor
Another way to curb theft on your farm is to employ the services of an external auditor.
An external auditor is someone with expertise in agriculture who will come to the farm at intervals unannounced to check the farm’s activities to see if everything goes according to plan.
He/she will check the books and records to see that death, laying, sales, etc are being recorded without any omission.
The person will put everything in check and caution your staff which they’ll not like at all.
3. Have a Record Book
To support the second point, knowing that you need a RECORD BOOK on your farm is important. Except you’re into some shady business that helped you start the poultry or fish business, that’s when you’ll not bother to keep track of how money is being spent on the farm.
You need to be worried about what is happening and so that’s why you need to have a record book.
I already wrote a complete article on the importance of record keeping so I won’t bore you with all of it in this piece. You can check the article in this post HERE.
Conclusion
You might not curb theft 100% but it will reduce what your staff are doing to you a lot.
Following the steps above will guide you through knowing what you’re doing whether or not it’s on track. Your produce will be complete and your money will not go missing.
To recap, here are the ways you can curb theft on the farm:
- Have a security camera
- Have an external auditor
- Have a record book
When it comes to theft and stealing, you have to put everything in place to reduce it to the bearest minimum to see that things work very well for you and don’t lose your investments in the long run.
This is me telling you to get your files and works together, implore the service of a professional to audit your farm to see loopholes in the books and among your staff.
