BUSINESS

Stealing the Farm: China Continues Raid of US Agriculture by Theft and Agroterror

Wed, 06 May 2026 17:56:23 GMT

China is stealing the farm. Real-time. Live action. Happening now.

The most devastating raid of agricultural technology in U.S. history has been underway for at least 25 years and continues at a blistering pace.

Case after case, year after year, brazen Chinese Communist Party (CCP) espionage continues. Yet, every federal prosecution highlights an undeniable truth—each bust is a pebble in a landslide of successful heists. Two new cases per day and 2,000 pending investigations, according to the FBI, many of those ag-related, all while CCP officials brazenly proclaim a theft policy of “picking flowers in foreign lands to make honey in China.”

Whether pinching product from research labs, digging rows in the heartland, masquerading as USDA-approved envoys, hiding seeds in carry-on luggage, mailing crop pathogens in panties, plane-hopping with trade secrets, or a litany of other heists, there’s always something new for the CCP to steal.

The ransacking of U.S. agriculture is on. Arguably, bigger and bolder than ever.

Adios From Wuhan
From 2014-2016, Jiunn-Ren Chen, a Chinese national, split time between Ankeny, Iowa, and St. Louis, Missouri, working under the Monsanto umbrella at The Climate Corporation (TCC). Good job and good life for a family man with a wife and daughter. More like good cover.

In late 2015, Chen contacted Sinochem China National Seed Corporation and requested employment. Sinochem, steered by the CCP, reciprocated. In May 2016, Chen flew to Beijing, met with Sinochem reps, and caught a flight back to the U.S. On June 1, he resigned from Monsanto/TCC, but kept hush-hush on the new job with Sinochem, insisting he was moving to China to be closer to extended family.

“If a gang of thieves tells you they are going to steal your farm, you should believe them,” says Col. John Mills.

(Photo public domain)

Later in the same day, June 1, Chen logged into TCC’s Google Drive account and downloaded six files. The following day, he downloaded two additional files. Further, between June 4-10, he downloaded 55 more files.

According to subsequent FBI testimony: The files downloaded by Chen after his resignation contained trade secrets and confidential proprietary information … Further analysis revealed that Chen had used his TCC email address to transmit confidential trade secrets and proprietary information to other email accounts on at least five occasions between approximately August 19, 2014 and February 14, 2015.

On August 19, 2016, Chen bought three one-way airline tickets to China. The next day, he, along with his wife and daughter, boarded an 11:30 a.m. flight out of St. Louis Lambert International Airport, 63 files the richer. Adios.

By way of Shanghai, Chen disappeared in Wuhan. He was never caught. He was never criminally prosecuted.

Chen’s story is dime-a-dozen. In 2022, then FBI Director Christopher Wray described the level of CCP theft as “More brazen, more damaging than ever before.”

“When we tally up what we see in our investigations, over 2,000 of which are focused on the Chinese government trying to steal our information and technology, there is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security than China … The Chinese government steals staggering volumes of information and causes deep, job-destroying damage across a wide range of industries, so much so that … we’re constantly opening new cases to counter their intelligence operations, about every 12 hours or so.”

“That theft, those threats,” Wray added, “are happening right here in America, literally every day.”
Col. (Ret.) John Mills , national security professional and former Director of Cybersecurity Policy, Strategy, and International Affairs at the Department of Defense, told Agweb in 2021: “The FBI woke up to this threat far too late, and now we are in very deep. It is the CCP’s goal to steal, glean, obtain, transcribe, and photograph anything of value from the U.S., and the agriculture sector is right at the top.”

Best Western Comforts
Multiple Chinese thieves and spies nabbed over the past decade offer a tiny glimpse behind the CCP’s espionage curtain and suggest ag theft on a vast scale.

• 2011: Mo Hailong, director of international business for Dabeinong Technology Group and a legal U.S. resident for 10 years, was spotted crawling through Iowa corn rows, pocketing biotech seed. The incident spurred a multi-year FBI investigation. Hailong and several CCP cohorts were arrested in 2013, boarding a plane for China. Hidden inside their luggage, under microwave popcorn bags and Subway napkins, were hundreds of seed samples. No matter: Hailong had already mailed over 1,000 lb. of seed corn (Pioneer and Monsanto) to Beijing. He was sentenced to 36 months in prison.

Mo Hailong’s prosecution was a tip-of-the-iceberg bust.

(Photo public domain)

• 2013: Weiqiang Zhang obtained a doctorate in rice genetics at LSU and got a job at Ventria, a Kansas-based biopharmaceutical corporation, as a seed breeder, where he stole seed samples representing $75 million in research. Zhang used USDA letterhead to send counterfeit invitations to six colleagues in China, welcoming them on a tour of Ventria and several more ag stops. The delegates made the rounds (including Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center in Stuttgart, Ark., where Zhang’s main accomplice, Wengui Yan, worked as a geneticist) and were nailed just before flying home with hundreds of rice seeds in their bags, hidden inside envelopes slipped inside a Best Western remote control pouch and within the folds of an Arkansas Democrat Gazette newspaper. Zhang was sentenced to almost 10 years and Yan to one year.

Weiqiang Zhang, left, and Wengui Yan, nailed in an Arkansas/Kansas seed tech case.

(Photo public domain)

• 2017: Haitao Xiang worked for The Climate Corporation (Monsanto) estimating soil properties via satellite imagery. On May 24, 2017, Xiang announced his forthcoming resignation, and roughly two weeks later, on June 9, after completing an exit interview, downloaded a proprietary algorithm, the Nutrient Optimizer, onto an SD card, and drove from St. Louis to Chicago O’Hare. Xiang was caught at boarding with the SD card in a carry-on bag. He was allowed to leave for China; the FBI wasn’t certain, at that point, what was on the card. After a return to the U.S., in 2019, Xiang was arrested. Despite seizure of the SD card, Xiang presumably had stashed other copies of the Nutrient Optimizer, and possibly delivered those to CCP contacts. He was sentenced in 2022 to 29 months.

However, outright ag technology theft is only one facet of the CCP’s duplicity. Next up, agroterrorism.

Lie and Deny
In July 2024, Zunyong Liu, a plant pathology scientist from Zhejiang University, flew into Detroit from Shanghai on a tourist visa. He claimed to be on a vacation to visit his girlfriend, Yunqing Jian, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan (UM) in Ann Arbor. (UM maintains roughly 4,000 Chinese students, roughly half the university’s foreign population.) Both halves of the loved-up couple had expertise with a nasty biological pathogen, Fusarium graminearum, a strain that causes head blight and annually inflicts billions of dollars in crop losses. Both had contributed to major academic papers on Fusarium.

Zunyong Liu’s four baggies of smuggled plant material.

(Photo public domain)

U.S. Customs officers gave Liu the squeeze—and out spilled a chain of lies and half-truths. He claimed to have no “work materials” with him, but inside a small pocket of Liu’s backpack, officers found crumpled tissues concealing a filter paper with a “series of circles drawn on it” and four plastic bags containing red plant fibers.

Liu doubled down, insisting on a setup, and claimed the material was planted in his carry-on. As investigators tightened the screws, Liu folded, admitting he was transporting Fusarium for research at UM.

While searching Liu’s iPhone, Customs agents found a pdf in a WhatsApp folder: 2018 Plant-Pathogen Warfare under Changing Climate Conditions. The article referenced Fusarium as a destructive disease and pathogen for agriculture.

When FBI agents questioned Liu’s girlfriend, Jian , she denied all knowledge of Liu’s smuggling or intentions. She lied—repeatedly. As agents asked for her smartphone, Jian began “manipulating” the device as it was seized. The phone contained multiple communications with Liu (deported back to China) that had been wiped clean, but the remaining messages were damning and showed direct involvement in Liu’s illegal activity.

Yunqing Jian both knew about her boyfriend’s smuggling efforts, and had personally smuggled biological material into the U.S.

(Photo public domain)

Additionally, her phone contained a telltale work assessment form from January 2024 that included a pledge of loyalty to the CCP: I adhere to the four basic principles , support the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CCP), resolutely implement the party’s educational guidelines and policies, love education, care for students, unite colleagues, love the motherland, and care about national affairs…

Adding deep layers to the cake, Jian had personally smuggled biological pathogens into the U.S. on prior occasions, and had given another Chinese national, Xia Chen, explicit instructions in how to conceal and code pathogens in postal mail: “There are usually no problems. Rest assured. I have mailed these before.”

Pleasures and Pathogens
Days after the arrest of Yunqing Jian (sentenced to time served in November 2025 and deported to China), another Chinese national, Chengxuan Han, a scientist at a laboratory in Wuhan, was nabbed by U.S. Customs agents on June 8, 2025, at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after a flight from Shanghai. Han was traveling on a J1 work visa to do research at the University of Michigan, specifically at the lab of Professor Shawn Xu of the Life Sciences Institute.

Chengxuan Han: “Hello! This is a fun letter with interesting patterns. I hope you can enjoy the pleasure within it.”

(Photo public domain)

Why was she apprehended? Han mailed four packages, which she labeled as “plastic plates,” but which contained plasmids and petri dishes of C. elegans with genetic modifications (a nematode prohibited from import by USDA) from her Wuhan lab to the UM lab. The packages were intercepted by U.S. Customs. Inside one package was a book with a peculiar envelope slipped between the pages. The envelope held a handwritten note with 28 shapes and a “labeling scheme” for each shape. The note stated: “Hello! This is a fun letter with interesting patterns. I hope you can enjoy the pleasure within it.”

From the get-go, Han denied mailing any packages. Pressed by investigators, she then admitted mailing packages, but insisted the contents only included paper cups and a book. Later, Han acknowledged the biological material, but insisted it was part of a sequencing game she devised with clues given for each plasmid “for fun.”

Confronted with more evidence, Han fessed up, according to an affidavit submitted by FBI agent Edward Nieh: “Han admitted that she had sent packages containing nematode growth medium (NGM), in the petri dishes, and plasmids, in the envelope. Based on my training and experience, it is unlikely that the petri dishes contained solely NGM because NGM is readily available and inexpensive in the United States. CBP Officers conducted a manual review of Han’s electronic devices and found Han had deleted the content of her devices three days prior to her arrival to the United States.”

Han was sentenced to time served, roughly three months, and deported back to China—free to mail more pathogens to the U.S.

Scot-Free: Have A Nice Flight
Who, specifically, were the intended recipients of Han’s “fun” packages at the University of Michigan?

Enter three Chinese citizens, all research scholars holding J-1 visas at the Shawn Xu laboratory: Xu Bai, Fengfan Zhang, and Zhiyong Zhang. As soon as authorities made the connections, the threesome bailed.

On September 29, 2025, the trio was terminated by UM after refusing to participate in an internal investigation. Three weeks later, the men were arrested at JFK International Airport at the departure gate for a flight to Beijing.

The handwritten “matching game” of Chengxuan Han, along with one of eight smuggled petri dishes.

(Photo public domain)

Bottom line, despite the arrests, all three got away scot-free. In February 2026, DOJ dropped the case against Bai, F. Zhang, and Z. Zhang . Smuggling charges were dismissed at DOJ’s request. The three researchers flew home to China. “The dismissal came as a pleasant surprise,” stated John Minock, their attorney. “We don’t know the details. What we were told was there was some kind of intervention by the Chinese consulate in Chicago.”

Underwear of Man-Made Fibers
Generally, panties laced with E. coli, mailed 8,000 miles to a CCP plant pathology researcher in Indiana by a technology company in China, tend to draw U.S. Customs attention.

In June 2023, Youhuang Xiang, a card-carrying member of the Chinese Communist Party with a doctorate in plant physiology, received a J1 visa to study genome editing in wheat plants and resistance to fungal diseases at the Department of Biology at Indiana University (IU) in Bloomington. Among his specialties: Fusarium graminearum.

On March 28, 2024, Xiang received a package from China. Per shipping documents, the package was listed as “Underwear of Man-Made Fibers, Other Womens,” and shipped by Guangzhou Sci Tech Innovation Trading.

Youhuang Xiang: Deported for smuggling biological material into the U.S. Ironically, Xiang (kneeling, far right) was a 2024 National Fusarium Head Blight Forum Poster Competition third-place winner.

(Photo U.S. Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative)

Tracked and questioned by U.S. Customs and the FBI, Xiang played innocent. Denial and more denial: I never worked for the CCP and if any of the labs I worked at in China were funded by the CCP, I don’t know anything about it.

The package, he initially declared, was merely a jacket. However, Xiang later admitted the “clothing” contained plasmid DNA derived from E. coli bacteria and was mailed to him for use in his research at IU. He pleaded guilty to smuggling E. coli and was sentenced to time served (four months) and deported.

And the band played on.

Midnight In Michigan
The funnel is in place. In a typical year, 250,000-300,000 Chinese students (roughly one-third of all foreign enrollees) attend U.S. universities, with almost all in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and all vetted by the CCP. “Every Chinese student who China sends here has to go through a party and government approval process,” a senior U.S. official told Reuters in 2018. “You may not be here for espionage purposes as traditionally defined, but no Chinese student who’s coming here is untethered from the state.”

A 2019 FBI report states “the vast majority of students and researchers from China are in the United States for legitimate academic reasons.” However, the FBI’s determination is damning, considering the “vast majority” potentially leaves tens of thousands in the active espionage category.

Camp Grayling, where five Chinese University of Michigan students were caught at midnight photographing military vehicles and facilities.

(Photo U.S. Army)

The FBI report also asserts: “the Chinese government uses some Chinese students … and professors to operate as non-traditional collectors of intellectual property.”

“These Chinese scholars,” the analysis notes, “may serve as collectors, wittingly or unwittingly, of economic, scientific, and technological intelligence from U.S. institutions to ultimately benefit Chinese academic institutions and businesses.”

A cursory look at Chinese researcher/student espionage activity beyond agriculture, just over the past few years, is striking.

• In 2020, two Chinese University of Michigan master’s students, Jielun Zhang and Yuhao Wang , were apprehended while photographing military infrastructure at Naval Air Station Key West (NASKW), in Florida. Zhang was sentenced to a year in prison; Wang got nine months. Also, days prior to Zhang and Wang’s arrest, another Chinese national, Lyuyou Liao , was arrested at NASKW for entering and taking pictures, and sentenced to one year. (Significantly, another Chinese university student, Zhao Qianli , while on a summer exchange program in 2018, was caught photographing and videotaping at NASKW. He was sentenced to a year. His host university in the U.S. was not publicly disclosed.)

• Saw-Teong Ang, a University of Arkansas engineering professor, was indicted in 2020 for wire fraud after accepting U.S contracting funds related to NASA and the Air Force while making false statements and not disclosing CCP ties. Ang got a year in prison.

• Zhengdong Cheng, a professor at Texas A&M, was charged in 2020 with wire fraud for hiding relationships with Chinese corporations and universities, while accepting a NASA grant. Cheng was sentenced to time served after 13-month prison stint.

• Song Guo Zheng, a professor of internal medicine at Ohio State University and Pennsylvania State University, was sentenced to three years in an immunology fraud. After hiding affiliation with a CCP-influenced university, Zheng attempted to flee the U.S. in 2020, according to DOJ: “He was carrying three large bags, one small suitcase and a briefcase containing two laptops, three cell phones, several USB drives, several silver bars, expired Chinese passports for his family, deeds for property in China and other items.”

Zhengdong Cheng, a Texas A&M professor, was sentenced to time served after 13-month prison stint for hiding CCP relationships and obtaining grant money.

(Photos Texas A&M University)

• After Texas A&M University began questioning CCP influence at its lab facilities, and attempted to find out how many faculty members were involved with Chinese recruitment, the answer was stunning. From the Wall Street Journal , Jan. 30, 2020: “… they were astounded at the results—more than 100 were involved with a Chinese talent-recruitment program, even though only five had disclosed their participation.”

• Former University of Florida professor Lin Yang was indicted in 2021 for making false statements in 2019 regarding a $1.75 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “Our indictment alleges that Yang engaged in acts of deliberate deception so that he could also further the research goals of the Chinese Communist government and advance his own business interests,” said U.S. Attorney Lawrence Keefe. Yang fled the U.S. in 2019, prior to the indictment, and has not returned.

• In August 2023, five Chinese University of Michigan students (Zhekai Xu, Renxiang Guan, Haoming Zhu, Jingzhe Tao, and Yi Liang) were caught at midnight photographing military vehicles and facilities at Camp Grayling, a Michigan National Guard site. They graduated and left the U.S. before charges were filed in October 2024.

• In April 2026, Tianrui Liang, a Chinese university student visiting the U.S., was charged with photographing military aircraft at Offutt Air Force Base, near Omaha, Neb. Liang said the pictures were for his “personal collection.” According to the FBI, Liang also drove to Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota prior to his Nebraska stop. Liang is currently in federal custody.

And the kicker for U.S. agriculture? The number of CCP-approved Chinese students in U.S. colleges, according to the White House, is set to climb to 600,000 per year. Simple math: If the CCP taps a mere 1% for espionage and theft, that means 6,000 spies/moles on American campuses. Every percent higher means an exponential leap in technology thieves.

Coerce, Coopt, Compel
China openly flaunts its policy of theft. The CCP, in 2017, announced it would force all citizens and companies to steal trade secrets via a national intelligence law: “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work” if directed. The blanket law includes students or researchers. Coerce, coopt, and compel.

The CCP has executed the most expansive technology heist in history, tapping all fields of U.S. industry, business, and production, including agriculture, as evidenced by a 2017 report by the U.S. Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property estimating a loss of $255 billion to $600 billion to the U.S. economy each year, and fingering China as the “principle IP infringer.”

“It is the CCP’s goal to steal, glean, obtain, transcribe, and photograph anything of value from the U.S., and the agriculture sector is right at the top,” says Col. John Mills.

(Photo public domain)

In 2019, Joe Augustyn, a 28-year veteran of the CIA, stated, “We know without a doubt that anytime a graduate student from China comes to the US, they are briefed when they go, and briefed when they come back.”

“They don’t just come here to spy ... they come here to study and a lot of it is legitimate,” Augustyn said . “But there is no question in my mind, depending on where they are and what they are doing, that they have a role to play for their government.”

Previously cited national security expert John Mills, echoes Augustyn. “It’s my opinion that many are either working for the Ministry of State Security (China’s CIA-FBI hybrid organization), and 100% are fully aware of their obligation to the CCP … Part of their presence here, granted with CCP permission, is a promise, often a quid pro quo, to assist the CCP in getting whatever is needed.”

“I’d say most all U.S. industries have been asleep, certainly including agriculture,” Mills adds. “The CCP gave us a blueprint and announced they were going to take over certain high-tech industries, and agriculture was right there on the list. They literally told the world what they were going to do. If a gang of thieves tells you they are going to steal your farm, you should believe them.”

Seed, digital tech, or machinery, the CCP has jammed fat fingers deep in the American ag pie. They play for keeps.

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer

Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust

Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing

Georgia Watermelon Heist Explodes into Epic Night of Pandemonium

Sisters of Farm Fraud: How 4 Siblings Fleeced USDA for $10M

When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case

Cold-Busted: Frozen Deer Decoy Nabs Poachers and Cocaine in Spectacular Sting

Sticky Fingers: USDA Fraudster Steals $200M in Stunning Scam

From Constraints to Catalysts: How Ag Leaders Turn Hardships into Strategy

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 18:19:05 GMT

In an industry defined by “one-year-at-a-time” cycles, the greatest threat to a growing operation isn’t just a market downturn—it’s the inertia that comes with size. Farm Journal CEO Prescott Shibles argues that long-term survival requires a rare blend of faith and agility. To maintain an entrepreneurial mindset, leaders must lean into “conviction” as the core of a strategy that survives the lows.

Here is how four industry leaders are turning today’s constraints into tomorrow’s differentiators.

1. Build when times are hard.

When Brent Smith, president and CEO of NewLeaf Symbiotics, joined the company in 2023, the grain market was entering a significant down cycle. While some saw a risky time to lead a startup, he saw an opportunity.

“I learned in my first startup that the best time to build a business is in hard times,” Smith said said during a discussion at Top Producer Summit. “Because if you can’t withstand tough times, you’re not going to survive long term.”

For Smith, survival meant doubling down on the company’s core: science. Despite the pressure to cut costs, NewLeaf continues to spend half of its operating expenses on science.

“It would be very easy to peel that back,” he admits. “But we focused on projects that make the most impact the quickest, while keeping an eye on the long-term innovation in our pipeline.”

2. Control what you can control.

Farmers face the ultimate constraint every year: the weather. Scott Beck, president of Beck’s Hybrids, recalls the planting crisis of 2019 when constant rains kept tractors out of the fields well into May.

“I was concerned for our customers not being able to plant, but also for us not being able to plant our seed for the next year,” Beck says. “There was nothing that we could do to control the weather, but we could control how we interacted with our customers.”

Rather than retreating, the Beck’s team focused on transparency and empathy, using video series to connect with farmers and even forming small groups for prayer and support. Ultimately, they wanted farmers to know they cared and were there to support them however they could.

