Local farms banded together to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest
Manitoba farmers performing equipment checks are realizing thieves targeted their operations over the winter.
“We were getting ready for the season and noticed the copper wire had been cut and pulled off of an entire irrigation pivot,” Rachel Proden, who farms near Portage la Prairie, told the Winnipeg Free Press. “We found that out like one week before we were supposed to be seeding in that field, so it was kind of like a punch to the gut.”
The criminals also stole copper from a corn planter.
The joint damage will cost Proden and the operation about $70,000, she told The Graphic Leader.
Farmers in the area are now doing their part to help catch those responsible.
Six operations, including Verwey Farms where Proden farms, have banded together to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
“Hopefully we can bring awareness to these crimes and find the person/people responsible for this!” she said in a Facebook post about the cash reward.
The situation has also caught the attention of Manitoba MLAs.
Jeff Bereza, the PC MLA for Portage la Prairie, is calling on the Manitoba NDP to do more to protect Manitobans.
“That stolen copper can be turned into drug money,” he said in the provincial legislature. “Farmers shouldn’t have to police their own communities.”
Justice Minister Matt Wiebe didn’t address Bereza’s issue directly, instead pointing to ways Portage and the provincial government have worked together on other projects.
Canadian senators recently published a report about copper theft across Canada.
The report, released in April, highlights that the Canadian Telecommunications Association estimated a 200 per cent increase in copper thefts and related vandalism between 2022 and 2024.
The senators recommended stiffer penalties for criminals, and for provincial governments to regulate the sale of scrap metal.
A U.S. company created a system to protect farms from copper thefts.
In November 2025 Farms.com spoke with Nathan Rosenberg, the founder and CEO of Farmblox, about the COP-R-LOCK.
This system, which can be shipped to Canada, allows users or electricians to retrofit any electrical panel or conduit with a sacrificial wire in about 30 minutes.
If that wire gets cut, an alarm goes off and farmers can receive pinpoint notifications on their phones.