SAN DIEGO BEEFS UP EFFORT TO CURB AVOCADO THIEVERY.

Byline: Associated Press 

Avocado theft is growing into a big business in San Diego County because of decreasing production and rising prices.

Growers say thefts of up to 5,500 pounds at a time are occurring more regularly in northern San Diego County with its 23,000 acres of avocado groves.

"If even 1 percent of that walks away, that's a million-dollar illegal industry," said Carlos Vasquez, who oversees San Diego's field operations for Calavo Growers of California, which produces about one-third of the 300 million pounds grown statewide.

Although growers agree that thefts are on the rise, actual numbers of stolen fruit are hard to pinpoint, Vasquez said.

"It's difficult to estimate the loss, because so much (theft) goes unnoticed or unreported," he said.

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department and the San Diego County Farm Bureau plan to combat the problem using the sheriff's dirt-bike teams to ride through the orchards looking for poachers, said Lt. Dave Herbert.

Plans for stepped-up aerial patrols by the sheriff's helicopter unit are also in the works, he said.

Big-business thieves drop picking crews in the groves during the day. Pickers harvest and bag the fruit and pile it next to a fence. At night, the poachers haul it away in trucks.