Police are welcoming back their star rural ‘a-tractor' for this week's National Fieldays event, with the police-branded tractor returning after a nationwide tour of other pastures.

Inspector Paul Carpenter says the idea behind the concept came from conversations at last year's National Fieldays at Mystery Creek.

The police's rural ‘a-tractor' will feature at Fieldays. Photo: Supplied.

'Police always have a presence at the June event as we seek to promote crime prevention initiatives with the rural community,” says Paul.

'Here in the Waikato we've had a number of innovations over the years, from the country's first coloured, marked patrol car to mounted patrols and last year's quadbike crash scene.”

After that initial discussion last year, Paul approached representatives of the CB Norwood Distributors about the feasibility of combining a display to help promote engagement with the rural sector.

He says they really got behind the idea, loaning police the New Holland tractor, and transporting it around various farming events across the North and South Island.

The tractor is kitted out with police decals, lights and even a siren. It has been a big hit with young and old, generating plenty of questions and photo opportunities.

'It's all about promoting discussions regarding things like rural road deaths, drug activity on farms, personal safety, stock thefts and illegal hunting,” explains Paul.

'It also highlights existing partnerships such as the one we have with Crimestoppers and Federated Farmers with the ‘Shut the Gate' campaign.

'Rural areas present unique challenges for police, such as longer travelling distances, lack of cell phone and radio networks and smaller numbers of staff required to do more in depth engagement with smaller communities.

'Add to that the fact that tactics that may work in large urban centres may not work that well in a rural setting.

'But the key thing is, police need to know about incidents and rural residents need to feel comfortable reporting issues to us. We need to move away from the mind set of ‘oh the police are too busy, I won't trouble them'.”

Paul says the partners in this initiative hoped the tractor would attract widespread discussion and help police help the rural community shut the gate on rural crime.