Despite the financial reality of what could happen if farmers didn’t plant and returned seed, Beck’s decided their course of action would not include employee layoffs. Instead, they prepared to sell land to protect their people.

“Fortunately, the weather broke and everybody was able to get planted,” he says. “Then the second miracle happened. We had the second warmest September on record, and that’s what brought the crop through to enable 2019 to not turn out as bad as it started.”

3. Turn disadvantages into advantages.

In 2014, Lamar Steiger, owner of The 808 Ranch, was tasked with a monumental challenge: helping Walmart reinvent its beef supply chain. At the time, the retail giant was at a disadvantage, forced to accept whatever the major meatpackers provided.

Steiger’s strategy was to turn that lack of control into a new kind of independence.

“I convinced the Walmart team to go around the traditional supply chain,” Steiger says. Today, Walmart sources 28% of its beef from its own “farm-to-table” supply chain.

There’s no question that decision was really good for Walmart. But Steiger says it was also really good for him personally.

“It reminded me that no matter how big you are, there are always challenges,” he says.

4. Create “white space” for the future.

When the day-to-day tasks of an operation become overwhelming, long-term strategy is often the first thing to go. James Burgum, CEO of The Arthur Companies, believes leaders must intentionally carve out “white space” for their teams.

“It’s important to find ways where people can actually spend their time working on the business, not just in the business,” he says.

By protecting time for team members to execute ideas that are three to five years out, Burgum manages the tension between short-term urgency and long-term viability.

“It’s hard to step away from the daily fires you’ll face in your operation, but it’s important,” he adds. “How we manage that tension of short term and long term is creating that white space and making sure that we consciously work on the business.

The Long Game

Ultimately, resilience in agriculture is about knowing when to push and when to pivot.

“You have to know when to put the gas down, and you need to know when to tap the brake,” Smith says. “And regardless of what you are doing, you need to stay focused on what you’re doing.”

Whether it is investing in science during a downturn or choosing customer empathy over the bottom line, these leaders say constraints don’t have to be roadblocks; they can be the very catalysts that drive an operation forward.

Farm Family Slammed by DOL Sues Feds, Demands Jury Trial

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:56:44 GMT

No jury or independent judge allowed. Welcome to a farmer’s nightmare and the sequestered world of the administrative state.

David and Debbie Ross, facing $70,000 in fines, are demanding a jury trial. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) claims the couple is guilty of mistreating H-2A workers.

The Rosses are trapped within the closed loop of a single agency: Pursuit by DOL agents, enforcement by DOL personnel, trial by DOL attorneys, testimony by DOL witnesses, decision by DOL judge, and review by DOL appellate judges.

“It’s sickening what the government can get away with,” Debbie says. “We’ve done nothing wrong and we want a jury of our peers to hear the evidence. All of it.”

The Rosses are suing DOL, and their case carries heavyweight ramifications for agriculture and beyond. “People might think there’s no way something this unjust happens in America, but it does,” she adds. “It’s happening on our farm to us.’”

Neverending Merry-Go-Round
In the northern Kentucky hills of Harrison County, at Triple R Farms, a small operation started in roughly 1990, the Rosses grow tobacco and corn, and maintain a small cattle herd.

David handles planting and management, but during the fall season, due to the heavy demands of tobacco harvest, he employs a team of H-2A workers sourced from DOL. Housed on-farm, the H-2A workers typically remain at Triple R for several months.

“We’ve always valued the H-2A program,” Debbie says. “Every year, when we finally get all our tobacco in the barn, David has a big pig roast for our H-2A help, most of who come from Mexico. To get charged with mistreatment of anyone working on our farm is ridiculous.”

On December 1, 2021, three DOL agents, as part of a scheduled, annual audit, sat at Debbie’s kitchen table and combed through Triple R paperwork. Debbie, dealing with soreness of muscle and a slight cough, gave them open access.

“They seemed considerate. I provided all our documents and they went out to look at the farm and our housing facilities. Maybe they stayed six hours or so.”

Triple R Farms in Harrison County, northern Kentucky.

(Photo by Google Earth)

The next day, Debbie and David tested positive for Covid—waylaid by the virus. The remainder of the audit was conducted by email over the next month.

“We got Covid bad—really bad. We went to one hospital multiple times for fluids and another hospital to get infusions,” she explains. “We ended up being physically drained almost the entire month of December, but at least we knew what was wrong.”

What David and Debbie didn’t know? Despite dealing with an anemic farm economy and the effects of ill-time flooding, the couple was about to feel the bureaucratic hammer of DOL and be forced onto the agency’s merry-go-round.

Nothing to Hide
There was no tobacco left to strip—at least not in quantities requiring a volume of H-2A workers.

“It’s pretty simple,” Debbie says. “Heavy rains and flooding ended our tobacco work. We didn’t have tobacco to put up in the barn. We told our H-2A workers they could stay and do other jobs, but they wanted to go home. No problem. It had turned cold and I didn’t blame them. They signed the proper legal forms and voluntarily went back to Mexico. The government now says we fired them. That’s crazy and untrue; we did not.”

“The auditors, attorneys, and judges all were from DOL,” says Debbie. “The same people who made and enforced the rules, were the same people who judged whether we followed the rules.

(Photo by Institute for Justice)

The H-2A crew originally was scheduled to leave Jan. 30, 2022. Instead, as described by Debbie, they left December 11, 2021.

“Trying to get all the paperwork done with the workers, while we were at our worst with Covid, was seriously difficult. But we just wanted to do things right by everyone. We had nothing to hide. We want the public to know what happened; DOL does not.”

Dropping a Bomb
The months ticked by with no word from DOL regarding the audit. “I started getting worried that I’d missed something in the mail,” Debbie explains. “Before I knew it, over a year had passed since they visited our farm. I emailed them in January 2023 to check in.”

DOL responded. How about sharing a meal in Harrison County?

“We met the DOL guys at a nice restaurant in town, with no idea about what they were about to do. There was two of them, but later it was obvious that only one of them was an auditing official. The other guy barely said a word and we figured out he was there as backup in case things got out of hand. They knew what they were about to hit us with.”

Seated at a diner, 13 months after visiting Triple R Farms, DOL dropped a bomb and the first mention of any violations: You owe $27,000 in back wages for 11 H-2A workers.

“That’s ridiculous,” David replied. “The H-2A guys didn’t work because they weren’t here. They weren’t here because they wanted to leave.”

“No way,” Debbie added. “The workers left voluntarily. They all signed saying so.”

While delivering the $27,000 penalty at the diner, the DOL rep knew there was a deeper layer to the cake. The $27,000 was a mere portion of the overall penalty.

(DOL did not respond to Agweb.com questions regarding the Ross/Triple R Farms case.)

“They never even told us at the restaurant, but they knew the whole time,” Debbie says. “We owed a further $42,000 in penalties, on top of the $27,000. They never said a word.”

Several weeks later, in late February, a DOL letter arrived in the Ross’ mailbox: You owe another $42,000 for firing H-2A workers, along with associated penalties.

Grand total? $70,049.93.

Pay Up or Bounce

What was the government’s basis for the $70,000-plus?

DOL’s H-2A rules include a three-fourths guarantee “to offer the worker employment for a total number of work hours equal to at least three-fourths of the workdays.”

However, there is no three-fourths guarantee if an H-2A worker “voluntarily abandons employment before the end of the contract period.”

Further, H-2A workers can be released based on farm conditions “beyond the control of the employer due to fire, weather, or other Act of God that makes the fulfillment of the contract impossible, the employer may terminate the work contract.”

(Photo by Institute for Justice)

“We fired no one,” Debbie emphasizes. “They went home voluntarily. On top of that, we had a flood that meant we didn’t have enough pounds of tobacco to function normally.”

Debbie’s protestations to DOL had no effect. “Our H-2A workers left of their own accord, while we were in terrible health from COVID, and I did my best with the paperwork. DOL blamed me for not calling their office in that moment with details, but it’s a miracle I was able to get the paperwork signed at all, considering we were deathly ill. What were we supposed to do? Force someone to stay? The whole deal is beyond unjust.”

Pay the $70,000 toe-tag or bounce into agency court, according to DOL. “We didn’t have a clue what we were up against,” Debbie says. “The auditors, attorneys, and judges all were from DOL. The same people who made and enforced the rules, were the same people who judged whether we followed the rules. It was a stacked deck like you can’t believe and about as un-American as you can get.”

In the Bull’s-Eye
On March 12, 2026, represented by Institute for Justice (IJ), David and Debbie sued DOL in district court, seeking to stop the agency from forcing the couple into in-house court.

“If DOL wants to impose fines, it should have to go to a real court where the Rosses would get an independent judge and a jury of their peers,” says IJ attorney Rob Johnson.

The Rosses are trapped within the closed loop of a single agency: Pursuit by DOL agents, enforcement by DOL personnel, trial by DOL attorneys, testimony by DOL witnesses, decision by DOL judge, and review by DOL appellate judges.

(Photo by Institute for Justice)

“DOL is forcing a farm family to defend itself against a huge, punishing fine in the agency’s own in-house courts, where the only judge they can get is an agency bureaucrat,” Johnson continues. “That, in no way, is a fair or just proceeding.”

Is Johnson correct? He’s absolutely in the bull’s-eye, says the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Dark Hole
In a seismic 2024 ruling, SEC v. Jarkesy, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that citizens are entitled to a jury trial when hit with civil penalties imposed by administrative law judges.

Jarkesy tore down the walls of in-house courts, where the federal government (including USDA-NRCS) has sky-high win rates. In 2015, former FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright shed light on a phenomenally high agency win rate from roughly 1995 to 2015: “In 100 percent of cases where the administrative law judge ruled in favor of the FTC staff, the Commission (appeals board) affirmed liability; and in 100 percent of the cases in which the administrative law judge found no liability, the Commission reversed. This is a strong sign of an unhealthy and biased (emphasis added) institutional process.”

“We were presumed guilty from the start, and it’s shameful what they did to us,” says New Jersey producer Joe Marino.

(Photo by IJ)

DOL’s in-house system levies major penalties: In 2024 alone, according to an IJ release, DOL collected $4.9 million in back wages and imposed $5.8 million in penalties on agricultural employers. In many cases, DOL does not return money to workers, but either keeps it or passes it to Congress.

Echoing Jarkesy, and similar to the Ross case, brothers Joe and Russell Marino, owners of Sun Valley Orchards in New Jersey and represented by IJ, challenged DOL (Sun Valley v. DOL) after a nine-year, bureaucratic grind centered on an H-2A paperwork violation and over $500,000 in fines. In July 2025, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that DOL violated the Constitution and that charges against the Marinos had to be brought in an independent court. (DOL is contesting the ruling and asking SCOTUS to hear the case.)

Joe Marino contends he was deemed guilty out of the gate by DOL. “They took us down a dark, dark hole that I can’t describe properly with words,” he described after his court victory. “I never thought honesty and facts wouldn’t matter in America, but that’s what happened. We were presumed guilty from the start, and it’s shameful what they did to us.”

Yet, if the U.S. Supreme Court and the 3rd Circuit both ruled on the unconstitutionality of in-house courts, why are David and Debbie Ross still trapped behind DOL walls and denied a trial by jury?

Real Court, Real Jury
The Ross case was assigned to DOL Judge Willow Fort, a long-time DOL player. According to the Rosses’ complaint, Fort “has been employed by DOL for over half of her legal career ... She worked as a trial attorney in the DOL’s Office of the Regional Solicitor representing the Secretary of Labor in enforcement actions beginning in 2011, and was appointed as a DOL ALJ in Cincinnati, Ohio in November 2021.”

“People might think there’s no way something this unjust happens in America, but it does,” says Debbie. “It’s happening on our farm to us.’”

(Photo by Institute for Justice)

Fort has denied the Rosses’ requests for a jury trial and is proceeding with an in-house DOL trial, and scheduled the next hearing for September 2026—during the middle of harvest.

“This has got to stop,” Johnson says. “Right now, we have agencies across the administrative state that are just trying to come up with excuses and distinctions to not apply Jarkesy. The Ross case is certainly one where the U.S. Supreme Court justices have said one thing, but the administrative state is doing another. It’s up to the courts to force the bureaucrats in this country to follow the law. These types of cases are happening across the country.”

“Bottom line,” Johnson adds, “if the government wants to take your money, they should have to take you to a real court with a real jury, and not an agency bureaucrat.

As for Debbie, she contends DOL’s actions are “outrageous and abusive.”

“We live year to year in farming, and can’t survive by losing $70,000. My husband is 69 and I’m 65, and we farm with tremendous risk and make just enough to keep going every year. David has had triple bypass surgery and five stints, and I’ve had open heart surgery for a bad valve, and the stress of this, on top of the fines, is almost too much to handle. We’re not afraid to work daylight to dark, but then government does this to us? Maybe $70,000 is not so much to some people, but it’s everything to us.”

“I actually thought we could explain the facts and somebody at DOL would listen,” she adds. “Now I know better. But if DOL won’t listen, we should be entitled to a jury and judge that will listen.”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer

Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust

Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing

Farmer Nabs Thieves, Exposes Flood of Agriculture Theft by Drug Addicts

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 20:03:52 GMT

When Sam Krautscheid raised a pistol to freeze two thieves, he was aiming at an epidemic of agriculture crime. In an era of heavy drug addiction and minimal prosecutions, farms are the soft underbelly of rural crime, and the crisis is deepening.

Growing crops in Grant County, Washington, one of America’s hottest ag crime zones, Krautscheid faces an onslaught of outlaws steadily stealing and destroying equipment. Losses to theft have become part and parcel of agriculture—a standard business consideration.

“Defend your farm or lose everything,” he says. “This is only getting worse and everyone knows it.”

Picking the Wrong Farmer
On Sept. 9, 2023, roughly 12 miles from the Columbia River, on the eastern side of the Cascade Curtain, Krautscheid finished baling hay, piled three sons into his pickup, and rumbled toward town for a meal and a country music concert. It was a hair before 7 p.m., at the tailend of a summer filled with repeated 911 calls by Krautscheid to report stolen goods.

Less than a mile from his home, at the crossing of two major highways, Krautscheid approached a gravel lot containing multiple farm-related utility buildings: storage shed, three double-wide trailers, and a house—all vacant.

On Sept. 9, 2023, a pair of outlaws chose the wrong farmer to rob: Sam Krautscheid.

(Photo courtesy of SK)

A four-door sedan, parked beside the main shed, caught Krautscheid’s eye. “No. Shouldn’t have been there.”

He pulled over, reached for a Kimber .45, and exited the truck, ordering his three boys to remain with the vehicle. He walked to the car, peered in the windows, and observed the backseat odds-and-ends of burglary: massage table, gas cans, weed whacker. Immediately, Krautscheid called the police, reporting a likely theft in progress.

As Krautscheid neared the building, pistol drawn, an arm wrapped around the corner. He barked an order as two thieves came into plain view. “Get down. Get on the ground and don’t come any closer. I don’t want to shoot, but I will shoot.”

Thief No. 1, closest to Krautscheid, folded. Thief No. 2 advanced, armed with a billy club—a weapon of attack and certainly not a pry tool for larceny. “I didn’t know what kind of drugs were affecting him, and it took me yelling out several times for him to stop and realize I was armed.”

“I kept backing up to make sure he couldn’t close the distance,” Krautscheid continues. “I was not gonna let him around the corner at all because my boys were at the pickup.”

Krautscheid held the men, Glenn Richard, 45, and Jesus Rangel, 28, until police arrived. Both already were on a revolving door policy with law enforcement and the courts. Richard had 37 failures-to-appear; Rangel had 17 failures-to-appear.

“One guy got sentenced to zero jail time,” Krautscheid recalls. “The other guy with the billy club got 12 months of time and 12 months of community custody.”

“In so many terrible ways, that was just a normal day on the farm for us. It’s a snapshot of how bad crime is in our state. As farmers, small business owners, and people who live and work in rural areas, we’re paying for the decisions of politicians.”

Catch and Release
Since the Richard-and-Rangel bust in 2023, the pace of Grant County ag crime has increased, Krautscheid says.

Breathtaking to the eye, his geography is home to a wide variety of crops from peas to carrots to sweet corn to potatoes to 200-bushel wheat. However, the region is parched and often receives a mere 6” of rain per year. Irrigation is a near absolute, featuring pivots laced with copper wiring running to pumps and circles.

The Krautscheid family of Grant County, Washington.

(Photo courtesy of SK)

Copper is a crime magnet, particularly amid the highest base metal prices in history. Fentanyl and methamphetamine addicts inflict tens of thousands of dollars in equipment damage to gain a few hundred dollars on a backdoor sale of stolen copper.

Approximately two-and-a-half hours east of Seattle, Krautscheid manages Hefty Seed Quincy and grows roughly 2,400 acres of crops. He describes persistent losses to drug thieves. “They strip everything. They take what they can get and leave. Whether it’s the wire between the pump and panel, or the wire to the transformers, they’ll take it all from a pivot system, depending on how much time they have.”

The theft is farm-wide, far beyond pivots. “It’s not uncommon to pull up to a tractor and find your batteries stolen. It’s one thing to steal batteries, but they cut the leads into the motors, because it’s quicker than loosening the bolts. Last winter, they busted the conduit and ripped it right out of a pump motor. They’ll take anything. We have wind machines in our orchards running off Ford V-10 motors. They’ll steal the motors out of the orchards.”

Krautscheid bleeds a bare minimum of $10,000 per year to theft and damage—far higher in some years. Extrapolating Krautscheid’s losses across grower, county, and a state with roughly 32,000 farms and ranches, the totals are staggering.

“We have wonderful people here, but 95% of our problems come from the few that ruin everything and threaten our livelihoods,” says Krautscheid.

(Photo by SK)

“We’re at the point where we’re blocking back roads and entrances to properties and gating and trying to find solutions to keep people from getting into these areas. But even if you catch them, or know who they are, the court system will let’em go.”

In 2024, one of Krautscheid’s county neighbors placed an air tag on a batch of copper wire that was subsequently stolen. “He tracked it to the new location immediately that morning,” Krautscheid details. “The sheriff’s office arrived and nobody got arrested because the thief claimed another guy gave him the wire. That’s what they always say, because they understand how to get off. It’s repeat crazy.”

Daily Vigil
A solution starts at the top, Krautscheid insists.

“If you steal from a store in Washington and the total is less than $700 or so, the law basically leaves you alone. Ultimately, that kind of nonsense comes right from our state politicians. They keep making the rules worse. One of the most terrible things you can be in Washington State is a property owner. People are moving away non-stop to get away from a political climate gone nuts.”

“Defend your farm or lose everything,” Krautscheid says. “This is only getting worse and everyone knows it.”

(Photo by SK)

“We can’t even get a monitoring system on the criminals because it costs an outrageous $5 per day,” he adds. “How can a cell phone cost $50 per month, and a simple monitoring device cost three times that?”

Back on his farm, Krautscheid maintains a vigil. Every day.

“If I wasn’t in agriculture, I’d probably join the mass exodus of people leaving. Instead, my goal is to make Grant County a horrible place for people to do crime. We have wonderful people here, but 95% of our problems come from the few that ruin everything and threaten our livelihoods. And they’ll keep on until the day our state legislators are forced to do something.”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer

Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust

Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing

Sticky Fingers: USDA Fraudster Steals $200M in Stunning Scam

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 14:18:52 GMT

A crime “mere mortals wouldn’t even contemplate.” An astounding $210-million haul pulled out the front doors of USDA.

Who steals over $200 million in fake USDA loans, drives a Rolls, runs a chop-shop, and jet-sets the globe? Who attempts to escape in a chartered plane, carries on scheming behind bars, draws his wife into the action, and triples down with more swindles—all after pleading guilty?

Nik Patel. The Florida-based con artist steered a chain of astonishing agriculture-related scams, each more jaw-dropping than the previous, and racked up a whopping 52-year sentence in the federal pen.

Welcome to the manic reign of a brazen fraudster who forged his own fall. The biter got bit.

Life in the Fast Lane
In 2012, First Farmers Financial, helmed by CEO Nik Patel, was flying high with a flagship location in Orlando, Fla., and satellite offices in California and Georgia.

Twenty-nine years young and married with children, Patel hitched his wagon to USDA, specifically to the Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program, under the guise of helping rural communities. To ride USDA’s coattails, Patel and First Farmers COO Tim Fisher crafted a lie from whole cloth. They fabricated documents claiming a solid business structure, deep experience, and assets exceeding $20 million with Wells Fargo.

Fisher, later pinched by the feds and sentenced to 10 years, fessed up. “In order for us to establish the business, I assisted in creating falsified financial statements, falsified resumes, and falsified other background documents between our company, so that we could get a USDA approval from the United States, in order for us to do loans for the USDA.”

Translated: USDA bought the head fake and gave certification to First Farmers—based on Patel’s paperwork lies.

