I noticed John Deere is running $$$ through Loop Capital. As someone who relies on them for equipment needs, I have not enjoyed dealing with them for the past few years. This perhaps explains some things. Also, the push for center pivot irrigation tapping into and seriously reducing the aquifers is not cool. And the new chemicals Engenia/ExtendiMax, which are dicamba formulations that are not well contained in/on the fields, with 2-4D variations upcoming. I don't really think many of the other farmers around here realize it, but the direction things are going is kind of suspect, and definitely not good for anybody. But I dare not say it other than anonymously. Things get ugly if you question the "wonderful" new chemicals that we all "need"–it's like they've been brainwashed. Or lied to and they don't know but to believe whatever the reps tell them. I actually wonder if the chem. companies have paid some of the angrier farmer voices to try to quell any questioning. Whatever it is, it's working. Husband anon just asked one question about one of the new chemicals at one meeting and it turned ugly instantly. We are aware that a farmer in Arkansas got shot over it last year. No more questions! Very effective!!
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Farmer vs. farmer
The fight over the herbicide dicamba has cost one man his life and turned neighbor against neighbor in East Arkansas.
At the peak of summer in the little town of Monette in Craighead County, the soybeans and cotton in surrounding fields a jealous green, the pear tree that stands 20 feet from the grave of Mike Wallace looks like it has been blowtorched, every leaf blighted, curled and black at the edges. It's the ugly residue of drifting dicamba, the herbicide for which Wallace literally gave his life.
According to investigators, on Oct. 27, 2016, Wallace, who farmed 5,000 acres of corn, soybeans and cotton near the Arkansas/Missouri border, arranged by phone to meet a farmhand named Allan Curtis Jones, 26, of Arbyrd, Mo., on West County Road 38 north of the Mississippi County town of Leachville to discuss Wallace's suspicions that the farm where Jones worked was the source of drifting dicamba that had damaged some of Wallace's crops. Wallace, who had been vocal in his opposition to the herbicide, had been quoted in an August 2016 story in The Wall Street Journal, telling the newspaper that at least 40 percent of his soybean crop had been damaged by drifting dicamba since June. He'd filed complaints twice with the Arkansas State Plant Board, the state agency that oversees claims of crop damage, about damage from drifting dicamba and had encouraged other farmers to report their damage as well.
When Wallace and Jones met outside of Leachville, Jones brought along his cousin and a gun. According to statements issued by Mississippi County Sheriff Dale Cook at the time of the shooting, Jones told investigators that an argument had ensued. In the midst of it, Wallace, who was not carrying a weapon, grabbed Jones by the arm. At that point, investigators say, Jones pulled away, pulled his pistol, and fired into Wallace's body until the magazine was empty. Wallace, a father of two who'd farmed in Mississippi County since he was a boy, was hit at least four times, and died in the dust on the south shoulder of the county road, with Jones' cousin using his shirt in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.
https://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/farmer-vs-farmer/Content?oid=8526754