Avo thieves raid Assagay farm
By purchasing the possibly stolen goods at robots, residents are unwittingly encouraging theft.
HUNDREDS of avocados are stolen from Janet Price’s farm in Assagay each day and she has called on the community to help curb crime by no longer purchasing the fruit at intersections across the Upper Highway area.
With 200 avocado trees of seven variations on their property, the farm is able to host year-round harvests and Price noted it was another one of the reasons they have been heavily targeted in recent weeks.
”It has now come to the point where people are coming onto my property every day and taking between 300 to 400 avocados a day. I don’t sell to retail stores. I create a WhatsApp group when they are ready and sell them there for about R6 each. I don’t sell them to make money, just to cover the running costs of the farm. With these thefts, it is making it so difficult and dangerous,” she said.
According to Price, the stolen avocadoes are separated, bagged and sold at traffic lights in Hillcrest, Shongweni and Kloof and has urged the community to stop purchasing them as they may be stolen property.
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”It’s a big thing. In just two days my trees were almost completely cleared out. The attitude of the people that trespass on my property is that if they pick the avocadoes, it belongs to them,” said Price.
“I have spent years literally running and chasing people down the streets to try and stop the theft,” said Price.
“I simply cannot pick them fast enough to sell them to continue the upkeep of the farm. I cannot keep up.”
The Assagay farmer said she realised many people who came onto her property were hungry and she would offer them a bag of fresh avocadoes, but said that sadly it was never enough.
Some people would come back and remove numerous bags of them from her fenced off farm.
”They are now using my farm as a business and now that the avocadoes are growing again, they are on my property during the day and at night. It is so scary to know there are strangers walking around my property,” she said.
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