Farmers lose ripe palay to thieves

VILLASIS, Philippines—If your palay is ripe for harvest, be watchful. Somebody else might harvest it when you are not looking.

This was what happened last month to Florentino Arnedoval, 68, said Chief Inspector Jesus Manalo Jr., police chief here.

The incident was repeated on a smaller scale in another farm here a week later, shocking police investigators and agricultural technicians. “This is the first time that an entire rice field was harvested without the owner knowing it,” Manalo said.

Police records showed that Arnedoval’s 1.2-hectare rice field, which is in the middle of vast rice fields spanning three villages of this town, was scheduled for harvest on April 9. But when Arnedoval went there, his palay had been harvested.

He lost his expected harvest of about 200 bags of palay.

“It may have been harvested at night or late afternoon, when farmers had gone home,” Manalo said.

He said that based on investigators’ initial finding, the palay was harvested using a “bukatot,” a machine that harvests, threshes and bags palay grains. Bukatot is an Ilocano word for greedy and the machine was named such because local farmers said this had deprived farm hands of their work.

Town agriculturist Cornelio Atchuela said a bukatot could finish the job on a 1-ha farm in a little more than two hours. With a cargo truck waiting, the harvested palay can be transported anywhere.

“This is shocking because this has never happened in the past,” Atchuela said.

Manalo said investigators were still trying to solve the puzzle. “We have already called all registered owners of harvesting machines in the town and questioned farmers of adjoining lots. But so far, we have no suspect,” Manalo said.

What baffled investigators was how the thieves knew that the palay was scheduled for harvest, and how they identified the farm’s location. “They must have a spotter—someone who knows the farm and its owner,” Manalo said.

Arnedoval’s farm is located in the triboundary of the villages of Barraca, San Nicolas and Bacag here. Vehicles can reach his farm through an irrigation dike from the national highway in San Nicolas and a narrower dirt road from another national road in Barraca.

Arnedoval lives in Barangay (village) Nancamaliran West in Urdaneta City, which is far from his farm.

In another incident a week later, agricultural technician Roberto Padilla woke up one morning and found the middle of his half-hectare farm already harvested.

He said the thieves might have taken only what they could carry. “You know, the buying price of palay is now about P23 a kilogram. So, if you have 10 kg, that’s P230,” Padilla said.

Manalo said he had advised farmers to be on the lookout and watch their farms.