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In the July 2026 edition of Professional Security Magazine, we mention Frank Cannon – a Chartered Security Professional (CSyP), once an interim Security Institute chief, a former Hinkley Point C security man, now a consultant at Optimal Risk Group and …. bringing his trademark enthusiasm to podcasting and crime prevention for farmers. The latest episode is with the Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley, and the Tories’ Shadow Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Robbie Moore. Frank writes:
If there is one line from Robbie Mooreโs appearance on Close the Farm Gate podcast that farmers should carry with them, it is that one. The Shadow Farming Minister understands rural Britain from the inside. He grew up in a farming family, worked as a farm business consultant before politics, and spent four years on the EFRA Select Committee in the last Parliament. He sits on the Home Affairs Select Committee โ a position, he points out, that lets him hold the Home Secretary directly to account on rural crime. Across a wide-ranging conversation, Moore set out both the scale of the problem and, more importantly, the practical steps farmers can take to push back.
Moore was candid that rural crime cannot be understood in isolation from the wider financial squeeze on farming. He listed the pressures one after another: de-linked payments falling away sharply, the sustainable farming incentive chopped and changed, fertiliser prices climbing, red diesel costs rising significantly this year, and the anxiety stirred up by changes to inheritance tax โ the so-called family farm tax. Taken together, he said, conditions have rarely been so difficult.
It is against this backdrop that theft does its real damage. A stolen quad bike or red diesel drained from a tank is never just the value of the item lost. Each incident, Moore explained, strikes at cash flow, drives up insurance costs, consumes time that hard-pressed businesses do not have, and ratchets up anxiety levels. For farms on the urban fringe โ which he identified as the most heavily targeted โ the exposure is greater and the police response harder to coordinate. The cruel logic is that crime lands heaviest precisely where margins are already thinnest.
Policing Reformย
A significant portion of the conversation turned to the future shape of policing. With the Government signalling a review of Englandโs 43 forces and the prospect of amalgamation into larger regional units, Moore was careful but clear about his concerns. The exact model remains unknown, and he is waiting, like everyone else, for detail from the Home Secretary. But the direction of travel worries him.
His central fear is straightforward. When a police force grows larger and is dominated by a major urban centre, the rural areas within it risk being overlooked โ receiving less focus, or none at all, in the forceโs crime strategy. Todayโs patchwork of 43 forces at least includes some that are strongly rural in outlook. Lose that, and rural priorities could be swallowed by urban ones. Mooreโs message was not outright opposition but a demand for rigorous scrutiny: any reform must be tested against the question of whether it leaves rural communities better or worse protected.
The Serious Crime Inquiryย ย
As a member of the cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee of MPs, Moore confirmed the committee has a live inquiry into serious and organised crime, with a detailed report due in the autumn. Crucially, that inquiry includes a focus on the impact on the rural economy. He stressed that organised crime reaches deep into rural businesses, and that tackling it cannot sit with the Home Office alone.
Because rural crime falls across the boundaries of police forces, local authorities, and other bodies with statutory powers, Moore argued for a genuinely cross-government approach. He singled out HM Revenue and Customs โ sitting under the Treasury โ as one example of an organisation with real influence where crime affects business, alongside local authorities. He also noted that high-value farm equipment, once stolen, is often simply unfeasible to replace, with knock-on consequences for insurance costs across the sector.
The Data Gapย
Frank pressed Moore on the reliability of widely quoted crime figures, noting that insurer claims data reflects only what has been paid out, with significant exclusions. Moore agreed wholeheartedly. Such figures, he said, must be taken with a pinch of salt โ not because the problem is smaller than reported, but because it is almost certainly larger. A great many incidents are never reported at all, often, he suspects, out of frustration at a perceived lack of action.
He then drew attention to a structural flaw that academics in the field have long lamented: inconsistency in how the 43 forces classify and record crime. When that uneven data is fed up to the Home Office for MPs and stakeholders to scrutinise, it becomes very difficult to get a true feel for the financial severity of rural crime. His proposed remedy is continuity โ a more unified approach to collecting and using data, so that resource and funding can be allocated where they are most needed. The practical takeaway for farmers is direct: report every incident, because without that data, the case for investment in rural policing cannot be made.
โIf itโs not reported, itโs really difficult to be able to argue that case.โ ย โ Robbie Moore MP
Learningย
Education is a personal passion of Mooreโs, and he was thoughtful about how best to reach farmers. There is always more that can be done, he conceded โ but the obstacle is rarely willingness. Farmers are busy people, focused on producing good food, caring for livestock and crops, and running their businesses day to day. Many work in deeply isolated environments, sometimes alone, without easy means to connect digitally.
The lesson he drew is that the burden should not fall on the farmer to find the time. Instead, policymakers, stakeholders, and organisations need to take learning out to where farmers already are โ the livestock market, the farm itself โ rather than simply sending a web link to be squeezed into an impossible schedule. Frank echoed the point from his own experience: some of the best conversations happen in the background of a livestock market, over a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. Make learning accessible and relevant, and farmers will engage.
The Veteran Communityย
Moore was especially enthusiastic about the contribution veterans can make. Their wealth of knowledge and skills, he said, is sometimes badly underused, and providing the opportunity to reapply it is vital. He praised individuals who have gone above and beyond to redirect a lifelong skill set into helping others, including across the farming community.
Former police officers, too, hold knowledge that can directly help farmers protect themselves and mitigate risk. The question Moore posed was how to empower these individuals to transition and put their experience to work for rural communities. It is a vision of national resilience built not only from Westminster but from the people โ veterans, security professionals, retired officers โ who already live among and understand rural Britain.
Your moveย
Asked what he most wanted farmers to take away, Moore returned to where he began. You are not alone. A great many people feel they are the only ones being targeted, and they are not. His closing advice was practical and threefold: do as much outreach as possible with the organisations trying to help; put good mitigation measures in place; and report every crime, even when frustration tempts you not to โ because reported incidents drive the data that unlocks resource and funding. National change, he accepted, rests on the shoulders of policymakers and Parliament. But it is built, farm by farm, on the choices farmers make.
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