What Is the Best CCTV for Farmland and Agricultural Land?

Agricultural landowners, from farmers to stable owners, developers, and private homeowners, commonly report an increasingly diverse range of security issues.

The nature of remote land covering larger open spaces often means they become a target for organised and opportunist criminals, who look for machinery, vehicles, equipment, and materials often stored in these areas.

For example, in 2022, the National Farmers Union reported a spike of 8.7% in livestock theft, which cost the industry £2.7 million. Thefts of commercial GPS devices in farming vehicles doubled in 2023, and thefts of ATVs and quad bikes soared by 34%, costing the industry £3.4 million.

These statistics illustrate the scale of the problem and why farmers and agricultural landowners need robust, tamper-proof, and far reaching CCTV to offer 24/7 surveillance across their entire perimeter, deter trespassers, and stop thieves in their tracks.

In this article, we discuss the best CCTV security solutions for farm owners.

Key Summary Points:

• Farm owners often face diverse security challenges on agricultural land, from machinery and livestock theft to trespassing.
• The vast nature of farmland introduces challenges such as a lack of mains power, limited visibility across hectares of land and difficulty monitoring every area of land.
• Farm owners should consider integrating wireless CCTV systems,  Perimeter Intrusion Detection Systems (PIDs) and CCTV monitoring. These systems ensure 24/7 protection and immediate alerts to any suspicious activity, helping you prevent theft and trespassing effectively whilst providing 24/7 protection.

The Complications of Installing CCTV Security Around Farms and Open Land

Many of the issues faced by landowners and farmers are due to the size and layout of their properties. While one building, warehouse or storage barn might be easily protected with alarm systems, visible cameras and fencing, it is often unviable to consider large-scale security controls around the full boundary of the land.

The average farm in the UK is around 85 hectares, rising to 137 hectares in some regions such as the northeast. For context, that is between 850,000 and 1.37 million square metres of land.

One singular CCTV camera could not cover such a broad expanse, nor may it be feasible to erect anti-climb, vandal-proof fencing across every field, particularly when considering other factors such as public right of way over footpaths that traverse otherwise private land.

Fortunately, there are several solutions, incorporating next-gen security monitoring, automated alarm responses, in-person guarding, and around-the-clock tracking by our experienced response teams stationed at Clearway’s Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC).

CCTV Solutions for Farmland

1. Wireless CCTV for Agricultural Businesses

Most farmers and landowners do not have a mains power cable or source away from their primary buildings, adding to the difficulty of preventing intrusions or monitoring perimeters at the outer edges of their property.

Wireless CCTV works particularly well within agricultural settings since it can be installed at any point, whether a fence line, next to a grazing field, close to storage barns, or at places where there is the potential for a trespasser to gain entry through a woodland, public land or roadway that borders your farm.

We can recommend wireless CCTV cameras suited to outdoor usage, with robust weatherproofing and 24/7 coverage thanks to built-in night vision, continual recording, and automatic security alerts when movement or activity that is suspicious or outside of the norm is detected.

Cameras can be fitted with sirens to warn intruders they are being monitored and AI-enabled threat detection – this means the security system can differentiate between livestock and wildlife, intruders and natural environmental movements such as falling leaves or branches.

2. Tall CCTV Tower Surveillance for Large Areas

Mobile CCTV towers are a great way to cover any size of land, with tower-mounted cameras that can be seen over long distances – instantly improving your security protection and deterring intruders who will not want to be captured on high-definition video footage.

We often recommend rapid-deployment solar-powered wireless CCTV towers for farms and agricultural land that have been targeted by criminals. A tower can be positioned in any strategic place to oversee all boundaries or networked with other towers at every corner of your land.

Incorporating faultless night vision and low-light sensors, our CCTV towers can be programmed according to your requirements, transmitting alerts and alarms via 4G, without any need for cabling or networking.

3. Perimeter Intrusion Detection Systems for Landowners

Perimeter intrusion detection systems (PIDs) are state-of-the-art security devices that work independently to pick up the tiniest of movements and vibrations, whether an approaching vehicle, or an intruder climbing your fencing or attempting to access an outbuilding.

Find out what here: What does PIDS stand for? 

The inView Detect device can be deployed quickly and repositioned on demand, with far greater flexibility than a static intrusion detection system. Farmers and landowners can choose, for example, to station their PIDs next to buildings, entry points, access routes or areas of unsupervised open land, integrating their devices with other alarms and CCTV cameras.

As an advanced security solution, PIDs offer around-the-clock protection, with no cabling or wiring required, ensuring any attempted break-in is identified and responded to well before an intruder reaches their target.

What about monitoring a large farm or site?

So how can farm owners keep sites monitored? Many of the CCTV systems we’ve mentioned here rely on 4G communications, often a key requirement for agricultural landowners who do not have an on-demand Wi-Fi or internet signal across their property, and for whom laying cabling across every field or yard would be prohibitively costly.

The advantage of 4G isn’t just that alarms, CCTV cameras and intrusion detection systems can transmit an alert at any time, day or night, and to any remote device or our ARC response team. It also means that criminals cannot interfere with signalling or bypass or interrupt the alarm transmissions – meaning landowners will know right away if anything is untoward.

Remote surveillance allows rural property owners to monitor any area of their land, focusing on priority areas and positions where intrusions have occurred before or close to livestock, grains and equipment storage that intruders most often target.

24/7 Alarm Monitoring and Emergency Response Deployment

Clearway’s NSI Gold Cat II ARC is a purpose-built high-security facility staffed by skilled alarm responders who provide always-on coverage of all security devices, from perimeter intrusion detection systems to CCTV cameras, towers and alarm devices.

Adding constant monitoring reinforces the effectiveness of your physical security assets, ensuring that farm CCTV is supervised at all points, and any intrusions, suspicious activity or unusual movements are investigated, logged and communicated to all parties.

Depending on the nature of the alert, a responder might raise a siren or use audio commands to inform a trespasser they are being recorded. They can also contact on-site security personnel, local mobile security guards, site owners and the emergency services with zero delays and the assurance that the cause of the alarm has been verified as requiring an urgent response.

Our highly trained operators respond according to your protocols but offer the peace of mind that somebody is always watching, ruling out false alarms and ensuring a rapid response to any signs that your agricultural land is under threat.

If you’re looking to secure your agricultural land, get in touch with Clearway today on 0333 554 5289 or email enquiries@clearway.co.uk