Keep your farm safe and secure

Moveable assets are easily removed, and often a loss occurs, only to be discovered long after the fact. Sheep, quad bikes and fuel are popular elements to steal, to name but a few. Security and asset protection engineers are evolving solutions based on more DIY methods compared to the old traditional alarm monitoring services.

There are good reasons for this – mainly due to the location and distances of farms from reaction services. As such, time is of the essence to deter and stop a theft action.

These days, there are products available which are purposefully designed according to farm-specific requirements, which include:

• Self-installation and maintenance

• Effective and mobile reporting

• Portable, so they can be used on different sections of the farm as required

• Low false alarm rate

• Ease of use, simplicity, and unmatched reliability

• Low cost

So, what is available on the market to meet the above requirements, and how does it provide a solution? Looking at a typical farm yard, farm and residence, the following areas are key to finding the best solution:

Evaluate the risk: High-value items and stock that is at risk of being pilfered. Some examples are quad bikes, fuel, vehicle batteries, and sheep near roads.

Mitigate the risk: Try to prevent the theft action from actually taking place – proactivity, rather than relying on just reactive alarms that require action after the event.

Select available technologies and management methods to achieve the above: A matrix of the risks and solutions will assist the farmer in making the selection for specific problems.

It’s important to be able to detect when an intruder is approaching the vehicle, so suitable technology would be wireless outdoor non-alignment beams.

This solution is portable, long-range, wireless and offers mobile reporting.

In terms of homestead security, you need to be able to detect when an intruder or unwelcome animal is near the farm or livestock. For this, a possible solution could be wireless outdoor and indoor non-alignment beams, and access control/locks. To further protect livestock in particular, monitored electric fences are also a good option, and serve to protect the farm boundary in general.

The result of all of this would be to detect and deter, therefore there would be no theft.

What these examples demonstrate, is that the ability to successfully DETECT any would-be problem before it occurs, rapidly REACT to the detection and STOP the action is vital.

Detection methods have their problems, which are mainly false alarms and reaction times.

The technology suggested in this solution and by the matrix featured online are all tried and tested, and proved to be low false alarm rate products.

The DIY installation and reaction methods make the overall system manageable, cost effective and effective.