STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Next, let's investigate some crime in agriculture. Farmers are benefitting from a run-up in commodity prices. The price of corn, for example, has doubled in the last year. Soybeans dropped more than 50 percent. And wheat is trading it three times what it was a couple of years ago. But this boom has brought problems. In western Kansas, police are investigating almost a dozen incidents where thieves using tractor trailers stole wheat from grain elevators.
NPR's Jason Beaubien reports from Kansas City.
JASON BEAUBIEN: The thieves had at least four grain elevators near the western Kansas down Syracuse and made off with more than $50,000 worth of raw wheat.
Terry Bertholf with the Kansas Farmers Service Association, which ensures several of the elevators, says wheat elevators, particularly at this time of the year, are often unmanned. Bertholf says the thieves knew how to operate the augers to offload the grain. They then drove the wheat to other grain elevators in the area and resold it.
Mr. TERRY BERTHOLF (Lawyer): We don't even know for sure that $50,000 is all that was taken. We may never know.
BEAUBIEN: Bertholf says large-scale wheat thefts, like the ones being investigated now, are unheard of in western Kansas. In the past, he says, there were occasionally problems with someone stealing a few bushels. But it never involved semis. Now, with tractor trailer loads of wheat fetching as much as $5,000 a piece, this crime is far more lucrative.
Just last year, wheat was selling at $3 a bushel. But now, this year, it's worth almost $10 a bushel and it's much harder to come by.
Mr. BERTHOLF: Most of the grain has been milled into bread, which is why the - one of the reasons why the price is so high. Plus, less - wheat is being produced because acres are being diverted to corn and for ethanol and livestock.
BEAUBIEN: When prices for any commodity rise rapidly, whether it's wheat or scrap metal, security measures often lag behind. Danielle Rau with the California Farm Bureau says the same thing happened in her state when almond prices hit a record high.
Ms. DANIELLE RAU (Director of Rural Crime Prevention, California Farm Bureau Federation): Last year, we had a huge problem when the price of almonds was as high as it was, thieves coming in and stealing entire tractor trailer loads of almond totaling $250,000 a piece. And these guys were stealing them right out of the yard.
BEAUBIEN: Investigators discovered that the thieves were trucking the nuts to Canada and selling them there. The police still haven't made any arrests in the wheat thefts, and are urging grain elevator operators to step up security measures at the hundreds of silos that dot this part of the Great Plains.
Jason Beaubien, NPR News.