USDA certification in hand, Patel went into chop-shop overdrive, forging 26 USDA loans, ranging in value from $2.5 million to $10 million, for a total of $179 million. The 26 loans, polished with bogus USDA employee signatures, fictitious borrower names, and fake USDA loan ID numbers, were a fantasy and had no government backing.

Pictured with then Sen. Marco Rubio, Patel, left, and wife, Trisha, made the political rounds.

(Photo Instagram)

Patel then dangled the $179-million package—a criminally audacious move considering he had no prior felony history. (Patel did have previous misdemeanor convictions in 2011 and 2012, for DUI and assault on a police officer, both of which resulted in short sentences of home confinement.)

First to sniff Patel’s bait was Pennant Management, an investment company in Milwaukee, Wisc. Not willing dupes, but painfully deficient in the vetting department, Pennant reps flew to Florida and were wooed by Patel’s silver-tongued claims that First Farmers stood atop $52 million in assets, $17 million in cash, and a profit line of $1.8 million. All lies.

Patel further impressed Pennant with counterfeit balance sheets for 2011, 2012, and a portion of 2013. Pennant was willing to buy the $179-million package deal. After all, the bundle was almost entirely guaranteed by USDA, according to Patel, who later wrote to Pennant with third-person bravado: “Effectively Nik Patel serves as a one man loan committee—reviewing the opportunities as they flow into him for consideration.”

To ensure Pennant officials didn’t smell the ruse, Patel ginned up “audited financial statements,” for 2013, prepared by esteemed CPA “Geoff Kane.” However, Kane, despite a glowing biography provided by Patel, was a fiction. Kane was Patel.

Where did Patel’s stolen money go? In a hole; offshore; Dubai; family?

(Photos public domain)

In for a dime, in for a dollar. Pennant jumped headfirst and snatched the $179-million offer, wiring the funds to Patel at BMO Harris Bank in Florida.

Cha-ching. Patel hit the fast lane, dumping tens of millions of dollars on hotel projects, a lavish $4-million home, a Rolls-Royce and Lamborghini, boats, custom suits, jewelry, part ownership of a jet, international vacations, cathouse visits to a favored brothel in Panama—according to prosecutors, and political donations, even opening his home to host a fundraiser for then Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

Patel was just warming up.

Dubai Diamonds
In September 2014, Pennant got curious. After finding address inconsistencies in First Farmers’ paperwork, Pennant knocked on USDA’s door with a list of borrower names and loan numbers. USDA’s response was damning: Total sham. Name and numbers do not exist.

Panicked, Pennant ran to the FBI. Too little, too late, for the Milwaukee-based investment advisor business. Pennant collapsed the following year.

On Sept. 29, 2014, the feds filed a criminal complaint against First Farmers and Patel. In 2015, he was arraigned in the Northern District of Illinois and pleaded not guilty. However, on Dec. 6, 2016, Patel changed his plea to guilty on five counts of wire fraud . Sentencing was scheduled for April 6, 2017.

In the interim, unfazed by the inconvenience of criminal prosecution, Patel continued spending. He dropped $23,368 on a ski trip and approximately $30,000 on his daughter’s birthday party at a Four Seasons Hotel. And all the while, as he feigned remorse and awaited sentencing, Patel’s second fraud was in motion. In public, he played the penitent and announced a desire to recover money for his victims, requesting—and receiving—sentencing date extensions to generate cash.

Patel, pictured with President Trump, rubbed shoulders with political leaders on both sides of the aisle.

(Photo Instagram)

Behind the outward contrition, Patel was managing the clock, stretching time to organize the second scheme, this time another hoodwink of USDA, along with Farmer Mac, to scam investors in Iowa. While final sentencing for the first fraud was delayed until Jan. 9, 2018, Patel went into overdrive, intending to make another pile of coin and go on the lam.

Starting back in June 2017, he had invented the alias of “Ron Elias,” a fictitious “Vice President of Guaranteed Lending” at Banco Do Brasil (BDB). In reality, there was no such position at BDB and the bank never engaged in USDA lending, but Patel, correctly, predicted nobody would check.

According to DOJ, Patel’s USDA-Farmer Mac con job was three-layered: “First, Patel fabricated fraudulent loan documents that falsely represented that a bank in Miami had authorized loans to be made to convert hotels in rural areas into assisted living facilities. Although the bank in Miami exists, it had never made any of the loans … Second, Patel applied to USDA to guarantee the fake loans pursuant to its Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program. Third, after the USDA agreed to guarantee the fake loans, Patel sold the guaranteed portion of the fake loans to the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, also known as Farmer Mac. Patel executed the scheme on three occasions, receiving almost $20 million in proceeds. Patel used a portion of the funds from that scheme to pay some of his restitution, but he was saving much of it to flee the United States.”

Pocketing $20 million as Ron Elias while on supervised federal release, thanks to loan guarantees provided by USDA and a wad of cash courtesy of Farmer Mac, Patel then applied for political asylum in India and Ecuador, claiming to be a victim of abuse and persecution by DOJ. Palm up, Ecuador accepted. In the months prior to sentencing, Patel lined up a chartered flight, luxury vehicles, $500,000 in emergency cash, beautiful home, private chef, and schools for his daughters in Ecuador.

Patel, alongside then Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

(Photo Instagram)

Partnered with another business crony, Kevin Timirchand, Patel aimed to launder the $20 million by the “cleanest way to do the transaction, kill any trace, and cover everyone,” via a Dubai diamond purchase. DOJ investigators later seized a memo written by Patel, detailing his intentions:

I have arranged a diamond merchant that I trust in Dubai (based out of India-Parsas Patel). He is a major player and I’ve bought from him before, He has a 103.78 carat diamond. Shape is a modified shield, it is VS1 purity, and Color is Fancy Dark with brown greenish and yellow. He will provide a GI and Kimberly Certificate. This Is one of the rarest diamonds in the world that is very sought after. He is also going to sell us 2-3 other diamonds similar to this one (smaller but similar) The 3-4 diamonds he sells us value will look on paper like $30MM and he will invoice for it $30MM.

To cover his absence from his scheduled sentencing in Chicago for the initial $179 million scam, Patel planned to tell DOJ officials he was “going to rehab or a meditation camp for a week, this way they do not suspect anything by my phone being shut off,” while missing his court date.

“I may even use a different name to leave,” he noted. “The only people I have to tell is the pilot so he can document his flight log.”

Kevin Timirchand, Patel’s accomplice in the Farmer Mac fraud.

(Photo public domain)

On a Saturday morning, Jan. 6, 2018, three days prior to sentencing, Patel rolled to Kissimmee Gateway Airport, driven by Timirchand in a Cadillac Escalade. At 7 a.m., as luggage was transferred to a chartered jet, four FBI agents bagged Patel. In his possession, according to DOJ, “Patel had an Indian passport in his name (forged and backdated to 2010), United States currency ($20,000), documents relating to his attempt to obtain asylum in Ecuador, financial documents indicating access to accounts holding millions of dollars, and detailed checklists for tasks relating to obtaining asylum in Ecuador and setting up a new life there for himself and his family.”

Thrown in Florida lockup, Patel already was piling more blocks on the Jenga tower.

Another Drink at the Well
Awaiting transfer to Chicago, Patel pulled levers from behind bars and went all-in on the Ron Elias charade. His crony, Timirchand (later arrested and sentenced to two years in prison), was Patel’s instrument beyond prison walls. Per a DOJ attorney’s testimony in June 2018: Patel instructed Timirchand how to log-in to the account and instructed him which emails to send to various peoples in order to further the fraudulent misrepresentations and to actually cause the funds to be disbursed. There were phone calls to Mr. Timirchand from the jail instructing him how to send emails to someone else, to representatives of the USDA.

On March 6, 2018, Patel, then 34, was sentenced to 25 years for the original $179 million fraud.

Surreally, Patel, federal prisoner #61337-018, was unbowed. It was time for another drink at the USDA well.

House of Cards
The following year, in 2019, while imprisoned for the first fraud ($179 million), and under indictment for the second fraud ($20 million) stemming from the Farmer Mac debacle, Patel engineered a third fraud, this time keeping it in the family. His accomplice? Wife, Trisha Patel.

Via emails, phone calls, and prison visits between 2019 and 2023, the pair spun a wooly web. Rather than Patel taking a fake identity such as Ron Elias or Geoff Kane, Trisha assumed two bogus identities, “Maya Greer” and “Robert Engelmeyer,” later exposed by phony email addresses and burner apps.

The Patels conjured a fictitious lending company, Community 1st Mortgage, fronted by lead officer Maya Green (Trisha).

Trisha Patel masqueraded as Maya Greer and Robert Engelmeyer.

(Photo Facebook)

According to Trisha’s subsequent plea deal: “This new loan scheme had another new concept beyond the creation of a fake lender. It included the use of legitimate business to facilitate the fraud. Nikesh Patel looked for a business that was for sale and discovered a listing for Precision Powered Products, Inc. (PPP), a commercial pump manufacturer in Houston, Texas. The company’s owner wanted to retire after nearly 40 years of running the business. Nikesh Patel Inquired with a broker about the listing in late 2020 and learned specific information about the business.”

Incredibly, the Patels used Texas-based PPP to dupe USDA.

Trisha hid her true identity behind the mask of Robert Engelmeyer, a fictitious PPP executive, who needed an $8,540,000 loan from Community 1st to expand PPP business—not in rural Nebraska or rural New Mexico—but rather, in rural Puerto Rico. Trisha, acting as Robert Engelmeyer, persuaded USDA that PPP needed a loan to boost operations in Cabo Rojo.

And the business address leased by PPP in Cabo Rojo? A vacant building under renovation, with no relation to commercial pump manufacturing. A shell. No one at USDA bothered to check. Instead, USDA backed the $8,540,000 loan at 80%.

After securing USDA’s guarantee, Trisha, masquerading as Maya Greer of Community 1st, sold the loan for $7,446,880 on Nov. 21, 2021, to Hanover Securities, a broker-dealer in Memphis, Tenn. (According to Trisha’s later plea, Hanover “broke the loan into smaller portions and resold them to smaller banks. To avoid detection, Trisha Patel would pay the loan payments each month for each of these loans using fraud proceeds.”)

The day of sale, Hanover wired $7-plus million to Community 1st and Maya Greer. Trisha emailed her husband at Seminole County Jail in Florida, writing: “It’s here!!!! Finally.”

Patel answered: “Amazing news! I will call after count, after 5 pm. Make sure its showing credited and available.”

Trisha Patel, second from left, attends a White House Diwali event October 2022, during the Biden Administration.

(Photo Instagram.)

Trisha then doled $1.2 million of the haul to “various attorneys, lobbyists, and consultants on behalf of Nikesh Patel,” greasing the political skids for Patel’s release. (Keeping up appearances, she also spent $81,000 on a new BMW.) Trisha made the rounds of high society on both sides of the political aisle, even popping up at a White House party in October 2022.

However, the Patel’s house of cards finally crashed in 2023, as the FBI and USDA Office of Inspector General discovered the paper trail. Trisha was arrested; Patel, already under lock and key, was given a cell cleanout. As described by FBI Special Agent Alex Duda, the results were telltale: “On Sept. 20, 2023, officials at the Seminole County Jail conducted a cell search of Nikesh Patel’s cell. The officials observed a large quantity of documents, estimated to consist of approximately 3,000 pages, in six neat stacks under Patel’s mattress. The officials characterized the amount of documents located in Patel’s cell as ‘substantial’ and ‘extraordinary.’”

Wash, rinse, repeat. Once again, it was time for Patel’s sentencing, but this time Trisha also faced the music.

Sticky Fingers, Twisted Threads
No one left to lie to. On Sept. 18, 2024, Trisha, 41, was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison, and is currently incarcerated at FCI Marianna , Florida. A month later, Oct. 8, 2024, Patel was sentenced to 27 years on top of his previous 25 years—a draconian total of 52 years in the pen, a disproportionate sentence in the eyes of many legal observers. He is doing time at FCI Bennettsville , South Carolina.

Patel, left, hosting a fundraiser at his home for Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

(Photo Facebook)

Strikingly, on the heels of his near-escape to Ecuador during his second con (Farmer Mac), and after his third con (USDA-PPP) was in motion, Patel, on July 6, 2020, while incarcerated, authored a third-person post on Medium , claiming victimhood due to “racial tactics” by DOJ: “The pattern of prosecutorial misconduct against people of color extended to ignoring evidence and making willfully false claims in the case against Patel,” he wrote. “It demonstrates a pattern of misconduct that Patel is hoping to further expose in his clemency plea.”

At the post’s end, he signed off: “Nikesh Patel, former Investment Banker, resident of Florida and the subject of overzealous prosecution. Hoping to get justice and have my narrative told.”

Patel’s claims of injustice gained the attention of Jesse Jackson in 2022. Jackson urged the U.S. attorney’s office to release Patel on home confinement. A mere 10 months after Jackson’s advocacy, Patel’s fraud No. 3 exploded, along with its surreal narrative tied to 3,000 pages stuffed under a mattress and Puerto Rican pump fakes, all bookended by another 27 years on Patel’s sentence. As of 2026, Patel describes himself as a “political prisoner” and seeks a presidential pardon.

From the get-go, the threads of Patel’s crime saga twisted deep. All told, he siphoned approximately $210 million. Where did the money go? The feds recovered over $100 million. The rest? In a hole; offshore; Dubai; family?

Nik Patel steered a chain of astonishing agriculture-related scams and racked up a 52-year sentence in the pen.

(Photo public domain)

Judge Charles Kocoras, when sentencing Patel back in 2018 for the first $179-million con job, presciently described the con artist extraordinaire: “There’s a certain diabolical genius to what he did here.”

Kocoras added a sobering kicker, particularly considering Patel’s second and third frauds were yet to spawn. Kocoras described the tangled, initial scheme as one that “most mere mortals wouldn’t even contemplate.”

Despite knowing the fuse was already burning on more theft, Patel solemnly assured the court: “It is going to be my actions that will show remorse.”

Actions, indeed.

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer

Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust

Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing

Farmer Unearths Lost Treasure, Solves WW2 Mystery

Copper Thieves Cuffed by New Farm Security Innovation

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:32:40 GMT

Copper theft, at the bull’s-eye of agriculture crime since at least the 1990s, finally has a heavyweight foe on the farm—a watchman that never sleeps.

Amid the highest copper prices in history and 30-plus years of ag equipment destruction, Cop-R-Lock provides unprecedented theft prevention, contends Bobby Rader. “It’s as close to having a human being standing at your pump site, even in the most rural areas, as you can possibly get.”

Copper hit an all-time high of $5.96 per pound in 2025, triggering a blitz of theft across farms, substations, construction sites, telecommunications infrastructure, and numerous other industry hubs. Copper larceny sucks over $1 billion from the U.S. economy each year.

“From seed to water to machinery, we’ve got phenomenal innovation in every area of agriculture, except in the ag crime space,” says Rader, Chief of Police for Porterville, Calif. “Cop-R-Lock is the answer and there’s never been anything like it.”

Insult to Injury
A red metal plague is raging. Copper wire is easy to steal, and easy to sell at a scrapyard’s backdoor. Ground zero of copper theft arguably is central California’s Tulare County, often ranked as the No. 1 ag-producing county in the U.S.

Each year, Tulare and its surrounding Central Valley counties grow tens of billions of dollars in thirsty crops demanding water. The region is covered by pumps and irrigation systems housing a massive volume of copper wiring. Throw a proverbial rock, hit a pump. Drive a quarter mile in any direction, pass two or three pumps.

“This is not the California you see on television,” explains Rader, who led Tulare County’s Agricultural Crimes Unit for almost 16 years. “This is cowboy and ag country. This is rural America. It’s a place where drug addicts, particularly meth or heroin users, prey on pumps and steal copper. There’s an incredibly high amount of agriculture production here, and therefore, it’s a magnet for copper thieves.”

Tulare County is a flat valley maze of citrus and tree nut groves, i.e., plenty of pumps and farm sites just feet off the road with no line of sight for producers, landowners, or passersby.

“Up to now, copper theft has been easy,” Rader describes. “A criminal drives around at night, pulls 10’ off the road, and rips all the copper from a well, and nobody sees them and nobody hears them and nobody interrupts them. There is no immediate consequence, and the theft might not be discovered for days.”

“Cut off the ability to hide in the dark unaffected by consequence,” Rader says. “The opportunity belongs to the farmer and law enforcement now.”

(Photo by Farmblox)

Copper theft occurs year-round, but peaks from November to March, when fields and groves are often unmonitored and pumps are shut down. “It can easily happen during summertime and irrigation season, but generally, it happens over winter, when guys aren’t checking their pumps. If you’re a copper thief, you can go out at night and hit five or six pumps in one area, and nobody’s going to know about it for weeks. Law enforcement can’t get involved until it’s far too late.”

The copper theft burden shouldered by farmers is extraordinarily heavy. A thief hitting a small pump system might yield a mere $150 return in recyclable value, yet easily inflict $5,000-$7,000 in damage to the farmer-owner. However, if the given site houses multiple pumps and panels, the damage skyrockets to $100,000-plus. Insult to injury, the thieves often return and steal from the same sites after repairs.

“The worst I’ve ever seen at one site that I’ve personally investigated was about $150,000,” Rader notes. “That was the cost for the electrical contractor to come to the site, repair everything, and put new wire back.”

Multiplied across county and country, copper theft costs are staggering.

No more, Rader insists. The blue-collar lawman, raised in farm fields and shaped by a career at the frontline of ag crime, has developed a ferocious solution.

“Cut off the ability to hide in the dark unaffected by consequence. The opportunity belongs to the farmer and law enforcement now. Cop-R-Lock .”

Consequences Before Damage
What is Cop-R-Lock? Rader’s self-engineered tech innovation to protect farms from copper theft in real-time via a trigger wire attached to a sensor. The system protects a well system before theft and damage begin.

“A sensor is installed at the pump site. A trigger wire is integrated into the conduit systems at pump and panel, on the inside and outside,” Rader says. “That creates consequences immediately triggering Cop-R-Lock when anyone starts to cut the conduit or open the panels.”

The consequences are immediate and two-fold. One, extremely bright lights and a screaming siren go off. “It’s an absolutely overwhelming volume and creates a physiological response of stress in a thief.”

“We’ve got phenomenal innovation in every area of agriculture, except in the ag crime space,” says Rader. “Cop-R-Lock is the answer and there’s never been anything like it.”

(Photo by Farmblox)

Two, mass notifications are triggered. “It’s all controlled by an app. Whoever you put in the contact list is going to get the alert of the precise location where the attempted theft occurred. It can be anybody including family, employees, and local law enforcement. Everybody knows right away the system is being tampered with.”

“Literally, it shrinks the thief’s window down to minutes instead of hours, and it also ensures weeks don’t go by without someone knowing about the theft attempt.”

The tech, with a price tag under $4,000 per unit, extends beyond pumps and irrigation, and protects fencing, vehicles, batteries, and more.

“Run a trigger wire through chain link fence, or run it through multiple pieces of equipment, or anything else on a farm. Any cutting of that wire means instant notification to the owner. Noise, lights, notifications, and consequences—before damage.”

Genesis
After almost two decades trailing outlaws, Rader has seen every shade of ag crime. When he helmed the Agricultural Crimes Unit, 10 p.m. calls from frustrated farmers were a steady part of the job. “I’d hustle out and try to help, so furious over what some meth-head had done to another hard-working farmer. I grew up in these fields. I’m an agriculture guy and I care. These criminals steal several hundred dollars in copper, but leave behind tens of thousands in damage for a farmer. Or they leave behind a farmer who suddenly can’t irrigate and loses even more money. The whole thing drove me crazy.”

In early 2024, Rader was drowning a pot of leaded coffee at 3 a.m., wrestling his frustrations while considering how to stop a serial copper bandit who wrecked a chain of sites across Tulare County.

“I kept asking myself for a simpler solution. What are we missing? I’d searched the internet for years for something that instantaneously cut off opportunity, but there was nothing out there except another form of the latest, greatest game camera alarm.”

Prior to law enforcement, Rader was a contractor. Translated: His back pocket contains a mix of mechanical and electrical know-how. “I was standing by my kitchen counter, holding a coffee cup, and it hit me like a bolt.”

Rader grabbed a napkin and pen, and drew a blueprint. Two hours later, he transferred the scrawl to a notepad: Cop-R-Lock was born.

Assisted by a local engineer, Rader built five prototypes on a shoestring budget and filed for a patent. “I needed help and that’s where FarmBlox stepped up. They understood what farmers are going through and recognized how bad copper theft it. They jumped on it and turned it into what we have today, which is a protection tool for any farmer across the country or world.”

“We mail Cop-R-Lock to farmers and they either install it or get an electrician to do it,” Rader adds. “It’s an amazingly simple system to install and very easy to operate. One thing for certain, copper theft is not going away. The thieves are coming, but we’re ready with a tool that cuts off opportunity right from the get-go.”

