Agricultural contractors and farmers are not only battling the British weather this summer but also the plant thieves.

In the last two weeks alone the small Yorkshire town of Selby has seen nine 9 tractors stolen with only one of them being recovered.

The recovered item was a 2009 John Deere machine worth £60k which had fortunately been fitted with a Satrak Plant tracking system.

As soon as the contractor realised his machine had been stolen he simply called the Satrak unit for its location and then immobilised it remotely. The contractor then went to the tractors location and drove it back to the job.

"The speed with which we were able to find the tractor meant that we didn’t lose a days work, not to mention the potential £60k loss."

With equipment theft from farms becoming an ever increasing problem the need for security seems to be greater than ever.

A Satrak spokesman said "We have been protecting machines in the construction industry for 5 years and now those thieves seem to have started to target agriculture. We are now seeing a flood of enquiries from this market sector."