Farmer's cheeky message to potato thief

A farmer posted a cheeky message to a thief who stole around 10 kilogrammes of potatoes from his field.

Mr Tom Hammond spotted the theft near a footpath that cuts across one of the fields owned by John Hammond & Co, in Rolleston.

He wrote a message on a plastic bottle which read: “Dear thief, these crops are sprayed weekly with chemicals that could make you impotent. Enjoy.”

While at pains to point out that chemicals used by the farm would not, in fact, cause problems in the bedroom for anybody who ate the root vegetable, a fed-up Mr Hammond said he had been prompted to write the message to try to dissuade others from potato-pinching.

“This was not the first time we’ve had a theft and it won’t be the last,” said Mr Hammond, a partner in the business.

“I wrote a witty comment try to deter people from doing it again.

“In the past we’ve grown potatoes near the road or by footpaths and thefts were not uncommon.

“The potatoes are sprayed every week to stop blight – but the chemicals we use are safe and certainly won’t cause impotence.”

Around 220 acres of the firm’s farmland is used to grow potatoes. It also grows wheat and oilseed rape.