At the Heart
Methods for copper theft prevention vary by farm, ranging from steel cages, wire frames, fences, and concrete poured around conduits. Rader’s innovation is common-sense technology, he insists. “It’s simple and strikes at the heart of the problem. We’re taking away a thief’s opportunity.”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Outraged Farmers Blame Ag Monopolies as Catastrophic Collapse Looms

Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business

County Shuts Down 15-Yr-Old’s Bait Stand on Family Farm, Threatens Daily Fines

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer

Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust

Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing

Farmer Unearths Lost Treasure, Solves WW2 Mystery

Scientists Team with NASA to Grow Crops in Space as Zero Gravity Yields New Discoveries for Farmers on Earth

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 13:25:52 GMT

As humans set their sights on living beyond Earth, one surprising challenge is emerging: how do we grow healthy crops in the uncharted environment of space?

Purdue University researchers, in partnership with NASA, are answering this question by experimenting with tomato plants aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Their groundbreaking work could pave the way for future space colonies—and even improve agriculture back on Earth.

From Earthly Challenges to Space Solutions

Plants, like humans, are susceptible to diseases caused by microbes, bacteria, fungi, and viruses. On Earth, these problems are manageable, but in the confines of a spacecraft or a Martian colony, a sick crop could spell disaster.

Stranded astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) struggles to survive on Mars in “The Martian” motion picture that first came out in October 2015.

(20th Century Fox/The Martian)

Dr. Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi, a professor of Botany and Plant Pathology at Purdue, has spent years collaborating with NASA engineers to develop the Advanced Plant Habitat—a growth chamber designed to give plants their best chance to thrive in space.

“For decades, NASA sent plants into space, but always in containers that weren’t ideal for growth,” Dr. Iyer-Pascuzzi explained. “With the Advanced Plant Habitat, we’ve finally created an environment where we can truly study and support plant development beyond Earth.”

Tomatoes Take Flight: Engineering Meets Biology

The journey from concept to space-ready experiment wasn’t easy. Denise Caldwell, a Purdue PhD candidate, described the difficulty of translating biological needs into engineering solutions.

“We faced problems like how to keep seeds in place and how much water to use,” Caldwell said. “I grew this successfully 22 times and so I felt confident that what we were doing was going to work.”

Their efforts paid off when, in December 2023, their tomato experiment launched to the ISS. By early 2024, astronauts began testing the system in space—an apex moment for Caldwell. “Watching from home with my children as the experiment began was surreal. We were learning how plants behave in ways we never could on Earth.”

Last week I saw plants for the first time in 4 months. I might have gotten a little teary. We get fresh fruit and veggies via our cargo vehicles and they provide welcome pops of color and scent, but it turns out this does not compare at all to seeing living plants and smelling… pic.twitter.com/AfxHemAUbz
— Loral O'Hara (@lunarloral) January 24, 2024

Unlocking New Knowledge for Earth and Beyond

One of the most exciting discoveries from the experiment is how microgravity reveals hidden aspects of plant biology.

“When you take away gravity, you start to see pathways and genes and functions that you normally wouldn’t see on Earth,” said Dr. Iyer-Pascuzzi. “So, for me as a scientist, that’s the really cool thing because we have this plant hormone that now we’re seeing connections, in space, when we remove the gravity, that we didn’t see here.”

These lessons have the potential to help farmers on Earth by unlocking new scientific knowledge about plant growth and resilience.

One key insight is that plants seem less concerned with the lack of gravity, as long as they receive the right light, nutrients, and carbon dioxide. However, some natural plant defenses are suppressed in space, meaning extra care will be needed to prevent disease.

Looking ahead, Dr. Iyer-Pascuzzi is optimistic: “Is it possible to grow crops on Mars? Absolutely—if we provide the right conditions.”

Stranded astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) discovers his potato farm has been destroyed as he struggles to survive on Mars in “The Martian” motion picture. (20th Century Fox/October 2015)

(20th Century Fox/The Martian)

As Purdue’s team continues to analyze data from the ISS experiment, their work represents a giant leap for both human and plant kind. Their research isn’t just shaping the future of space travel—it’s also helping us better understand and improve agriculture right here at home.

Reference:

For more on Purdue’s space plant research, visit Tomatoes in spaceflight: A giant leap for human and plant kind.

Tiny Tech, Big Impact: Purdue Researchers Harness Nanotechnology to Transform Farming

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:01:41 GMT

At Purdue University, researchers are working at the tiniest scale to tackle some of agriculture’s biggest challenges. While their innovations may be microscopic, their impact could transform how the world grows its food.

Unlocking the Power of Nanoparticles in the Field

Tucked away in a quiet upstairs lab, scientists are developing “nanocarriers"— ultra-tiny particles designed to deliver pesticides, fungicides and herbicides more precisely to plants.

“We work with agrochemicals from insecticides to fungicides and [are] even starting to work with herbicides now,” says Caleb Fretz, a Purdue PhD student. “The goal is to try to increase the delivery efficiency of those active ingredients using nano delivery as a way of getting them to their biological targets.”

Currently, less than 0.1% of pesticides actually reach their intended targets. Purdue’s team hopes to boost that to 1% or more — a tenfold leap that could revolutionize efficiency and cut costs for farmers.

“If we can get even 1% of our pesticide to its target, that’s a huge leap in efficiency,” adds Luke Johnson, a fellow PhD student in Agricultural and Biological Engineering.

Assistant professor Kurt Ristroph , who leads related nanotechnology work at Purdue, highlights the broader vision.

“Our team’s focus on nanocarriers could make crop agriculture more sustainable and climate-resilient,” he says.

Precision Targeting: How Nano-Encapsulation Works

These particles, often organic and built with a protective shell, are engineered to shield and deliver their active ingredients exactly where crops need them most. The nano-shells allow them to travel through a plant’s leaf, stem and roots to get closer to the target.

Citrus Greening, a disease currently devastating orange trees in Florida, often takes up residence in the tree’s phloem. That area is traditionally a hard-to-access region where pests and diseases hide.

“We can tune what we put on the surface and the size [of the particle] to better reach those targets,” Johnson says.

They’re also able to engineer surface charges and add biomolecules, like sugars, in order to direct treatments to precise locations inside plants.

“If we can translocate our nanopesticide through the leaf, stem and down to the roots where pests lay eggs, we can dramatically reduce the amount of chemicals needed,” explains fellow researcher Bilal Ahmed.

Tracking these particles is also crucial as the technology prepares to undergo regulatory approval.

“I am developing ways to track these particles using metals, tagging them with different receptors,” Fretz says. “That way, we know exactly where they go — whether to the roots, inside the phloem or elsewhere.”

Collaboration and the Road to Sustainable Agriculture

This research is part of a larger collaboration across academia, industry and government.

Ristroph recently organized a major symposium on nanotechnology for plant drug delivery, with findings published in Nature Nanotechnology.

“The precise delivery enabled by nanotechnology could revolutionize agriculture,” notes Professor Greg Lowry from Carnegie Mellon University, a co-author of the study. “But, there are still technical challenges we must address.”

For Purdue’s team, practical application is just as important as scientific discovery.

“It needs to be something you can load in your sprayer and apply just like current formulations,” Fretz says.

The aim is to make the transition seamless for farmers, enabling quick adoption and scaling.

As agriculture faces rising costs, climate variability, and a need to limit environmental impact, this nano-scale innovation offers hope.

“We want to apply less pesticide, less often —improving farmers’ bottom lines and reducing chemicals in the environment,” Johnson says.

It’s a tiny idea with the potential for a giant leap in global farming — one that could make agriculture more efficient, affordable and sustainable for generations to come.

Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing

Wed, 21 May 2025 18:37:01 GMT

How does a $650 million cattle con crash? Under the creaking weight of a mere 26 cows.

From 2017-2019, a motley trio of Ponzi scammers—Illinois cowboy, Midwest matron, and polished Georgia fixer—hoodwinked investors and burned through $140 million per month at peak mayhem. New money paid old money.

The stunning scam was a madhouse of blind wire transfers, bogus promissory notes, hearty handshakes, and monopoly money. Three prison sentences later, questions linger over who was behind the curtain and where the booty is buried.

Helluva Tale
Built like a brick house and every inch the central Texas cattleman, plain-talking Roye Stephens was not a man to burn. In September 2017, Stephens dialed Marvin Wills and reported the theft of 26 cows.

Special Ranger Wills , long-time veteran of the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association , listened as Stephens dropped a “helluva tale,” centered on the escapades of sketchy businessman touting interests in show cattle and legal marijuana: Mark David Ray.

Roye Stephens, the Texas rancher who put the spotlight on Mark Ray.

(Photo by Facebook)

“At first, I thought Roye Stephens was just talking about Mark Ray doing something local, but I could tell something was off—way different than most anything I’d ever heard at the ground level,” Wills says. “Stephens was describing what would become one of the biggest cattle scams of all time.”

“There was a history of cattle dealings between Stephens and Ray, and those dealings weren’t always fruitful, but Stephens kept going back because every deal was almost too good to be true,” Wills continues. “Ray always had a sweetener.”

Stephens paid Ray $75,000 for half-interest in 52 head of Lampasas County cattle which had been trucked to an Oklahoma feed lot. In a nutshell, the 52 cows did not exist—whether in Oklahoma, Texas, or Timbuktu. The transaction was an inventory fantasy. Stephens had been skinned—and his call for justice would be the key that picked the lock on a buck-wild $650 million shell game.

In tandem with Lampasas County detective David Thorpe, Wills began tracing Ray’s tracks across the livestock industry. “The story was wild,” Wills says. “A real cluster. Ray had investors and connections all over the place, and he’d even gone to Russia with the supposed intention to open a packing plant. He was big-time, except nobody really knew what was real and what was fake about him.”

Wills was certain: Ray was up to his neck in crime. “We knew he sold the exact same number of cattle at the exact same weight to packing plants. Impossible. Week to week on the rail with precisely the same numbers? No way.”

In March 2018, after robbing Stephens, Ray was indicted in Lampasas County for “false statement to obtain property” and “theft by deception.” Specifically, the indictment included a damning text sent by Ray, asking Stephens to pay “for cows with calves on them with eggs put in but of course no confirmed. Cows are at Pawhuska Oklahoma. $2,265 per pair plus freight 52 pair.”

A plea? Settlement? Slap on the wrist? Fine?

Rather, an explosion. Ray, 57, arrived for his bond hearing in Lampasas County by flying in on a luxury Beechcraft King Air—over 26 cattle in rural Texas.

“He showed up in a million-dollar airplane,” Wills recalls. “Basically, he may as well have set off a bomb. That’s when we absolutely knew this was much deeper than a handful of cattle. Who was this guy? Who?”

In short time, Wills and Thorpe were seated in an Austin FBI office, spilling their giant cup of tea.

“We started this, and the feds ended it,” Wills exclaims. “To this day, it boggles my mind. The money; the marijuana; the cattle. Still doesn’t all add up.”

Hometown Dust
The man grew money.

Mark David Ray, at least as far back as the early 2000s, wrangled golden cattle deals. A son of Knox County, in west-central Illinois, he loved flash and the fibrous feel of a thick knot of crisp bills.

“We started this, and the feds ended it,” says Special Ranger Marvin Wills. “To this day, it boggles my mind.”

(Photo by TSCRA)

His scheme? Ray, as president of Berwick Black Cattle Company and director of Source of Champions, offered bang-bang cattle investments with promises of pronto payback plus high interest—sometimes 25% in months.

Operating out of Abingdon, Ill., things were rosy out of the gate. On Jan. 13, 2002, according to a subsequent Illinois State Securities Department investigation, Ray sold a $150,000 “investment contract” to an Illinois cattleman, and 14 days later paid back the $150,000, plus $3,000. On Nov. 7, he sold another “investment contract” for $122,500 and paid back the principal, along with an extra $5,000.17, 21 days later.

A blitz of similar transactions and bigger returns followed, stretching until 2005, when the wheels came off and the investor payments stopped boomeranging. In a nutshell, Ray got pinched and was barred from doing business: “The Respondents (Ray) shall be permanently prohibited from offering and selling securities in the State of Illinois.”

No matter. Ray, an investment prophet, shook off the hometown dust and made tracks for the West.

With no criminal charges filed in Illinois, the Berwick Black Ponzi was a learning lesson. The next go-around, Ray swung for the fences.

Make It Rain
He talked the talk. He played and preyed. He wore boots and jeans.

“Mark Ray knew how to use his background in agriculture and gain trust,” says Joshua Mayes, former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) senior trial counsel, Enforcement Division, who spearheaded a subsequent investigation uncovering Ray’s scam. “He would go to cattle shows, compete for awards, and rub shoulders with people who thought he was legit. Salt-of-the-earth farmers, ranchers, business people, and average joes—he fooled them all with a handshake.”

Ray claimed to have mastered the cattle flip, fattening cows in feed lots for crazy money: Give me $500,000 today. I’ll give you $600,000 in eight weeks.

“He was so good at speaking the lingo and moving fast,” Mayes continues. “Literally, within months of meeting people, he’d have them wiring him hundreds of thousands of dollars without so much as a napkin scrawl promising payback—sometimes with no financial statements, no deal transaction firm, and no proof. Just his word.”

Based in Denver, Colo., Ray put a foot in both agriculture and legal marijuana, founding three companies: Custom Consulting, Universal Herbs and MR Cattle. To bolster his phenomenal sleight-of-hand skills, he needed team players: Someone to haul in whales and another to grease the financial skids. Enter old friends Ron Throgmartin and Reva Stachniw.

Throgmartin, living in Buford, Ga., was CEO of Diego Pellicer, a legal marijuana business. He had been in the trenches during Ray’s Illinois cattle Ponzi. Throgmartin became Ray’s general consultant and appeared the part, presenting a credible business front.

Stachniw, who looked like a cross between a PTA grandmother and Sunday school teacher, was an Illinois crony from Knox County. A retired nurse, she knew the cattle industry and was owner and manager of RM Farm and Sunshine Enterprises.

Ray, Throgmartin, and Stachniw steered investors toward high-speed returns on cattle flips, straight business loans, and marijuana investments, typically in the 10-20% range.

What a threesome. They made it rain—as in, $140 million per month at the height of the scam.

“People With Money”
How did the money machine work?

First, Ray’s engine required prodigious amounts of fuel—a tall order considering he essentially had no cattle. Like a Ponzi politician, Ray needed to raise massive amounts of money, steadily sucking in new investors to pay off old investors.

Ron Throgmartin served as Ray’s business face, keeping track of major investors and drafting emails, texts, and promissory notes to bolster the scheme.

(Photo by Facebook)

“He had to constantly make deals,” Mayes describes. “The whole train stops if he doesn’t consistently fool new victims. Once he got rolling and got his victims comfortable, he convinced some to let their investments ride: ‘Right now I owe you 124,000, but I have another deal coming up, and you can make it $150,000 if you give me another 3 months.’”

Throgmartin served as Ray’s legitimate business face, keeping track of major investors and drafting emails, texts, and promissory notes to boost the scheme.

Stachniw handled the bank accounts. She ensured Ray avoided bank detection by keeping his name out of transactions. She maintained accounts in the names of RM Farm and Sunshine Enterprises, signed promissory notes, signed stacks of blank checks for use by Ray as needed, and transferred tens of millions as requested by Ray.

According to federal prosecutors, Stachniw “advised Ray and Throgmartin, generally via text message, telephone call, or email, on a near-daily basis, how much money the co-conspirators needed to raise from victim-investors to avoid overdrawing the various bank accounts the co-conspirators used, and exposing the scheme. At times, Stachniw expressed surprise that Ray was able to find victim-investors willing to continue to invest, for example, writing to Ray on or about August 7, 2018, “I can’t believe you are able to find people with money.”

As the Ponzi pyramid climbed, investors unknowingly were wiring other investors. Literally, victim to victim per Ray’s lies. From the SEC report: Ray would instruct Victim A to wire funds to Victim B, telling Victim A that the funds were for the purchase of cattle from Victim B. Ray would tell Victim B, however, that the funds received from Victim A were payment for another cattle trade in which Victim B had previously invested.

“The investors were lulled to sleep,” Mayes explains. “One ranch gets a wire transfer from a second ranch in another state. The first rancher with the incoming money makes an assumption: The money must have come from a cattle deal.”

From late 2017 and continuing through in or around early 2019, Ray, Throgmartin, and Stachniw raised approximately $650 million from victim-investors.

Translated: The Big 3 tapped hundreds of investors for two-thirds of a billion dollars in a mere 17 months.

Lifesavings, Gone
As Ponzi structures reach skyward, they inevitably creak and collapse. No different with Ray’s Jenga tower.

Reva Stachniw, a retired nurse, knew the cattle industry and was owner and manager of RM Farm and Sunshine Enterprises.

(Photo by Facebook)

Ray had too many irons in the fire. When Roye Stephens called the law over stolen Lampasas County cattle, what first appeared as a tiny fissure turned into a gaping hole of access for the SEC and federal prosecutors. The SEC filed against Ray, Stachniw, and Throgmartin on Sept. 30, 2019. Federal prosecutors filed an indictment against Ray on Feb 20, 2020, and against Stachniw and Throgmartin On April 22, 2021.

“When we busted them,” Mayes says, “they were moving over $100 million per month, but that’s far from what sticks in my mind. I just remember the victims. At first, the victims didn’t believe it was all a scam. Then their disbelief changed to panic. Lifesavings, gone.”

“When the public thinks of Ponzis, they think of Bernie Madoff and his sophisticated victims. Therefore, the public thinks of a Ponzi as stealing from the rich. That’s not true most of the time, and by no means in this case. These were mainly middle-class victims in agriculture that worked for a lifetime to make a nest egg to invest. Just normal people lured by a high return. And they wind up on the brink of suicide because a good day, maybe the best day, is getting back 25 cents on the dollar.”

Pulling Levers?
Ray took a plea deal and admitted to bank fraud and wire fraud, throwing Throgmartin and Stachniw under the bus, agreeing to testify against both. Throgmartin and Stachniw claimed innocence as victims of Ray’s duplicity. They were found guilty in a jury trial in 2022.

The trio was sentenced in 2023. Ray, 50 months and $23,374,664 in restitution. Stachniw, 72 months, $14,597,335 in restitution and forfeiture of $6,013,370. Throgmartin, 72 months, $14,597,335 in restitution and forfeiture of $1,004,904. The mastermind, Ray, got the least amount of prison time.

“Stachniw and Throgmartin were convicted of being knowing participants,” Mayes says. “Their defense was, ‘We didn’t know it was a Ponzi. We didn’t know what Mark Ray was truly doing.’ The evidence says otherwise.”

(For more on Throgmartin’s defense and his claims about Ray, see his May 2023 YouTube interview.)

What was Ray’s long-term plan? What was next if the scheme hadn’t crashed?

“I don’t think he had a plan at all,” Mayes contends. “I think he just compartmentalized in the moment and kept going. I also suspect he believed that if things got bad, he could just declare bankruptcy, ride it out, and face no charges. It certainly worked the first time in Illinois.”

Sticky-fingered Mark David Ray used new money to pay old money in a $650M heist.

(Photo by Facebook)

And where did the money go? The feds tracked a portion: “Despite putting little to none of their own money into the scheme, the co-conspirators transferred substantial amounts of the proceeds of their conspiracy and scheme to themselves for their personal benefit. For example, between in or around 2017 and in or around 2018 alone, Stachniw transferred approximately $9,000,000 traceable to victim-investors to her personal investment accounts, including approximately $1,000,000 in or around August 2018. Throgmartin received more than approximately $3,000,000 over the course of the conspiracy, including at least approximately $800,000 from Stachniw in or around August 2018.”

But what of Ray’s loot? Was it laundered, flipped into the marijuana business, buried in a hole? Was there another figure behind Ray pulling levers?

“He was playing the high life with jets and travel, and there were reports of gambling, and he had to pump lots into the lower parts of the pyramid,” Mayes concludes, “but where the rest of the money really went is unclear to this day.”

While Ray robbed Peter to pay Paul, there was a mountain of cash left over. The SEC report still echoes: Tens of millions of dollars’ worth of investor money is missing and unaccounted for.

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust

How a Nazi-Fighting Oklahoman Rejected NFL Draft and Went Home to Farm

Sisters of Farm Fraud: How 4 Siblings Fleeced USDA for $10M

Tractor Terrorist: How a Forgotten Farmer Attacked Washington with Fertilizer Bombs

Farmer Unearths Lost Treasure, Solves WW2 Mystery

How The Deep State Tried, And Failed, To Crush An American Farmer

Organic Implosion: How Two Grifters Cooked $50M In Fake Fertilizer and Rocked Agriculture

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

Cornhusker King: Visionary Nebraska Farmer Paved Road to Modern Ag

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 13:19:40 GMT

What is the measure of a farmer at twilight?

Record yields, big dollars, giant acreage? All for naught, says Stan DeBoer.

