Large-scale agrochemical theft has plagued Lowveld farmers for at least 18 months.
Thieves appear to have shopping lists, targeting high-value items.
One farmer, known to Lowvelder but who cannot be named, was stripped of R1.5m’s worth of chemical supplies in a single hit.
Another farmer reportedly had just under R1m’s worth of Closer 240 SC, a systemic insecticide used in citrus and vegetable farming, stolen from his storeroom over a period of seven months from January to end July, 2023.
Lowveld Agrochem’s director, Freek Prinsloo, said the farmer had bought the product in advance to be used last August. However, when crop-spraying time arrived, the farmer discovered a storeroom full of empty boxes.
As it turned out, a farm worker had been taking home two 1L bottles per day in his backpack. Over the course of seven months, he had syphoned 210L of product. Carrying a hefty price tag of R4 500 per litre, the value of the stolen product added up to a whopping R945 000.
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Dirk Horn of Sommerreg Farm in Komatipoort has been hit three times in the last eight months. In the first incident, the thieves cut through a steel security gate to gain access to one of his storerooms.
The second time around, they bent open a steel door, and about two months ago, they punched a hole through a storeroom wall and crawled in on their stomachs.
Prinsloo believed a syndicate to be at work and said evidence suggested some storekeepers might be acting as informants.
He described an incident in which two 5L containers of Agrimec Gold – an insecticide used in tomato farming – was delivered to a farmer at 12:30 and had disappeared by 14:00.
Farmers may be covered by insurance, but according to Prinsloo, the insurance only paid out if there were signs of forced entry, thus leaving some farmers out of pocket.
A provincial police spokesperson, Captain Magonseni Nkosi, confirmed cases have been opened at various stations throughout the region and that they were working around the clock to put an end to this scourge.
However, speaking to various police sources, it appears law enforcement had limited insight into who the thieves were and where the stolen farming chemicals ended up.
That said, it appears a large portion of the loot ended up on vegetable farms in Mozambique. Prinsloo said he had received pictures from a client in Mozambique, a vegetable farmer, who was offered agricultural chemicals at half the normal price.
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Prinsloo explained chemicals had to be imported to Mozambique and due to the exchange rate, were on average 22% more expensive there than in South Africa. This created a lucrative market for stolen, repackaged and relabeled products to be sold there for under market value.
Further complicating things, Prinsloo said registering an agrochemical product in Mozambique did not make financial sense as it would cost the manufacturer US$4 500 per product.
On the domestic front, Prinsloo said the theft has gotten so bad that the resale of Dichlorovos (a widely used insecticide) to non-commercial farmers has been banned in South Africa.
Prinsloo said some greedy local fumigation contractors chasing the maximum output with the minimum input were found to use this chemical, cheep and capable of killing ‘anything’, in hospitals, posing a risk to patients.
According to the Washington State Department of Health, Dichlorovos worked by attacking an enzyme in the nervous system of humans and insects. Inhaling too much of its vapour could therefore cause headache, lack of appetite, nausea, vomiting, and difficulty breathing.
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