N.S. Federation of Agriculture starts information campaign about trespassing on farmland

The Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture is rolling out a new campaign to inform the public about the damage and dangers of trespassing on agricultural land, while also making sure farmers are aware of their own rights as property owners.

Every year, farmers suffer losses and damages to ATVs, snowmobiles and pedestrians crossing farm properties, containing crops, irrigation equipment or livestock.

“What we’re hearing from our membership is that there are ongoing challenges with trespassing and related crop damage and bio-security challenges and those sorts of things around farm properties, federation president Allan Melvin says.

Separate information sheets and graphics have been designed for both farmers and the public.

“A random person off the street  could pick it up and say ‘OK, here’s a bit of information about what I have to think about I’m thinking about crossing farm property, and the other one is more farmer-focused about some of the high-level legalities of how things go if you have an incident you need to deal with.” Melvin said. “There are some challenges in understanding what their rights are in those situations and how to deal with them appropriately.”

He said the problem is constant, and may actually be getting worse.

“There seems to be more pressure on access to lands for recreational purposes, and inherently with that ATVs and things like that are going to want to try to pass over ground to get from point A to point B.”

He said there can also be issues with hunting and fishing with people using grounds that are not appropriate to be fished on or crossed over.

“We see it on the livestock side, too, with avian influenza and  those sorts of threats, there are even more risk around passing in or around barns.”

He said while issues are noticed often in the winter when snowmobiles are out, the issues is year-round.

“There are crops under the snow — winter wheat is a big one — and if it’s a light covering of snow and ATVs or snowmobiles cross over them thinking its uncultivated ground, it can do a lot of damage very quickly.

But during the summer, there are still issues with farmland being crossed and damaged.

“ATVs will cross and irrigations pipes that are laid down and they’ll cross over and damage those,” he said.

The pressure in irrigation pipes is significant, he said, and if they are breached by someone driving over them they can cause an injury.

“Just because a piece of land isn’t posted with signage doesn’t mean its open and available, you still need to ask permission and know where and how to cross if you do get that permission,” Melvin said. “There may areas that are out of bounds because of bio-safety, food safety and those kinds of considerations.”

There is also the matter of any number of products being applied to crops or the land that someone crossing may not know about.

He said there probably isn’t a year that goes by that he doesn’t have an interaction with someone who is stealing crops.

“They have no awareness whether that has had a crop protectant applied to it in recent days or weeks. We have very specific harvest intervals and re-entry intervals that the general public has no idea about, so just going in and picking an apple or head of lettuce means you’re putting yourself at risk. It could be a safety issues.”

He said the information will be made available through its Meet the Farmer program in social media, and can also be shared by farmers on their own platforms to heighten awareness around trespass rules and people not abiding by those.