“The only things that mattered were the Good Lord, my wife, my daughters, and helping other farmers,” he insists. “The rest was noise.”

A strongbox of a man with python arms, hands of stone, every inch of 6’4”, dark hair flowing under a trucker hat, garbed in t-shirt, Levi’s, and cowboy boots on Nebraska dirt, DeBoer was a force of nature. Think Elvis with muscles.

Decades ahead of his time, DeBoer rode risk as an ethanol pioneer, Tractorcade driver, irrigation innovator, gubernatorial candidate, and vital player during the wildest soybean heist in U.S. history, each endeavor toe-tagged with an undeniable maxim—first bird to fly gets all the arrows.

Stan DeBoer paid the costs of success for future generations of American farmers.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

In the FBI’s labyrinthine basement, at the back of a forgotten filing cabinet, a surveillance file surely exists on the activities of a renegade DeBoer. Likely spilled across the first memo: This Nebraska farmer is a born leader, keeps his word at all costs, and stirs the passions of fellow producers. Stan DeBoer is a damn problem.

Roll the Dice
In 1938, on the flats of Gosper County in southcentral Nebraska, a stick-built home with no electricity or plumbing saw the birth of DeBoer. Six months later, after surrounding land was slated for the bottom of a 2,000-acre irrigation reservoir, DeBoer’s father, George, put the bare-bones home on wheels, and as bread dough baked in the tiny kitchen’s wood stove, he rolled the structure to dry ground roughly a section distant—supper ready on arrival, still warmed by the waning embers.

House moving and bread baking—all in a day for the DeBoer family.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

The bliss of a rural childhood doglegged in 1945 after the loss of DeBoer’s mother, Effie, to cancer. With George punching a clock at an ammunition naval depot in nearby Hastings, young DeBoer spent every summer into his teens chasing the shadow of an older brother, Bryce, working corn and soybean rows in Cozad, 100 miles west of Hastings. Farming became DeBoer’s outlet—and gameplan in life.

“What I was doing in those fields was a disaster, but fall still came every year,” he says. “Bryce looked out for me and he became like a second father. I learned and learned, and it stirred an internal desire to farm.”

At an early age, DeBoer hoed his own row beyond farming, and at a head taller, he kept an eye out for the weaker party. “Maybe nothing bothered me as much as someone pushing down an underdog. I was always capable of defending myself, and I did likewise with my friends. I never worried about sharing the same opinion with the crowd.”

Young Stan DeBoer, bottom left.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

At high school’s end, DeBoer clawed for a toehold in agriculture. Despite no father in farming and no family land, he possessed unshakeable belief and a willingness to roll the dice.

“Risk has always been farming,” explains DeBoer, now 86. “I was never afraid of debt. I’d go buy a tractor tomorrow, because the moment you make that purchase and drive away onto the road, you’ve made a statement: ‘You believe.’”

Eighteen-year-old DeBoer was certain his future ran along a straight line to farming—until a young lady crawled under his 1951 Mercury 4-door.

It was obvious: She was the one.

Dark Elvis
Born by fire. Literally.

Young Bonnie Nielsen, bottom left.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

In 1940, heavily pregnant Vivian Nielsen, along with her husband, Herman, scrambled to put out a prairie fire adjacent to the couple’s dairy operation. The exertion triggered the premature birth of Bonnie Nielsen—raised to weather every wind of the farming life.

When Herman wasn’t tending cows, he drank coffee by the pot at the Dixie Inn in Cozad; it was his office. In early 1958, 18-year-old Bonnie walked into her father’s haunt and slid into a booth just as DeBoer entered the joint.

Thunderstruck, Stan and Bonnie: “Taken together, they were an awesome looking pair—really special. Hook’em up together to any wagon and they could pull it,” describes Wayne Cryts.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

DeBoer eyeballed the girl with hair spun from sunshine. DeBoer was thunderstruck by the dairyman’s daughter. Dark Elvis met blonde beauty.

“I remember the exact booth where Bonnie was sitting,” he says. “I just happened to know the girl she was with, and I walked over to them. Bonnie was a nurse’s aide at the hospital, so I asked if I could drive her to work.”

On the road into town, DeBoer’s tire caught a nail. A most fortuitous puncture.

The DeBoer daughters: Kris, Ginny, Johna, Leigh, and Stephanie in the arms of Stan.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

“I got out to change the tire, and the next thing I knew, Bonnie was laying on the ground, helping to fix the flat. I knew right then she was the best thing ever to happen to me—the luckiest night of my life. I was afraid she might not be real.”

Real, indeed. Bonnie was golden-hearted, steel-backboned, razor-tongued.

Months later, the Nebraska teens walked the aisle. Truly, a matched pair.

“She was my everything and my world to this day,” DeBoer says, his voice breaking. “A lover, and I have five children to prove it. A hugger, and I have a widespread community to prove it. A homemaker, and I have the quality of my lifetime to prove it. What role didn’t she play?”

Stan and Bonnie impacted the lives of thousands of rural Americans—repeatedly standing in the gap with no gain at hand.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

“Bonnie guarded our home, patterned five daughters after herself, and was beside me for every farming step I ever took,” DeBoer adds. “Of every event to come in our life, she was never afraid. All the dumb ideas I had were never dumb to Bonnie, and that made the world easy to conquer.”

The pieces were in place for a monumental farming life.

Return to the Plow
Presenting his bride with a pink, two-bedroom home north of Cozad, DeBoer’s domestic bliss contrasted with an agricultural operation stretched painfully thin—one well and a handful of cattle. “Generally, we were raising 100-bushel corn and getting $1 per bushel, with the elevator probably taking a nickel. Inputs were cheap, but accumulation of money was impossible. I don’t remember holding a $100 bill in that era, and very few $20 bills.”

No fear: Stan DeBoer takes the mic and rallies farmers at a benchmark moment in agriculture history—the Ristine soybean raid.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

At 22, DeBoer talked his way into a temporary carpentry job (along with Army Reserve duty) with AT&T to build a link in a chain of line-of-site towers. “I should have paid them for the lifetime of knowledge I gained in five months,” he says. “I never stopped using those skills on the farm.”

When AT&T’s Cozad construction was completed, the outfit boss approached DeBoer with a lucrative work offer at another location, and a potential spot in the leadership chain.

DeBoer returned to his plow.

11-Mile Snake
When old money owns the land, sometimes a switch is in order.

In 1966, DeBoer pulled stakes and moved his family 30 miles southeast to the edge of Bertrand in Gosper County, trading the little pink house for a curiosity hidden behind a vast curtain of sunflowers. The inner core of DeBoer’s new home was an old railroad depot.

DeBoer’s tractorcade train snakes toward Washington, D.C., 100 miles per day.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

He worked rented ground for $300 per month and a fifth of the yield. His first year, targeting 125-bushel irrigated corn, he rolled snake eyes: The crop was hailed out for a total loss. Roll’em again.

Row by row, field by field, DeBoer pieced together an operation into the 1970s, but as he navigated between stability and prosperity on his own ground, commodities nosedived and the agriculture economy plummeted in tandem, pulling down farms across the U.S.

“We were like so many other farmers—always extending the numbers to go one more year,” DeBoer recalls. “Always having to convince a lender to go again. Something had to change. And it can never just be about solving your own farm problems: What about all those farmers coming after you? There’s right, wrong, and responsibility in farming, and part of that is trying to work for change beyond your own lifetime.”

A farmer army in Washington, D.C., 1979.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

In 1977, amid the agricultural maelstrom, 350 miles southwest of DeBoer in Baca County, Colorado, five farmers seeded the American Agriculture Movement (AAM), aimed at two basic principles. One, parity: A fair price on crops to just cover the costs of production and enable a farmer to make a survivable living. Two, country of origin labeling (COOL).

A true populist surge, with no official leadership, AAM exploded via local farmer meetings and phone trees, resulting in a series of protests at county, state, and national levels. Ringleader by example, DeBoer leaped into the fray. Tip of the spear by nature.

Foremost among the protests was the 1979 Tractorcade (DeBoer also participated in numerous AAM events and provided congressional testimony on Capitol Hill about the state of U.S. ag) to Washington, D.C.—an epic 5,000-tractor farmer army that crossed the continent at the height of winter in four separate convoys. The producers rumbled into the nation’s capital and occupied the National Mall, demanding Congress address the realities of an agriculture industry in collapse.

DeBoer’s Tractorcade branch set out for D.C. from North Platte, Neb., in January: 100 miles per day, 8 mph, dark morning to dark evening, 17 days on the road with snowfall on each day, including a blizzard.

At its furthest, the line of tractors and support vehicles snaked 11 miles—including the steady roll of an International 1256 with Bonnie at the wheel.

Respected and loved by all: Bonnie DeBoer.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

Fellow Tractorcade participants Eugene and Laurie Schroder (son and daughter-in-law of Gene Schroder, one of AAM’s five original Campo, Colo., founders) recall DeBoer and Bonnie. “Stan was so well-respected,” Eugene says. “So big and strong that he always stood out, but known more for being trustworthy. The whole family was that way, just outstanding.”

“Bonnie was a miracle lady,” Laurie echoes. “A blondie with a smile always on her face, yet so tough. A kind touch and looked so nice, but tough as nails.”

In a moss gold, 1976 Chevy pickup, DeBoer drove point ahead of the tractor train, negotiating with law enforcement to find highways and resting stops at amusement parks, fairgrounds, and parking lots.

Concerned over the D.C.-bound procession, the FBI dropped moles into the procession, garbed in blue-collar clothing. “At least from Galesburg, Ill., the government had plants with us dressed up like farmers,” DeBoer notes. “The message had hit Washington that we were truly coming, and they did their best to stall us on the road, because they knew we were going to converge with the other tractor trains and roll into town together.”

Scouting in front of the 11-mile snake, DeBoer was told by highway patrolmen to change routes, away from a major highway. Bulldog with a bone, DeBoer was not a man to be pushed. “I told them, ‘No way.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you drive back to the guys in the tractors and try telling each one which way they can go?’ That settled it.”

Stan DeBoer’s brother, Bryce, made waves to ensure the AAM message gained attention in D.C.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

Once in D.C., DeBoer, alongside producer Corky Jones, became the voice of Nebraska farmers. Every day, inside the offices of congressional reps on Capitol Hill, DeBoer laid out the why’s and how’s of the agriculture crisis and the extreme need for change.

Each night, he walked the farmer encampment stretched across the mall between Capitol Hill and the Washington Memorial. “I’d go from facility to facility to the trucks and trailers to answer questions. We’d have a final meeting at a motel each night, and every state had at least one representative individual. So many of us were fighting for our very farm existence.”

Several months later, the last remnant of AAM producers left D.C. “We tore up and reseeded the mall before we left,” DeBoer describes. “No doubt, we left it in better shape than we arrived. Did we do any good in Washington? We sure tried.”

After the 1979 Tractorcade and participation in other farmer protests in multiple states, with reputation building and profile expanding, DeBoer jumped headfirst into a buck-wild grain heist.

The Great Soybean Raid
In January 1981, in open defiance of the federal government, producer Wayne Cryts announced his intention to steal 32,000 bushels of his own soybeans held at the bankrupt Ristine elevator in New Madrid County in southeast Missouri.

Who else? Stan DeBoer front-and-center at the historic soybean heist in southeast Missouri.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

The soybeans, despite being grown and owned by Cryts, were considered part of the elevator’s bankruptcy losses. Cryts selected Feb. 16, George Washington’s birthday, as the day of liberation—the Great Soybean Raid.

Over 750 miles northwest of Ristine, DeBoer and Bonnie were incensed by the news of Cryts’ plight. Already on the federal radar after the AAM protest involvement in Washington, and despite nothing to gain except a felony prison sentence, they hit the highway, bound for the Missouri Bootheel. Arriving at the Ramada Inn in Sikeston, where Cryts was preparing for the logistics of the breakin-breakout with trucks and bucket brigades, DeBoer immediately threw his weight and reputation into the fray.

Recalling DeBoer’s support, Cryts is deeply grateful—and still impacted 44 years onward. “Stan DeBoer. Stan DeBoer,” Cryts repeats with emphasis. “Let me tell you about Stan DeBoer.”

“The first time I met Stan, he was somebody I respected from the first words he said and the standout way he conducted himself: A man of truth. The guy you want in your corner.”

“He was such an impressive physical specimen,” Cryts describes. “I’d say he had to be 6’4” or taller, and his wife, Bonnie, was a very nice-looking lady. Taken together, they were an awesome looking pair—really special. Hook’em up together to any wagon and they could pull it. Guaranteed.”

Wayne Cryts hold a sample jar of “stolen” soybeans from the Ristine raid.

(Photo by Chris Bennett)

DeBoer and a host of other farmers from Missouri and the Midwest were prepared, short of violence, to physically retrieve Cryts’ crop. “We wanted the American people to know exactly what was going on,” DeBoer says. “We hid nothing. I got on television and did an interview that night, letting everyone know what the government was up to and why we were taking the beans the next day.”

Surrounded by nervous U.S. marshals and FBI agents, DeBoer faced a genuine prospect of imprisonment. “They were tired of us and they had already experienced several months of us in Washington. Yes, I knew they recognized me by then, but I didn’t care. I was helping Wayne Cryts no matter what. If not, I could be next, or any farmer could be next. I could never just sit back on my own farmland and watch bad things happen to another farmer.”

Peeling tin, taking beans, making history at Ristine.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

At 10 a.m., Feb. 16, before the eyes of U.S. marshals and FBI agents, Cryts and a massive throng of farmers entered the Ristine elevator grounds, loaded almost 80 trucks (over two days), and drove away with 32,000-plus bushels of soybeans. Pressure cooker rattling, the feds stood down.

“I was in and out of the elevator office, dealing with federal authorities,” Cryts explains. “While the raid was going, there were a lot of guys out there who listened to Stan’s opinion of how to proceed. That’s how influential he was; that’s how powerful his reputation was.”

And when the trucks were loaded and leaving, after the intensity of the action waned, how did DeBoer behave? No glory; no backslapping. He organized the grating and cleaning of the elevator grounds.

“That’s my last memory of Stan,” Cryts says. “I saw him leading by example. I saw him and Bonnie walking around the elevator, holding a bag, and humbly picking up trash and cigarette butts out of the gravel. There they were, 1,000 miles from home, helping me for no other reason than they believed it was the right thing to do. Says a lot about a man. Says a lot about a woman. Says a lot about them.”

Trucks loaded with Wayne Cryts’ bushels at Ristine.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

On the elevator grounds, federal officers recorded every name and action. And DeBoer was already on their radar, Cryts says.

“I want to go on record and make people realize what I believe is the most important part of the whole deal,” Cryts emphasizes. “After Ristine, it was always said, ‘Wayne Cryts has courage.’ Let me tell reality. I acted out of desperation. The real courage on display was by Stan DeBoer and others there like him. Why? They jeopardized all they had for someone they didn’t know, and they knew they could get hurt, injured, in jail, or pay lifetime penalties—all of those consequences were very, very real. I’m saying Stan and Bonnie were the people with everything to lose, and that is rare courage in farming or any part of life.”

“Justice and freedom don’t depend so much on standing up for yourself as they do for standing up for others,” Cryts emphasizes. “That’s what Stan believes and that’s how he lived his life. I’ll never, never forget what he did. Stan DeBoer put his head in the noose for me.”

After the surreal raid at Ristine, firmly in federal crosshairs, DeBoer risked it all on a giant brew of corn and milo—fuel alcohol.

Keep the Wolves Away
In 2023, ethanol contributed $54.2 billion to GDP and sucked up roughly 40% of all U.S. corn yield—an industry partially built on the shoulders of DeBoer and other likeminded farmers who laid the foundation stones of modern renewable fuels.

Gasohol gallons.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

In 1981, DeBoer and his three farming brothers visited the Schroder family in Baca County, Colorado, to eyeball a fledgling ethanol operation. Remarkably visionary, the Schroders erected one of the first ethanol plants in U.S. history, built from scratch.

By hand, DeBoer and his siblings then constructed Nebraska’s first ethanol plant of sizable production—mild steel and 10,000-gallon tanks. “It was a financial opportunity for myself and a bigger one for my entire region. We could see how the future was shaping up.”

Right idea; wrong time. After trial and error, DeBoer hit the wall.

“Our plant worked so well, but it didn’t matter. We didn’t have the volume needed, and when the corn price went up 40 cents, and we couldn’t rely on the cattle industry to take our byproducts, we were in trouble. Additionally, we should have built with heavy stainless, but we didn’t know that earlier. Bottom line and final problem: Our debt limit.”

When the funds ran out, DeBoer and his brothers took an ethanol bath. “We had no means to pay what we owed. The only solution was closure. If you’re going into a venture and you don’t recognize the numbers, be careful. If you don’t have that number to lose, you better think hard. I didn’t listen, and it all ended on the debt line. A life of debt. That was me.”

“If you don’t have that number to lose, you better think hard,” says DeBoer.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

No blame. No self-pity. Just a fight to keep the wolves away.

On countless late nights in the 1980s, consumed by angst over his wife and daughters and the dismal state of agriculture, DeBoer walked the floor of Kirk’s truck stop outside Lexington, alongside a cohort of other farmers who couldn’t sleep. Their world looked different when the sun came up.

“The average outsider would just tell us to work harder and rent more land,” DeBoer says. “Sure, but when you have outside factors undercutting that, you better react. You better make sure the politicians care about what the country has for dinner.”

Words backed by action. DeBoer ran for governor.

Refusing the Plum
In 1982, with minutes to go before deadline, DeBoer filed paperwork and entered Nebraska’s gubernatorial race. “The guy in office (Charles Thone) had little care for the problems of agriculture, and my objective was to get him out.”

Stan DeBoer at Farm Aid lll at Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb., Sept. 19, 1987.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

At 42, DeBoer was still a physical presence, explains his grandson, Isaac Kuck.

“He’d never lifted weight in his life, unless you count tractor weights,” Kuck says. “At one of the primary debates, the candidates were sitting on stage and the guy beside my pop was leaning back in his chair, when the legs slid off the edge. Pop saw it happening and reached back with a single, giant hand on the back of the guy’s neck to keep him from crashing backwards and getting a serious injury. Incredible strength.”

DeBoer fared well in rural communities—but his campaign lacked the financial legs of other candidates. In 1982, Bob Kerrey was elected as governor of Nebraska. In the aftermath, over dinner, Kerrey offered DeBoer a plum job in his administration.

Stan DeBoer: Keeping the Wolves Away

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

“I suppose a lot of people would have taken the offer,” DeBoer reflects. “No, thanks. I went back to plowing.”

Back to his fields. Back to his Chevy pickup. Back to life as a creature of habit—leaving the rows at midday to answer the dinner bell and drink a glass of tea. Back to Bonnie.

A Farmer at Twilight
In 1981, a year prior to his gubernatorial run, DeBoer was blessed with the first of a “cream of the crop” fleet of 20 grandchildren and 34 great-grandchildren, a figurative beginning for his finest years—all devoted to family and friends.

Stan and Bonnie DeBoer, surrounded by legacy.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

In 2003, he handed the business end of the plow to his younger brother, Byron, and nephew, Jesse, still maintaining a mild hand in the operation. A workaday farm grind changed to mentorship, countless hours coaxing wood into handcrafted masterpieces (still to this day), and attention to a flowerbed and prosperous garden alongside Bonnie.

In July 2023, over 40 years past the peaks and valleys of tractorcades, grain grabs, and ethanol endeavors, Bonnie passed away at 83.

DeBoer pauses, gathers his emotions at her memory, his voice shaking. “Together. Always. Me and her. I’ll tell any man out there: If you are fortunate enough to marry a lady that is of the same mindset, you will be a tough pair to duel with.”

Stan DeBoer, alongside a golden-hearted, steel-backboned, and razor-tongued lady: Bonnie DeBoer.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

Hands-on, or indirectly, DeBoer and Bonnie impacted the lives of thousands of farmers and rural Americans—repeatedly standing in the gap with no gain at hand. See a need, meet a need.

“Theirs is a story where financials are not the determiner of wins and losses,” Kuck says. “My pop was never afraid to dream, and those dreams are what helped make others successful today.”

A man ahead of his time, DeBoer refused the comforts of status quo in favor of risk and rectitude. At every juncture of his farming life, DeBoer had the option to stay within the bounds of his own rows. Each time, he chose otherwise: “I’m a right and wrong fellow. I’d take any of those risks again if I thought it would help us all. Every risk was worth it because I have grandsons and nephews in farming now. I’ll tell them or anyone younger: Protect your ears; be careful with desire; don’t follow the crowd; and never believe anybody has magic.”

The last dance: Stan and Bonnie, forever and a day.

(Photo courtesy Megan Motis)

Full circle, what is the measure of a farmer at twilight? The integrity of Stan DeBoer.

