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218 Bags of Stolen Potatoes and the Slow Death of the Honesty Box

A Lincolnshire farmer just wanted people to pay £2 a bag and trust each other. Then 218 bags disappeared.

The Complaints Department

The Complaints Department

— 1 min read
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A freshly dug pile of potatoes on grass
Photo: blumenbiene (CC BY 2.0)

John Hardy, 71, runs an honesty-box potato stand on his farm near Boston, Lincolnshire — £2 a bag, cash in the box, no one watching. It's the same system farm stands have used for generations.

Over time, 218 bags of potatoes were taken from the stand with no payment ever left behind. Hardy told reporters the theft left him feeling "sick."

He's not alone. Farmers across Maine report the same pattern at their own honor-system stands: money taken from the box, produce taken without payment, some farmers giving up on the honor system entirely. One Maine farmer summarized the math bluntly: "Ninety-nine percent of your customers are honest, and one person is breaking into the money box every day."

Most of these stands survive anyway. The people who keep restocking them, by and large, are betting that the 99% is worth it.

Filed from public reporting:

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