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On Tuesday morning, the Healthy Harvest Community Farm operations manager, Jorge Acosta, came into work and found only tractor tracks where an antique 1949 tractor is usually parked.
"It upset me quite a bit just because we give away food for people all the time," Acosta said. "This morning, even I dropped off 40 pounds [of produce] at Lehigh Community Services and for somebody to take something from here, it really doesn’t make sense to me."
Acosta said the farm’s mission is to teach people about growing and consuming healthy food and donates hundreds of pounds of produce to local community services year-round.
The tractor is essential in making almost two acres of Healthy Harvest's land farmable, Acosta said.
"Without that tractor, tilling even a section of these fields can take up to a day," Acosta said. "And that would really just set our efforts back quite a bit."
Acosta said the the tractor was on loan to the farm and they've been using it at least four times a year, for the last four years.
Healthy Harvest board member, Ed Moore, said the board agreed to offer an “amnesty period” of about a week to enourage the return of the tractor before filing a police report.
“It was my hopes that somebody just took it for a joy ride and was going to bring it back," Moore said. "I tend to believe in the good of people.”
The Healthy Harvest farm is offering one year’s worth of free produce to any person with information leading to the tractor’s return and asked for people to submit tips to their Facebook group page.
Andrea Perdomo, WGCU News, Lehigh Acres.
Copyright 2018 WGCU