“At the end of life, what does a man want on his tombstone? I hope mine says, ‘Helped the Underdog Farmer, Loved His Family, and Loved the Good Lord.’” DeBoer concludes. “Nothing else ever mattered.”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

Renegade Colorado Farmer Pushes Deeper into Unconventional Agriculture

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 13:13:23 GMT

Who plants at least 12 different crops a season, slashes nitrogen applications by over half, aims to seed 3”-row grain in 2025, grows rice in bone-dry conditions, and steadily uncovers unique market demand? Roy the renegade.

Roy Pfaltzgraff’s row crop operation, a hive of unconventional research, is set to push even further to the blade’s edge.

“We’re going to build an online community, Seeding Circles, that teaches farmers where and how to find markets, and brings buyers to growers,” Pfaltzgraff says. “I want to show people a way to recruit food companies and know what’s being asked for.”

Survivability
Outside Haxtun, under the armpit of the Cornhusker line, Pfaltzgraff works 2,000 dryland acres in northeast Colorado. Split between Phillips County’s low hills and flats, his fields (60% sand, 20% clay, and 20% loam) sometimes see below 6” of moisture during the worst growing season, but average 13” of precipitation per year.

Pfaltzgraff operates a farm in flux—steady adaptation. Whether double-cropping, applying table sugar in-furrow, drastically reducing herbicide applications, or trialing crops when the nearest likeminded producer is 1,000 miles distant, Pfaltzgraff is the epitome of outside-the-box.

In the rows, during field days, at speaking events, or by email—Pfaltzgraff gets the same question from farmers: How do you find markets?

(Photo by Haxtun Heritage Mills)

Walk his rows and expect to see black beans, buckwheat, black-eyed peas, clover, camelina, non-GMO corn, open pollination corn, chickpeas, flax, milo (both red and food grade white), oats, pinto beans, and sunflowers. (Sesame is on the crop roster for the first time in 2025, and Pfaltzgraff intends to grow mushrooms in containers.)

“Every farmer I interact with is concerned about survivability. That means having something to pass to the next generation,” he says. “That can only happen if there’s genuine profitability, soil health, and market opportunities. Our on-farm research is geared toward those needs.”

In the Crosshairs
In 2025, Pfaltzgraff intends to begin installation of a full-time, on-farm education center. Annually, he has six to eight research projects across his operation.

· Rebuilding an air seeder to test 3” row spacing in cereal grains and edible beans—super-narrow to conserve moisture and suppress weeds. (Drilling corn, grain sorghum, and sunflowers on 12” centers has been standard for Pfaltzgraff for several years.)

“We’re going to build an online community, Seeding Circles, that teaches farmers where and how to find markets, and brings buyers to growers,” Pfaltzgraff says.

(Photo by Emily Kamala)

· Colorado rice—unheard of in the region—is under trial. In 2024, Pfaltzgraff’s rice cultivation ended with freezing damage in the boot stage. “This year we’ll get it in the ground earlier, somewhere in early to mid-April. We’ve tracked down a landrace variety that may work very well out here, and that comes from research by USA Rice Federation.”

· Pfaltzgraff has transformed his headlands—areas of persistent weed and compaction issues—into 158 acres of pollinator strips. Essentially, the first 90’ of headlands in each field are a pollinator haven. “There were bad grasshopper issues around this year, but not in our fields. The grasshoppers stayed in the strips, and that triggered praying mantis to come in and eat. Control by nature. It made my dad ask, ‘What else have we screwed up with old farming methods?”

· An agrivoltaic system, providing a shelter belt and solar power, is gathering data. The buffer has reduced moisture consumption by significant levels: 30% roughly 120’ downwind, and 50% closer to the main body. “It’s really interesting research,” Pfaltzgraff notes. “We’re looking for a computer processing company to come in and build an off-grid server farm run by solar on our farm.”

· Two flux towers in separate fields monitor soil respiration every 15 minutes, measuring gas exchange between soil/vegetation and the atmosphere. “It provides carbon data for different crops and that’s run by retired USDA researcher Jerry Hatfield,” Pfaltzgraff says.

· Pfaltzgraff has applied for a grant to fund research on glyphosate remediation. “Our grain picks it up at 42 parts per billion, but glyphosate isn’t applied to the crop. We’ve all seen the stories about glyphosate found in rainwater, but in parts per trillion. Therefore, it’s gotta be residual in our soils. When we test it, the soil has 47 parts per billion as residue. I’m pissed as a famer because I’m told that doesn’t happen; I’m told glyphosate goes away.Now people are blaming the rain? No, I believe it must be remediated and that is through improved soil health.”

“Those who support glyphosate don’t want to talk about this, and those who oppose glyphosate don’t want to know about remediation because they don’t want it used ever again,” he adds. “I want to do the research and let everyone take their shots. I know it might put a target on my back, but we have to do what’s right for the soil.”

Seeding Circles
In the rows, during field days, at speaking events, or by email—Pfaltzgraff gets the same question from farmers: How do you find markets?

The answer is part of Pfaltzgraff’s effort, alongside his fiancée, Emily Kamala, to create Seeding Circles . “We’re creating a national resource with farmers across the country to bring in outside experts and to recruit food companies to come and tell farmers specifically what they’re looking for,” Kamala says. “Seeding Circles is a hub of support, pricing, profit, marketing, and agronomics. It’s a place to learn about new markets and diversification. We need a community to show people where and how to find markets, and to provide a base of farmers available to buyers.”

Annually, Pfaltzgraff has six to eight research projects across his operation, including an agrivoltaic system.

(Photo by Emily Kamala)

“We want to create pockets of local food,” Pfaltzgraff adds. “Local food nationwide is how to counter the industrial scale food industry. All the time, I hear farmers say, ‘I have no local market.’ My response? ‘Your community doesn’t eat?’ If you are farming, then you are raising food—either for humans or animals. Disease and health issues are getting more important to the public by the day, and the problems can be fixed by relying on farmers. I believe we feed a nation by feeding our community.”

On the back of every bag of grain sold by Pfaltzgraff’s Haxtun Heritage Mills , a QR code tells consumers where the product was grown by field, and when it was seeded, harvested, and cleaned—to the day it went into the bag.

“Farmers have been marginalized by the big food companies who say real traceability is impossible. That’s not true. It’s absolutely possible if big food buys direct from farmers and gets past only buying from grain brokers. I’m saying this can be done, but we have to make sure the farmer is part of the story. Those are all pieces of a puzzle coming together in Seeding Circles.”

Roy Pfaltzgraff, left, works 2,000 dryland acres in northeast Colorado, outside Haxtun.

(Photo by Emily Kamala)

Riding shotgun with Pfaltzgraff’s concern over food sourcing is his alarm over rural decline. “Right now, and we all know it, the biggest export of rural communities is our children. I want to help reverse that trend. Maybe you know your kids are not interested in farming—but they may be interested in running a milling company or being in an ag-related enterprise. It’s a shame not to create opportunity and give them the option. That’s ties in directly to Seeding Circles.”

“If you sell strictly to the commodity market, then you can’t tell the history of your family and it gets lost. But if you bring in local food as part of the picture, including direct markets and extra markets, you bring that back. Pride of product.”

Risk and Reward
Pfaltzgraff doesn’t sugarcoat. Extreme crop diversity comes at a high cost.

In 2022, his crops drank a mere 6” of precipitation for the entire growing season. In 2023 and 2024, his rows were pounded with significant hail damage. With so many different crops in his fields, he can only get insurance on roughly half of what he grows.

“In 2022, it was so dry that we only harvested half of our crops, and our neighbors harvested none. However, they were better off because they had crop insurance on everything. Advancement comes at a cost.”

Roy Pfaltzgraff’s operation in Colorado: “Every farmer I interact with is concerned about survivability … That can only happen if there’s genuine profitability, soil health, and market opportunities.”

(Photo by Haxtun Heritage Mills)

After six years of growing black-eyed peas, Pfaltzgraff got RMA to sign off on the legume. However, he’s been waiting on insurance for seven other crops. “It’s a sticky spot. We’re told these crops won’t grow in Colorado, but we have the proof over and over in our field. If we want them insured, we have to get experts to write letters assuring the crops will grow, but RMA still maintains the right to refuse the letter.”

Pfaltzgraff does not fit in the standard farming model sought by insurers and bankers.

“Our situation is tough. We provided yield data that averaged 1,000 lb. per acre on a crop, and they said we had no market. We then provided financial data that shows we make $400 per acre net on dryland. That’s a ridiculous amount of money for this part of world. It’s great in the years you get some rain and little hail, but if either of those changes the insurance world rewards the old practices and the lender starts breathing down your neck. That’s got to change if we want healthy soils for the future.”

As always, Pfaltzgraff adjusts on the fly. “I don’t fit into their tables of risk so I’m being asked to innovate. You sure about that?”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

Diesel and Dust: Texas Farmer Eyeballs Income Beyond the Rows

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 14:03:48 GMT

“Even in the worst of times, there’s money beyond the rows.”

Texas farmer and Marine veteran Orin Romine backs his words with diesel work, wild pig hunts, milo by the basket, and digital tech.

For pennies or dollars, Romine’s side-stream income is centered on a survivor’s straight-shooting perspective: “Find the area where your farm spends the most money and learn to do it yourself. It’s crucial in the early years of a career and always crucial in any years that are tough.”

Tough Numbers
In the parched bleed of soil types between High Plains’ sand, Concho Valley black dirt, and Rolling Plains red dirt, Romine grows hay, grain sorghum, cotton, and wheat on 14,000 rain-fed acres, alongside his father and brother-in-law, in Big Spring, roughly 40 miles east of Midland and 100 miles south of Lubbock.

As the adage rolls, there’s no one more hopeful than a West Texas farmer. “Gotta be,” says 41-year-old Romine, a fourth-generation producer, “when you’re only getting 16-18” of moisture per year.”

Romine’s cotton yields range from 400 lb. to 2 bale per acre, but on most of his ground he shoots for 1 bale per acre. “As things are, if we make the bale, our inputs are above what that bale is valued at. Those are the tough numbers and we have to deal with them.”

Whether in Texas, Illinois, Nebraska, or Mississippi, Romine emphasizes situationally-dependent opportunity. “No matter what state you’re in, the big commonality of farmers is access to some amount of land. There’s a way, regardless of where you’re at, to supplement the grocery bill or reduce pressure in the worst years.”

Eyes Wide Open
In 2001, Romine graduated from high school, entered trade school at Texas State Technical College in Sweetwater, and obtained an associate degree in diesel technology in a year-and-a-half program.

“I already had diesel know-how from being around my grandfather, but I acquired even more learning and added something of value to the family operation by making sure I knew how to keep us from having to take things to the equipment dealer. The extra learning provided me with real skills to bring to the table so my father could justify me as an employee and allow me to start working to someday having my own operation.”

“Doesn’t matter where you farm, the one thing you’ve got for sure is the ability to use land to generate extra income,” Romine says.

(Photo by Romine Farms)

Not so fast, young man, insisted Romine’s father and grandfather: Work, live, and learn off the farm.

“Our family has never, never handed over a legacy,” Romine explains. “Right or wrong, we strongly believe that you go earn a living to understand the world. My dad never wanted me to look over my shoulder at what might have been. When you come back to the farm with eyes wide open, it helps make that commitment certain.”

In 2003, as the Afghan War churned, Romine joined the Marines and was deployed to Afghanistan in 1st Tank Battalion, Company A, as a M1 Abrams tank mechanic—an extreme exercise in discipline that paid off on the farm.

“In the military, we had to do our best with what we had. In a deployment, resources are finite and you can’t get parts. You’re forced to adapt on the go; fix on the go. If you wanted something in the moment, you were responsible to make it right then. Those lessons translated directly back to the farm.”

Diesel and Dust
Stateside, back on Texas dirt, Romine wielded mechanic skills for his father during the day and freelanced at night to earn extra dollars. “That was money freed up from the expense line and allowed margin for me. It’s different on every farm, but find a big hole where your family is dropping money and fill that hole.”

Almost 20 years later, how much money has he kept in-house via diesel know-how? The number may be inestimable, Romine explains. “Just the labor savings alone have to be crazy.

We live in a throw-away culture, but in farming, that attitude wipes you out. If it breaks or wears down, I can fix it and that results in tremendous savings.”

Farmers are among the best on the planet at keeping a machine running and rolling—but there’s always another lesson to grasp, Romine contends. “By nature, farmers fix stuff to stay in business. That is a given on any operation. However, when it comes to diesel or other mechanical areas, my advice is not just to rely on what you know. Take your skills to another level, and that sometimes means going and getting trained—specifically for the purpose of eliminating expense or creating opportunity around your farm.”

Welding is another skill ripe for farmer improvement, Romine suggests. “We all know the saying, ‘What’s the difference between farmers and welders? Not all welders think they can farm.’ Truth is, there’s incredible financial benefit to your operation if you or someone in your outfit polishes your welding skills at specialty training at a local community college or trade school. Gain ability above your farm experience. It translates to real savings later.”

Romine purchased a low-end mill and lathe in his shop—about $5,000 in total cost. He soaks up YouTube lessons to gain an edge. “I’m always seeking people out to sharpen my skills so I can make things right here on the farm and save money. Every lesson means less waiting for parts to ship from the other side of the country. I make it myself.”

Whether diesel, welding, or crafting parts, Romine emphasizes the vertical fit of each acquisition. “Take any one area and it may not save much money, but when you integrate all of those over the long run, and you’re also steadily increasing your knowledge, the value gets incredibly high—especially during planting and harvest. Every little bit you do to increase self-reliance means a huge advantage.”

In 2020, Romine turned from steel to flesh. Time to take on a wild pig plague.

Knock’em Back
Texas is home to 2-plus million wild pigs—and Romine feels the pain. Even in extended late December-January grain sorghum harvest, it’s not unusual for Romine to kill 10-12 wild pigs shooting from the combine platform. In some years, pig depredation prevents planting in susceptible fields. He once maintained a steady regimen of trapping and thermal-vision night shoots, but the control efforts barely made a dent.

“We live in a throw-away culture, but in farming, that attitude wipes you out,” Romine says.

(Photo by Romine Farms)

Four years back, Romine turned pig presence into a revenue stream by joining with a professional outfitter on a 25-75 split. After a minor investment slapping together a few blinds and refurbishing a section of employee housing, the stage was set. “We got attorneys and drew it all up so that ourselves and our landlords were all protected. Then we gave the outfitter rope to hunt dove and deer, but especially feral hogs.”

The result in year one? A $40,000 return. Knock’em back and put some cash in the box.

“We’re talking about people coming from the East Coast or Idaho or even locals, and sometimes three to four nights per week. We got paid a royalty for people to chase and kill hogs in the open country of West Texas.”

And after four years, the outfitter split has made a significant impact on Romine’s wild pig numbers—and his bottom line. He’s now able to grow grain sorghum in fields previously off-limits due to depredation.

“Doesn’t matter where you farm, the one thing you’ve got for sure is the ability to use land to generate extra income,” Romine says. “Different circumstances and different environment, but I see farmers all around trying new things.”

Pennies to Grow
Farm fresh. Romine cites demand for locally-grown food. “I’ve got livestock friends raising and butchering in their own town. I’ve got friends growing sweet corn and selling local. I’ve got friends growing pick-your-own produce. I’ve sold milo heads in the fall for parties and wedding decorations at $100 a basket and it cost me pennies to grow.”

“There’s not a single person in agriculture that I’m aware of that doesn’t have the ability to grow or raise something that can be sold directly as food. It may require you to work like crazy to get your customer base up, and sometimes build your own market. But the opportunity is everywhere right now.”

And in the future? Romine dives digital.

Pro v Con
Having worked as a beta-tester with Blue River’s autonomous tractor tech, Romine encourages his 14-year-old son, blessed with an affinity for electronics, to learn all things related to programming.

As a member of a regional USDA-ARS oversight committee, Romine has steered his son to participate in a digital research project for yield estimates. “He’s helping with the algorithms in their AI program that detect a head of grain in a milo field with satellite imagery. Digital tech will become useful on the farm in ways we haven’t seen yet, and I want to prepare my son to be able to make or repair as needed. That’s another area where income opportunity will be.”

Romine praises the extreme resiliency of U.S. producers and their ability to adapt in real-time. Speaking bluntly, he also believes the biggest positive of American farmers can be a hindrance: “The biggest pro is self-sufficiency and a humble nature. Guys keep their heads down and work their land. Why can that be a negative? Because sometimes that means a hesitancy to speak up or put yourself out there, and that’s when a farmer misses a chance. You miss seeing revenue opportunity beyond your own rows.”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Understand How EPA's New Herbicide Strategy Will Impact Your Farm

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 19:43:59 GMT

As farmers gear up for the 2025 production season, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to refine its rules for herbicide use with regard to the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“Farmers have already seen some examples of changes to the labels around Endangered Species Act obligations, and it’s going to change how they farm,” predicts Corey Lacey, environmental policy manager for the Illinois Soybean Association.

While herbicides are currently being evaluated – via EPA’s “Herbicide Strategy,” – a similar application framework for fungicides, insecticides and rodenticides won’t be far behind, Lacey noted earlier this week, during a discussion on AgricultureReporting.com on what farmers need to know in 2025 about herbicides and endangered species .

What Is A Herbicide Strategy?
The herbicide strategy is part of the EPA’s workplan to protect endangered species. It was created in response to multiple lawsuits filed against the EPA for the agency’s failure to comply with the ESA by not conducting mandatory consultations under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

The EPA will use a three-step decision framework to implement the strategy. Part of the process will involve determining a herbicide’s potential to have population-level impacts on endangered species as either not likely, low, medium or high.

The agency will also determine the level of mitigation needed to sufficiently reduce spray drift, runoff and erosion exposure to listed endangered species in an area.

Lacey says while he and his team conducted a series of five meetings with Illinois farmers on the herbicide strategy topic in late January, he is concerned the majority of farmers are not fully up-to-speed on the impact it will have on their respective operations.

Mitigation Points Will Be Used
As it implements the herbicide strategy, EPA will assign each herbicide a mitigation point requirement, a number between zero to nine.

“The idea is…on every field that you operate on, you’re going to have to look at that field and then decide, ‘How do I get to these points?’” Lacey says. “We’re expecting most herbicide products to require six points (for Illinois, specifically). Nine is the most mitigation points that you would need (for use of a specific herbicide), and that would be for a product especially concerning to the EPA,” Lacey said.

The EPA outlines a six-step process to determine which runoff and erosion mitigation measures to consider and implement before utilizing a pesticide product each year. These steps can be found on the Mitigation Menu .

The number of points assigned to products will depend on factors such as the crop, application parameters, and site-specific geographic conditions, according to Aaron Hager,
University of Illinois Extension weed scientist.

Hager has written an extensive article EPA’s Final Herbicide Strategy for ESA: What Could Change , offering farmers and applicators more details on EPA’s herbicide strategy, including the mitigation points.

New and updated herbicide labels and/or bulletins will also direct applicators to EPA’s Bulletins Live! Two website . This website will detail more restrictive mitigation requirements for specific geographic areas known to contain critical habitat, called Pesticide Use Limitation Areas (PULAs).

In addition, there are considerations for spray drift, and as such EPA requires a buffer distance based on application method (for example, aerial, ground, etc.).

First Product With A Herbicide Strategy
Lacey says Liberty Ultra is the first product to have a herbicide strategy component to its label.

The herbicide contains the active ingredient glufosinate-P and is available for use this season on glufosinate-enabled soybean, cotton, corn and canola acres.

Liberty Ultra isn’t a completely new herbicide, but rather a new iteration of Liberty herbicide developed by BASF Agricultural Solutions, explains Jordan Kampa, University of Wisconsin nutrient and pest management outreach specialist.

Because glufosinate-P is considered a new active ingredient, Liberty Ultra had to undergo the EPA registration process under the new ESA framework, which includes language to comply with the herbicide strategy, Kampa writes in his article, EPA Herbicide Strategy Implementation on Crops and Soils

“Please note,” Kampa adds, “Liberty Ultra is not the cause for the recent EPA changes, it’s the first product approved under the new ESA framework. While the language on the label will vary among products, the updated language on the Liberty Ultra herbicide label provides a sample of what should be expected on all labels moving forward.”

2,4-D, Glyphosate And Dicamba Are On The List
Indeed, Lacey says other herbicide active ingredients are not far behind on EPA’s list to address with its herbicide strategy.

“EPA has indicated that as part of their court settlement, they’re going to push things through rapidly,” Lacey says. “I know 2,4-D is on the list, as is glyphosate and dicamba. All these things we use on a regular basis in Illinois (and other states) are eventually going to come under the herbicide strategy label.”

With FIFRA re-registration timeframes, all active ingredients will go through the ESA assessment process in the next 15 years.

What to Expect This Year and In the Future
One positive is that the herbicide strategy will be implemented over time, instead of on a specific date.

“It’s not coming at (farmers) all at once, so as long as they’re learning about it now and starting to think about how to prepare themselves, there’s still plenty of time to get ready,” Lacey says

Lacey encourages farmers to not panic about the new herbicide strategy. He’s confident growers will be able to comply with EPA’s requirements.

