The Outback Farm, a joint program of the Associated Students and Fairhaven College, attracts all types of students, staff, community members and, apparently, thieves. On Sunday, July 9, a shed in the community garden of Western’s Outback Farm was broken into and around eight tools were stolen. “We’ve never had a break-in of this size. This the first time we’ve ever had to deal with something like this,” AS Outback Coordinator Madeleine Price said. “Frankly, it just feels like people are not respecting what we’re doing. We’re students but also, this is our profession.” Immediately after discovering the break-in, The Outback opened a case with University Police in hopes of recovering their stolen equipment. The stolen property included garden pruners, tools for digging out weeds, a power drill, a weed whacker, a circular saw and a scythe, with the overall estimated value being in the hundreds, Price said. The Outback immediately began to feel the impact of this loss. “We’re going to have to do some pretty major replenishing of our tool stock, which is going to be pretty expensive to do,” Price said.
“We’ve never had a break-in of this size. This the first time we’ve ever had to deal with something like this. Frankly, it just feels like people are not respecting what we’re doing. We’re students but also, this is our profession.”
Madeleine Price, AS Outback Coordinator
Western’s five-acre farm and wetland restoration site offers students an opportunity to learn about and implement sustainable land use practices through their Outdoor Experiential Learning Program. It started as a way to educate the community about conservation, restoration and farming, AS Environmental & Sustainability Programs Director Katie Winkelman said. Now, Winkelman says that The Outback will have to deal with being under-equipped for dealing with weeds and thistles, a type of invasive noxious weed, in the forthcoming season. “Basically we don’t have tools during our busiest season of the year,” Winkelman said. “July, August, September and October are when we harvest the most and that's also when thistles are beginning to flower the most.” Over the years, The Outback has become increasingly familiar with vandalism and theft. Former Outback coordinator Kamea Black said she had to deal with numerous incidents of vandalism and theft during her time at Western. “Things just disappear a lot,” Black said. “We’d have our batteries, measuring tapes, broadfork go missing. Those are really important to how we work out there.” Although these types of incidents have happened in the past, Black said the worst up until now had been the destruction of, and theft from, a Common Threads Farm Camp storage container. “We’re kind of led to believe that it wasn't somebody who had access to the keys or knew a lot about the toolbox because a lot of the drawers were pried open, so they probably were searching for something specific,” Winkelman said. While the lock on the community garden shed was replaced on Monday, July 17, The Outback hopes to increase their security even more in order to avoid these types of incidents. But this feat may be easier said than done, as the farm has no source of electricity to power a potential security or lighting system.