“We can do this,” he says. “I want farmers to start looking at their fields now and be thinking about how (to get the mitigation points needed) and make a plan. We can find ways to comply but we have to plan for it.

“You need to find any problem fields now, so you can put things in place ahead of time,” Lacey adds. “You know, 2025 is probably not going to be a big issue for a lot of guys. But in 2026, 27, we’re going to see this become more complicated, so why not get started now.”

Your next read: 7 Key Details To Know: New Endangered Species Act Herbicide Standards

Tractor Terrorist: When a Farmer Attacked Washington with Fertilizer Bombs

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 15:06:18 GMT

On March 17, 2003, an American farmer threatened to blow up Washington, D.C. with fertilizer bombs. Just past noon, he entered the National Mall on a John Deere tractor, drove into the Constitution Gardens Pond, turned several doughnuts, and set the fuse on the wildest public spectacle in U.S. agriculture history.

As ATF, FBI, and park police forces surrounded the water, the nation’s capital shut down during a 47-hour standoff stretched over three days. Donning a U.S. Army medic helmet and hunkering in his cab for the duration, Dwight Ware Watson, 51, bull-horned a message of government corruption, pesticide coverups, and the end of agriculture.

National media dubbed Watson as Tractor Man, described him as a deranged madman and terrorist, and mocked his contentions as a judge handed down a six-year prison sentence and designated Watson a “one-man weapon of mass destruction.”

Yet, Watson’s purported organophosphate bombs proved to be household cans of Raid. His claims of explosives hidden across D.C. were a ruse. His weaponry amounted to a single fake grenade. His regrets are legion: “I truly wish I could wind the clock back and make different choices,” Watson says, “but I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t a killer and I wasn’t a terrorist.”

“Maybe I’m not much different than any other farmer or patriot, but I got desperate and did really wrong. One thing I did right: I told the truth about agriculture, the tobacco industry, and our government.”

Almost forgotten by time, over two decades beyond his siege of Washington, Tractor Man tells his story.

No Way Out
Blessing or burden, legacies cling to farm families across generations. In 1946, roughly 80 miles east of Durham’s tobacco mecca, George Benedict Watson (1920-1993) established Watson Seed Farms in Nash County, North Carolina.

Dwight Watson in 1982: “When the government threatens a man’s family heritage, history, honor, money, land, and health, he gets lost in a dark place and it’s hard to find a way out.”

(Photo by Chris Bickers)

George steered the business—split between seed and commercial production—from strength to strength, expanding into barley, fescue, hybrid corn, oats, soybeans, and wheat, and promoting a steady business mantra: “Those who demand the best plant Watson seed.”

In 1953, George’s fourth and youngest child—Dwight Ware Watson—was born during the family’s ascent to the heights of North Carolina agriculture. George gained the ear of senators and governors and rubbed elbows with the shakers and movers of agribusiness, earning his stripes as a heavyweight in the agriculture industry, and cofounding the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina. In short time, his children joined the operation, with Dwight Ware Watson at the helm of the farming company.

Immersed in the nuances of the tobacco trade since childhood, Watson completed high school at Oak Ridge Military Academy (Greensboro, N.C.) and joined the military as a member of the 82nd Airborne, serving as a military policeman until honorable discharge in the mid-1970s.

As a sixth-generation farmer, Watson followed in his father’s footsteps, gaining position and credibility among the dignitaries of Carolina politics and agriculture, recognized as Farmer of the Year at the Southern Flue-Cured Tobacco Festival in 1982.

Photo courtesy of Braswell Memorial Library

(Photo courtesy of Braswell Memorial Library)

“Just like my daddy, I feared no man,” Watson says, every syllable heavily coated in a Carolina drawl. “My daddy would take on anybody, including Farm Bureau or any mainstream agriculture power. That’s why Senator Jesse Helms came after us.”

In the mid-1980s, Helms sought prosecution of the Watson family for selling seed to foreign buyers in violation of tobacco laws. “Canadian farmers would go down I-95 to Florida for vacation, and on the drive back, they’d stop by and buy seed from us,” Watson says.

As Helms pulled the strings, Watson insists, federal marshals arrived at Watson Seed Farms. “The government told my brother he was going to prison for 40 years for selling seed to a Canadian farmer. I can’t describe the turmoil my family went through. Jesse Helms refused to see us or our attorneys, but his daughter, Margaret, loved us and she begged her daddy to stop. We ended up with a $10,000 fine and the knowledge that the government can wreck your operation anytime it wants.”

Down the Rabbit Hole
The next decade sounded the death knell for Watson’s deep-rooted farming operation. The storybook was finished. The patriarch, George (decd. 1993), was gone. Tobacco’s glory days, stunted by historic settlements in the 1990s, were over. Watson’s 1,500-acre farm was reduced to a sliver of its former size. His brothers walked away from agriculture—he farmed on.

Dwight Watson was heralded as Farmer of the Year in 1982. From left, NC Gov. Jim Hunt, Watson, and Carlton Black at the NC Executive Mansion.

(Photo courtesy of Braswell Memorial Library)

“There’s nothing in this world so desperate as a farmer at the edge of losing it all,” Watson says. “When the government threatens a man’s family heritage, history, honor, money, land, and health, he gets lost in a dark place and it’s hard to find a way out.”

“I was a tobacco farmer that didn’t even want people to smoke because I knew the truth,” Watson continues. “I’ve always believed that pesticide residue and growth retardants—and not nicotine—are what cause cancer. I pushed to give farmers more financial resources so that we could reduce pesticide use and pick worms by hand. I grew up knowing the tobacco industry was the single biggest corrupt part of U.S. agriculture back then and I know it still is today.”

Watson visited USDA offices, wrote congressmen, and sent scientific studies to the FDA, advocating for “transparency and truth.” The headline tobacco litigation and settlements of the 1990s, according to Watson, were a political sham. “Does anyone really believe that tobacco is the most heavily related industry in the country, outside the medical field, because of health reasons? The big winner of all the tobacco settlements was the U.S. government. Why? The settlements made sure the politicians, cigarette companies, and attorneys kept their hand in the honeypot. The settlements were about money, not chemicals.”

In 1995, compounding Watson’s pesticide concerns, he picked up the November issue of Life magazine and devoured every word of the lead article, “The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm,” a feature detailing birth defects in the children of many Gulf War (1991-1992) veterans.

“Chemicals, biological agents, Sarin gas, and more: That’s what our soldiers were exposed to, and the government was deny, deny, deny. It was heartbreaking stuff and as a soldier, I wasn’t about to sit back and shut up. I sent reports to the government, spoke up at farmer meetings, attended congressional hearings and spoke out, but nobody listened.”

In 1999, echoing the Tractorcade protests of 1969 and 1979, Watson drove a tractor to Washington, D.C. to gain political and press attention. He gained minimal notice: “I had actually driven to D.C. several times to raise awareness, but it just seemed like the country didn’t care, but I wasn’t giving up.”

Watson ramped up advocacy efforts, but he couldn’t halt inevitable creep toward financial ruin on his Nash County farm. His tobacco quota had dwindled from 250,000 lb. to 80,000 lb., and Watson was drowning. Pressure. Inner demons. Weight. Expectations. Splintering legacy. Crippling debt.

The Watson operation in 1952.

(Photo courtesy of Braswell Memorial Library)

And at the height of Watson’s misfortune, almost on cue, the Iraq War loomed in 2003, with the U.S. government claiming Saddam Hussein possessed stockpiles of WMDs. Watson snapped. “The government lied about chemical use in the Gulf War. They lied about chemical use in tobacco. Now they were about to send our soldiers back for another dose and another war? For what?”

“My whole farm life was falling in around me, but I couldn’t stay silent,” Watson explains. “I saw a chance to get attention for my fellow farmers and military personnel. ‘Assist. Protect. Defend,’ is the military police motto and in my heart I believed my fellow soldiers needed help.”

According to the media narrative, the farmer was about to become a terrorist.

Caravan Departs
Watson’s race was on: Get to Washington, D.C. before the aerial bombardment of Iraq began.
First, Watson obtained a permit for static display of his tractor at the Washington Monument, i.e., he obtained a green light to pass out literature beside his tractor.

Dwight Watson from above: “There’s nothing in this world so desperate as a farmer at the edge of losing it all.”

(Photo public domain)

Next, he mailed out 50-plus UPS packages destined for every state attorney general (and several politicians) in the U.S. Each package contained an ounce of tobacco and a copy of tobacco seed laws.

Watson then readied a caravan, including a bucket-equipped John Deere 4WD 7810 wearing a patchwork of patriotic decals and stickers, with bold lettering on the panels—God Bless The Troops; 82nd Airborne; Salute To Veterans.

Behind the tractor, Watson hauled an M151A2 orange jeep decked in military police signage, along with a trailer carrying a yellow utility box as caboose. On Sunday, March 16, in blue jeans, black shirt, and helmet, Watson eased off Watson Seed Farms Road and onto Route 301 outside Whitakers, North Carolina—heading for the nation’s capital.

Roughly 24 hours later, Watson made history.

Day One: A Night in the Tractor Box
At 12:34 p.m., March 17, 2013, the U.S. Park Police (USPP) received a call from a civilian bystander: A subject was “doing doughnuts” in the Constitution Gardens Pond on the National Mall.

Despite threatening to level D.C., Watson’s headlines were swallowed by the Iraq War’s kickoff.

(Photo by Kevin Lamarque, Reuters)

“I drove all three vehicles into the pond and unhooked later,” Watson says.

Arriving on scene, police and detectives found Watson in the middle of the pond manning a bullhorn, wearing an Army helmet highlighted by a medic’s cross, and flying an upside down U.S. flag—symbol of distress. In Watson’s eyes, he was a farmer on a mission.

“I wanted to wake people up to what the government was doing. I went to Constitution Gardens because that is what the country is founded on. Plus, the Constitution Gardens has water in it and I knew it’d take longer to get me out, and that would give me more time to talk to the news media. I tried to send signals that I not there to hurt nobody by wearing the cross on my helmet. I was never a medic, but that was the message I wanted to send.”

“People have to understand I wasn’t in my right mind and I’d never do it again. I was at the bottom of a hole and I never intended for things to snowball and go crazy.”

Yet, Watson’s last stand was about to escalate, trigger the government, shut down the nation’s capital, and capture global news headlines.

Monitoring media reports via a cab radio, Watson gave multiple cell numbers to police and began to converse with officers regarding his intentions. According to the affidavit of USPP Detective Todd Reid, Watson announced possession of a fertilizer bomb in the trailer.

Reid: “Watson communicated with a USPP officer who responded to the scene and provided two cellular telephone numbers and his first name, Dwight. Watson advised the USPP officer that he didn’t want to hurt anyone but if he saw SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) personnel, he would take action. Watson claimed to have organic phosphates, a fertilizer that can be used as an explosive. Watson stated that the items he possessed would explode when mixed with water. Watson warned authorities that he would detonate the explosives in the tractor and on the trailer if anyone attempted to approach his vehicles. Watson expressed discontent with the United States Government’s treatment of Gulf War veterans and the United State’s (sic) Government’s tobacco policy toward farmers.”

Across the years: Dwight Watson.

(Photo public domain)

Watson contends the initial exchange was misinterpreted. “They started hollering at me about what was inside my trailer. I told them there was nothing in there except some organophosphate bug bombs, but they heard ‘bomb’ and everything went nuts. I admit from that point I could have reeled things in, but it worked to get media attention and I kept going. I’m sure not proud of what happened next, but I was stalling for time to get my message out.”

Police and ATF personnel immediately surrounded the pond and estimated a potential bomb blast radius of 700’. Roads inside D.C. were shut down and buildings along Constitution Avenue were evacuated. Detectives executed search warrants on Watson’s farm and contacted several North Carolina fertilizer dealers to gauge the veracity of Watson’s claim.

The Constitution Gardens vicinity became an instantaneous news magnet and Watson’s tractor cab was the supreme soapbox. He was prepared for an extended siege, with snacks, water, toiletries, radio, and tiny television inside the cab. In 3’-5’ of water, perched in the cab, he fielded media calls and conducted interviews with reporters.

As evening approached, Watson prepared for a night in the tractor box. “I figured nobody would bother me. I don’t really remember how much I slept, kind of slumped over the wheel. They had snipers trained on me, but I wasn’t scared. I’d been shot at during my military service, and I was at peace. I had no weapons, and I knew the Lord would protect me. By morning, it would be what it would be.”
Indeed. By morning, the standoff went nuclear.

Day Two: Easter Eggs
On March 18, the same day President George Bush addressed the nation and gave Saddam Hussein 48-hour notice before declaring war on Iraq, Watson announced possession of 82 lb. of explosives and demanded D.C. evacuation within 82 hours. He would “bring D.C. to its knees” and “leave a mark on the Mall never to be forgotten.” Compounding the threat at Constitution Gardens, Watson told negotiators he had planted explosives at separate locations in D.C.

“I was at the end of my rope and I didn’t think things could get any worse,” Watson recalls. “How about six years in the penitentiary?”

(Photo by Chris Bickers)

As described in Watson’s U.S. District Court Detention Memorandum, following his arrest: “the defendant stated that he left “Easter eggs” near the Philip Morris sign in Richmond, Columbia Island, and at the Navy/Marine Memorial in Virginia. He indicated that, if the “Easter eggs” were to get wet, they would explode. The Park Police believed that this was a reference to grenades.”

Watson triggered more alarm by telling negotiators about the packages mailed prior to his D.C. trip. Authorities assumed Watson sent biological agents in the post, as cited in the Detention Memo: “The defendant also stated that he sent mailings to the 50 state attorneys general offices. Specifically, the defendant said he sent the attorney general for the state of Washington a vial marked ‘GERM Test 1193.’ Its toxicity is pending an investigation.”

However, Watson’s packages contained tobacco seed—and no poisons. “I told them the truth,” he says. “It was ‘GERM’ as in seed germination, and not as in germ warfare.”

Buying time, he kept up the bomb ruse. Per the Detention Memo: “During the ‘standoff’ on March 18, 2003, Detective Reid observed the defendant taping a backpack to the side of the tractor, hanging a battery with exposed wires on the tractor, and shielding the interior view of the tractor with his clothing.”

Watson’s declarations to the press became increasingly pronounced. From a call to the Washington Post: “I’m going to get my message out or die trying. “I don’t give a damn no more. If this is the way America will be run, the hell with it. I’m out of here. I will not surrender. They can blow my ass out of the water. I’m ready to go to heaven.”

In late afternoon, Watson spotted police mounting large spotlights at the pond’s edge. At nightfall, he knew police would drown the cab in light—and he was ready. “On the jeep, I had a siren in case they came for me in the dark. As soon as they hit those spotlights, everything lit up like a football field and I made my move. I jumped out of the tractor, ran back to the jeep, and hit the siren switch. You can’t believe the noise. It was worse than the light. After that, they pretty much left me alone.”

“When the sun came up I was still in the cab, still trying to expose the government, but the tear gas came next.”

Day Three: River Over Rock
On the morning of March 19, 200 personnel from the USPP, FBI, ATF, Secret Service, Capitol Police, and the Metropolitan Police Department surrounded Watson, still hunkered in the cab.

When the officers directed tear gas to Watson’s proximity, he drove the tractor from the pond’s middle to the far end, holding out for several more hours. At 11:41 a.m., Watson threw in the towel. He drove to the south side of the pond, turned off the tractor, descended the ladder, raised his arms, and began walking toward a half-dozen agents slowly moving toward him.

Watson’s infamous siege.

(Photo public domain)

After 47 hours and two nights stretched over three days, Watson’s siege ended in minutes. He had single-handedly shut down rush hour traffic for three consecutive mornings, closed national monuments from the Lincoln Memorial extending to the Washington Monument, and shuttered numerous government buildings.

A USPP search revealed no weaponry: “There were no explosives in either the tractor, the trailer, or the Jeep. Inside the cab of the tractor, there was an inert hand grenade replica similar to those commonly available from military surplus stores. The authorities also did not find any explosives at the other locations…”

Yet, as quickly as Watson gained the national spotlight, his arrest was all but forgotten. On March 18, the same day Watson surrendered and exited his tractor, the air campaign began in the Iraq War. River over a rock, the news coverage of a purported farmer-terrorist faded to the back pages.

“I was at the end of my rope and I didn’t think things could get any worse,” Watson recalls. “How about six years in the penitentiary?”

Isaiah 54:17
Charged with making a false explosives threat and destroying government property, Watson refused a plea deal. “No way. I wanted Americans to know that growers would be thrown in jail if they grew low-nicotine tobacco, and pesticide use was a terrible danger, and our soldiers had been subjected to chemical exposure the government denied. No plea deal.”

Watson was found guilty by a jury in less than an hour on Sept. 26, 2003. At sentencing on June 23, 2004, 15 months after his initial arrest, he was broken: “My actions were totally uncalled for, totally unacceptable and totally wrong…It was not my intention to hurt anyone, but it looks like I was trying to hurt people. It was foolish.”

Federal guidelines suggested a penalty of less than two years, but Judge Thomas Jackson tacked on additional time. Jackson tagged Watson a “one-man weapon of mass destruction,” and handed down a six-year sentence: “Mr. Watson, I have concluded you are a nice guy and you had a legitimate grievance... which [you] chose to express in a horrendous fashion...The sentence I will hand down to you today is intended to deter the next nice guy who thinks he has a legitimate complaint.”

After a decade spent drawing attention to what he considered government malfeasance, Watson was inconsolable over the prospect of six years behind bars. “I went back to my cell and sat down on this metal bed along the wall,” he recalls. “My spirit collapsed inside me and I cried out to God. I said, ‘I can’t fight no more. I’ll go do my time, but you have to fight for me.”

Two days later, during a prison chapel service, Watson claims he received a providential message. “Several of my fellow inmates knew what I was going through and they prayed for me during church. They said the Lord gave them a scripture for me, Isaiah 54:17: “No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper…”

Roughly a week after sentencing, Watson was awoken in his cell by prison guards at 2 a.m. and told to prepare for court. “That was how it worked,” he says. “They’d start getting you processed, papers signed, escorted, and transported for court early that same morning. But I was finished with court and told them I wasn’t going. They gave me no choice and I started getting ready to go see the judge, even though I didn’t have a clue why.”

Unbeknownst to Watson, his surprise court date was due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Blakely v. Washington, decided June 24, one day after Watson’s sentencing. In a nutshell, Blakely v. Washington prevented judges from levying tougher sentences beyond the facts addressed by juries. Due to the SCOTUS ruling, Judge Thomas Jackson was forced to change Watson’s six-year term to the original sentencing guidelines of 16 months. However, Watson’s time served was already at 15-plus months. Bottom line: The prison doors opened.

“I walked into court and heard the judge say there was an error in my sentencing. The prosecutor jumped out of his chair like he was going to the moon, but they told me I was going home. I heard the word ‘home,’ with my ears, but my brain didn’t process none of it.”

“I was taken below the courthouse to this big room to process me out. That’s when my emotions broke down and all the years and struggles washed over me. I started crying like a baby, really letting it out from deep inside. While I was crying and shaking, this black inmate orderly came over and hugged me, and told me, ‘God loves you.’”

“My head was on his shoulder and I was weeping so much my chest was heaving. When I finished and got control of myself, I raised my head up to thank him, and my eyes dropped to the nametag on his uniform: His name was Isaiah. Isaiah. Just like the Bible verse I was given. I don’t care who believes otherwise, but that was no coincidence: God was right beside me the whole time and he was taking me home.”

The Terrorist Who Wasn’t
Twenty years after laying siege to Washington in a John Deere 7810, Dwight Ware Watson’s remorse has grown, as has his conviction of belief.

“I’m just a patriot that cares,” he says. “I’ll never be quiet about how farmers can’t grow low-nicotine tobacco, or how corrupt the tobacco industry is, or how our soldiers have suffered from chemical exposure.”

“I truly wish I could wind the clock back and make different choices,” Watson says.

(Photo by Chris Bickers)

Despite portrayal in the media and courts as a domestic terrorist and mentally ill menace, Watson was a farmer in a vise suffering from the loss of farmland, family, and legacy. “I lost so much so fast that it made me lose my common sense,” he says. “Every farmer I’ve ever known in my life has been under tremendous stress and extraordinary pressure at some point. I don’t think I’m different than anyone else, and I have no excuses, but I sure handled things terribly wrong.”

“I don’t care if people think I’m crazy; that has never bothered me,” he adds. “But I would like people to remember I had no weapons. I had no bombs. I wasn’t out to hurt a soul. I’m the farmer-terrorist who wasn’t.”

And how does Watson believe history will view the “Tractor Man” siege?

“Someday, sooner or later, the truth about tobacco and the government will come out,” he concludes. “My actions were all wrong; my words were true.”

Rest in Peace: Dwight Ware Watson, 72, passed away on Dec. 5, 2024.

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see the following stories:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man

Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Judas Goats: Agriculture’s Bizarre, Drug-Addicted Masters of Deceit Once Ruled the Killing Floor

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam

The Arrowhead Whisperer: Stunning Indian

Artifact Collection Found on Farmland

Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas

Farmhouse Hides Civil War History

US Farming Loses the King of Combines

Indiana Farmer Turns Trash into Treasure

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 18:25:38 GMT

Nose on glass, a tiny boy stared into distant darkness from the window of an Indiana farmhouse, waiting for an orange glow. Fire-watch. If the boy spotted flames, the prize was a rumbling ride beside his father on a no-cab dozer through a landfill to bury the blaze.

Born to bootstrap and raised in the shadow of enterprising farmers, the boy took to competition like bulldog to bone. The boy was Jordan Caldwell. Over 25 years later, he is a composting king hellbent on ROI, with no grass under his feet. “I was put on this earth with a killer instinct,” he says. “I’m motivated by money, but driven by success.”

Riding risk and reward beyond the rows, Jordan proves the adage: One man’s trash is another’s treasure.

Where to begin with a most red-blooded, American tale? With a peculiar alchemy—gravel into gold.

Miles for Bushels
Creature of habit. Feet on floor at 4 a.m., seven days a week. Boots, jeans, button-up shirt, and ball hat. Pot of coffee with five shots of espresso dumped in the maiden cup. Out the door and in the truck before daybreak, hot on the scent of business opportunity, the same hunt of his grandfather 78 years on the rewind.

In 1946, Elmer Caldwell was wilting. At 25 years young, turning a wrench on the line at a Chrysler plant in central Indiana, he was desperate to farm, despite no background in agriculture. Catching wind of a basement-bargain 100 acres, Elmer pulled stakes and moved his wife and three children to a farm outside Morristown, roughly 30 miles southeast of Indianapolis in Shelby County.

The chain of business blood preceding Jordan Caldwell. From left: father Dana, great-grandfather Elmer, great-great-grandfather Lawrence, and grandfather Paul.

(Photo courtesy of Caldwell’s Inc.)

With a drop of the plow, Elmer realized why his new land was cheap: The soil was loaded with rocks—gravid with gravel. He had bought ground in the heart of a 30’ elevation shift that stretched half a mile to the Big Blue River, a gash where a glacier crawled millennia in the past and left behind a wake of gravel and clay.

At the mercy of the era’s limited agriculture technology, and with bank loans heavy on his shoulder, Elmer couldn’t make a decent crop. With whispers and backhanded comments from the county crowd stinging his ears, Elmer could have tucked tail and bounced. He stayed.

Atop his pile of pebbles, searching for income beyond the rows, he spotted a wafer-thin lifeline: the county paid farmers to maintain roads. Elmer began spreading gravel to cover his corn losses, trading miles for bushels. He stayed a step ahead of the bankers, until his eldest son, Paul, returned from military service with an acquired skill—asphalt production.

“Dad, we have to turn this gravel into a real business and make money,” Paul said.

“Farming has to become second because our ground is no good.”

Elmer didn’t hesitate. “I’m in. Else we starve.”

The Peacock Killer
Pug mix and cold mix, Paul and Elmer fed asphalt to a hungry county with gravel pulled from massive holes across their farmland. A decade into the asphalt business, Paul caught scent of change. In the nearest communities to Morristown—the landfills were closing.

The Caldwell acreage, once deemed of minimal value, was coated in clay and ideal for waste work. In 1960, Paul seized the moment and cranked into the landfill business, packing his giant gravel pit holes with trash.

As the venture surged, Paul’s son, Dana, fresh out of high school, took over the landfill and spotted a weak link in the chain, urging Paul to extend into trucking and preempt any trash supply chokeholds. Paul declined.

Years later, the biggest hauler in the region peacocked into Paul’s office: “I bring all the trash in here. You guys are gonna sell out to me today. End of story.”

Paul was unphased by the swagger. “Get the f*** outta here. Don’t ever bring another load into my landfill.”

Tossing the big-stepping hauler out the door, Paul turned to Dana. “We’re not putting up with this bulls***, son. Go buy a truck. As of this minute, we’re in the hauling business.”

Riding Shotgun
Without so much as an I-told-you-so, Dana began with a single trash truck in the early 1980s, picking up waste at farms and rural houses. He quickly expanded to a fleet of vehicles with city contracts, front- and rear-loads, roll-offs, insulation hauls, and foundry sand.

Success bred success. Dana added food waste and industrial filter cake recycling, as well as cattle production—fed with pre-consumer food waste. The family’s original 100 acres of gravely ground exploded into a miniature city. Covering a 2,000-acre block, the back half contained gravel pits; the center housed the mile-long landfill, and the front featured a scale house, hot mix plant, and shop. The rest was farmland.

All the while, Dana’s young son, Jordan , born in 1986 and raised in the bustle, learned that 12 hours was only a half day’s work. Studying the blitz of moving parts, the boy soaked up countless lessons of entrepreneurial acumen, i.e., how to make a dollar.

“I always believe success is out there for anyone,” says Caldwell, “but not many people are willing to answer the question: ‘How hard are you willing to work for it?’”

(Photo by CK Photography)

Jordan was Dana’s shadow, obsessed with mechanics, equipment, farming—and fire-watch. “We got insulation that always came in hot from factories,” he recalls. “I watched for fires as my very first job, and if I saw one, the deal was I could ride to put it out. At 3, dad would let me drive the no-cab dozer with him in the middle of the night to push dirt over fires.”

Childhood and teen years were a blitz of skidsteers, tractors, corn, soybeans, hot mix, hauling, and trash routes. “We didn’t take off for holidays. It was tradition for our family to ride routes on the back of the trash truck at Thanksgiving to show the public that we cared and were personally involved.”

Reputation, Jordan learned, was everything. “My dad and grandfather were known for keeping their word. They believed that achievement could never come at the cost of community. I learned from them to be super-grateful and to give back starting with kids: 4H, FFA, Boys Club, and Girls Club.”

For the Caldwell clan, success meant relationships with county commissioners, city councils, and mayors. At business, political, and community meetings, Jordan sat shotgun, following his father’s rules to the letter. No complaining and no talking. Listen closely.

“Only after the meetings were over was I allowed to ask my dad questions,” Jordan explains. “Dad would stop me, and say, ‘That’s not the right question. Think and ask a better one.’ It was a constant process of rephrasing and learning, and that was his way of shaping me.”

“Dad demanded that I either work or play sports, because either way, he emphasized learning how to function in a team and how to be coachable,” Jordan continues. “That was him honing a killer instinct and preparing me to someday stand on my own.”

Born to It
Life seldom moves in straight lines.

In 2015, Jordan was a freshman at Marian University in Indianapolis. He returned home at Christmas break, worked every day of the interval, and drove back to Marian on a Sunday night in early January.

Jordan Caldwell proves the adage: One man’s trash is another’s treasure.

(Photo by CK Photography)

Crossing the threshold of his dorm room, Jordan’s cellphone buzzed.

“We got a problem,” Dana barked. “Your uncle just retired.”

Jordan’s uncle managed asphalt production as Dana’s business partner.

“Come back and take over his side. But there’s a hitch,” Dana paused. “You gotta come back tonight. Now.”

College to the right and hot mix to the left, Jordan didn’t hesitate at the fork: “I’m on my way.”

At -10 degrees at 10 p.m., Jordan walked out of his college dorm and never looked back.

The next morning, Jordan entered the Caldwell dispatcher room and received a jolt from Dana: “Put it back together.”

In temporary shock, Jordan realized Dana had left out a pertinent detail of the job description: The hot mix plant was in 1,000 pieces. Literally.

“Dad told me my uncle had torn the place apart before he left. There were parts strewn over 5 acres, but we had to get on with the show. I got a welder and a mechanic, and we worked seven days a week until the SOB was back together.”

Once up and running, Jordan learned the method of madness—and thrived. Arrive to work at 3 a.m., perform all maintenance, oversee production, and load out 2,000-3,000 tons (100-200 truckloads) per day.

“Best experience of my life,” Jordan explains. “Beat the hell outta college learning. It was hands-on run the place, communicate with trucks and plant foremen all day, and keep our customers satisfied. At the same time, it was sales all day. Sell, sell, sell, and keep the plant full. Run a crew, and keep up with liquids, fuel, and natural gas needs.”

A year later, Dana threw Jordan another fastball. “From now on, you’re gonna run the gravel pit while you’re running the hot mix plant.”

Willing to walk the high wire, Jordan attended conferences and classes to master the science behind asphalt. He ran the hot mix plant during the day and tested the asphalt at night in an on-site lab. More responsibility and extra work, but all for a reason: “That way, nobody in the chain could BS me and nobody could claim poor quality to get a free mix,” Jordan says. “It was so much work and so much learning, but I wanted it. Go, go, go.”

Born to it.

Meat on the Bone
Four years after mastering gravel and hot mix, Jordan, 22, took over specialty trucking, a role requiring nights and weekends to haul organics and liquids. Next came landfill, special waste operations, and sales. “In family business, you don’t hire from the outside,” he chuckles. “You just pile more responsibility onto family.”

Compost as currency in Jordan Caldwell’s world.

(Photo by CK Photography)

In 2017, Jordan hit another dogleg: Dana sold out to Advanced Disposal. As part of the transition deal, Jordan had to stick around for two years as general manager. “At that point I just wanted to farm, but I was the sorry sunuvabitch that had to do it, and I absolutely hated it, but it turned into maybe the best thing I’ve done in my life. I worked with investment bankers and learned how to sell a business. It was like a master’s and doctorate in two years watching how corporates did big deals, for the good and bad.”

Neck-deep in the business world, Jordan smelled meat on the bone. Compost as currency.

“I wanted to compost,” Jordan explains. “Why? Because when I’d been in special waste sales, I lost repeatedly to compost and digester facilities. I lost to them even though they charged more than me. I was mesmerized. They won because they were green and a landfill-free option. I could feel big opportunity.”

After snagging a loan for 10 semis, obtaining a compost permit, and leasing a field from Dana directly beside the landfill, Jordan began hunting for customers, cold calling from a truck cab with the tenacity of a rat on a Cheeto. Going in blind, he ran short against a composting maxim: the need for massive packaged food waste volume. To tap that vein, he bet big on a trash-swilling Scott T30—a depackaging beast.

And the beast paid off in spades.

Answer the Question
Every day at Jordan’s depackaging facility, he feeds a big-box diet to the T30—essentially a giant mill. “Most of our volume comes from stores like Walmart and Sam’s. What they don’t sell gets taken out the backdoor and put in a container. That material arrives at our facility, along with products from other companies like Nestle, Ragu, and Prego.”

Jordan’s crew sorts the goods on delivery. “We de-box everything beforehand and recycle the cardboard into at least one or two bales per day. In our warehouse, we put meats in one area; drinks in one area; fruits and vegetable in another; yogurt somewhere else; and on and on. We have a special recipe and we run a balance of the products through the depackager.”

Cooking a compost batch in the windrows at Caldwell’s Inc.

(Photo by CK Photography)

Out comes a slurry. Filtered for plastics or contaminants, the soup goes into a 5,000-gallon tanker and transported to a pit, where horse manure, corn fodder, wood chips, yard waste, and finished compost are added. Once a solid forms, the concoction is windrowed on a 4-acre pad where the strips cook at 130-160 F and get turned once weekly during a six- to eight-week span. “It’s so hot that if you put your hand in you’ll get burned,” Jordan describes. “The windrows are packed with microbial activity. Microbes going to war.”

Once cooled on the pad to kill weed seed and pathogens, the compost is placed in a curing area for 30 days and settles into a fine dust. After a final screening to ensure total removal of rocks, plastics, and wood, a nutrient-rich, 30% organic-matter elixir is ready for the rows.

Hauled on belt trailers, Jordan applies the compost to no till fields in fall and winter. “We start a field at 5-tons per acre. Then next year we step it down to 3-4 tons, and then leave it permanently at 2 tons per year. The savings are major league.”

Jordan also makes compost extract for starter, forgoing synthetics. “We put it in a stainless-steel machine and make about 500 gallons a go. Just add water, turn on the air, and aerate for 20 minutes. I completely cut out synthetic starter this year and that was $100,000 saved.”

“I’m surrounded by a circle of trust… Maybe all of that is the recipe of success,” Caldwell says.

(Photo by CK Photography)

“Between my compost and compost extracts, I’ve reduced synthetic use by 30% and boosted yield by 20%,” he adds. “Bottom line, I’m seeing major ROI, and we’re saving about $200,000 in fertilizer. The compost also packs a huge punch in organic matter and microbial activity. I’m increasing my organic matter in some fields by 1% a year, and that’s unheard of around here. Also, 2024 was the first year I had enough to sell to other farmers.”

However, present success is part of prior pain, Jordan describes. “I made big mistakes starting out. I charged in too fast and I didn’t sleep for almost two years. I had people making fun of me, but now some of them are on a waiting list to buy my products. I always believe success is out there for anyone, but not many people are willing to answer the question: ‘How hard are you willing to work for it?’”

The Recipe
As of 2025, Jordan’s vertical business movement has picked up pace. Transfer stations, roll-off companies, hammer mills, wood chips, animal bedding, hazardous waste hauling/packaging, industrial vacuum services cleaning tanks/silos at food manufacturing facilities, anerobic digester, natural gas, and carbon credits.

All said, his business umbrella covers 145 employees, and a host of vendors and customers. “I’m just a guy who makes plenty of mistakes, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes. Things always get rough in business and farming, but I count on my true supports: my faith in God, my incredibly supportive wife, and my managers and workers, many who I’ve known for over a decade. I’m surrounded by a circle of trust. That includes our community, the clients I serve, and the vendors who save me money and care about my business. In short, they are truly my friends. Maybe all of that is the recipe of success.”

“I was put on this earth with a killer instinct,” Caldwell says. “I’m motivated by money, but driven by success.”

(Photo by CK Photography)

That recipe is a bootstrapping formula passed from Elmer to Paul to Dana to Jordan and onward. “I have three kids. My goal is for this to continue as a legacy, no matter what direction it takes,” Jordan adds. “I’m responsible to those who came before and those who come after.”

Indeed. The Caldwell actors change, but the stage remains the same. Across generations, from farming to gravel to asphalt to landfills to trucking to compost, one business hatched another.

“My dad knew I would go in some different directions, just like he and his father before him,” Jordan concludes. “I was encouraged to grow and grow, but never at the cost of profit or integrity.”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man

Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Judas Goats: Agriculture’s Bizarre, Drug-Addicted Masters of Deceit Once Ruled the Killing Floor

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam

The Arrowhead Whisperer: Stunning Indian

Artifact Collection Found on Farmland

Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas

Farmhouse Hides Civil War History

US Farming Loses the King of Combines

Diabolical: How a Con Man Pulled the Evilest Agriculture Fraud in History

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 21:25:11 GMT

One agriculture fraud to rule them all. In an 8-million-acre hoodwink, Gregor MacGregor stole the life savings of hundreds of farmers and sent scores to their deaths.

The agriculture record is replete with monumental con men. Tino De Angelis stole several hundred million dollars in soybean oil in the mid-1950s; Billie Sol Estes raked in tens of millions via imaginary ammonia tanks during the late 1950s; Fred Hendrickson pocketed $25 million as a Jerusalem artichoke Ponzi prophet in the 1980s; and Robert Carl Stokes’ reign as a crop insurance huckster generated at least $100 million in the early 2000s.

They are rank amateurs beside MacGregor and his billion-dollar heist.

Equal parts swindler and sociopath, MacGregor promised farmers an agricultural paradise where three corn crops could be grown in a single year. It was a lie and part of the most chilling and deadly farm-related fraud in history.

Fly in the Ointment
Under a presumably starless sky, Gregor MacGregor was born in Stirlingshire, Scotland in 1786 (foreshadowing P.T. Barnum’s birth 24 years later). At 16 years young, he fought for Great Britain in the Napoleonic wars, moved up the ranks, and gained a deserved reputation as a fearless soldier. Following his British military career, MacGregor stayed in the saddle as a mercenary in multiple wars of liberation in South America.

Young Gregor MacGregor, prior to launching an 8-million-acre scam.

(Courtesy of National Gallery of Scotland)

A Jekyll-and-Hyde split personality, MacGregor returned to Great Britain in 1821 with grandiose claims of fortune, preaching a gospel of green, gold, and acres galore. Opportunity, he barked, waited just across the seas in the hidden country of Poyais, tucked between impassable mountains along the Mosquito Coast overlapping Nicaragua and Honduras. Poyais, he described, was a nation unafflicted by tropical disease and bathed in perpetual 80-degree temps.

Burgeoning with a beautiful port at the mouth of the Black River, Poyais boasted fledgling industry, opportunity, and a capital city of St. Joseph featuring mansions, wide boulevards, and an opera house. A wonderland.

The Black River port of Poyais was a destination of dreams, according to MacGregor.

(Public domain)

Backing his bona fides, MacGregor unfurled a charter purportedly signed by the native chieftain of the greater region, George Frederic Augustus I, bestowing the title of cazique (big dawg or prince) on MacGregor, and dropping 8 million acres of dominion into the Scotsman’s lap.

There was a stubborn fly in the ointment: the nation of Poyais didn’t exist. No matter. All MacGregor needed to turn Poyais’ fiction into a golden goose reality was farmers and investors. The rest was mere detail.

Crying and Dying
Peacocking around London, a city emerging as the planet’s financial hub, MacGregor was wined and dined at banquets by businessmen, government secretaries, high-ranking military officers, and ambassadors—all wanting a piece of the Poyais pie.

To build the illusion, he published Sketch Of The Mosquito Shore, Including The Territory Of Poyais, a 355-page guidebook “chiefly intended for the use of settlers.” Written by Thomas Strangeways, “Aid-de-camp to his Highness Gregor, Cazique of Poyais” the tome was the key that picked the scheme’s lock.

MacGregor’s and his 355-page book of lies.

(Public domain)

Thomas Strangeways, like Poyais, didn’t exist. Sketch Of The Mosquito Shore was authored by MacGregor, or rather, plagiarized. He stole entire sections from other books on the Americas and compiled the material into a believable summary of Poyais filled with exhaustive detail: hundreds of packed pages on climate, topography, flora, fauna, wild game, rivers, lakes, water depths, mountains, minerals, untapped gold mines, and Indians (native ‘Poyers,” of course) that worked for trade items instead of coin.

And farming? The book dove deep into agriculture, providing a profitability breakdown on crop after crop—corn, cotton, rice, and more, including acreage, yield potential, production facilities, and management: The soil is everywhere fertile in a very uncommon degree, and capable of producing in the utmost perfection, whatever is produced between the tropics. Few countries, perhaps, ever possessed higher advantages, in an agricultural point of view...

Thomas Strangeways, like Poyais, didn’t exist.

(Public domain)

The farming bottom line, according to MacGregor: Plant seed and reap a bin buster: “In the territory of Poyais, there are three crops of Indian corn in the year, and the produce will generally exceed one hundred bushels an acre.” (Even decades later, from 1866-1899, U.S. corn growers only averaged 26 bushels per acre.)

And how much did Poyais’ magical acreage cost? MacGregor charged 3-4 shillings per acre, a bargain price considering an average worker’s weekly wage was roughly £1 (20 shillings per pound). MacGregor piously offered land ownership of his 8 million acres to all, as long as the buyers were “industrious and honest, none others shall be admitted amongst us.”

Backed by fantasy, a Poyais dollar.

(Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Institution)

Gaining steam, MacGregor opened a Poyaisian governmental office in London and penned a constitution for his fake country. He showed plenty of leg to the newspapers, passed out reams of advertising handbills, and distributed stacks of promotional flyers. Bees to honey, farmers sold their land or dumped their leases, and signed on for Poyaisian acreage and a one-way voyage to the promised land. Insult to injury, MacGregor printed stacks of official Poyaisian currency, encouraging farmers to exchange hard savings and British pounds for worthless Poyaisian bills.

And following the farmers? Next in line were bankers and deep-pocket investors, pouring cash into the money pit.

The trap was sprung. It was time for crying—and dying.

Trip to Nowhere
The first half of the nineteenth century is saturated in agriculture-related invention. In 1794, Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin; 1822, Jeremiah Bailey invented a horse-drawn hay-cutting machine; 1827, Hiram and John Pitts made their mark with an endless-apron threshing machine; 1835, Solomon Merrick patented the wrench; 1837, John Deere crafted the self-scouring steel plow; and 1839, Charles Goodyear concocted vulcanized rubber.

MacGregor promised outrageosly phenomenal returns.

(Public domain)

And bobbing in the cauldron of innovation alongside Whitney and Deere? The grand Poyais venture on virgin soil where corn and cotton purportedly would explode into yield monsters, courtesy of the cazique and royal highness, Gregor MacGregor.

In September 1822, lured by saccharine promises, 70 of MacGregor’s first farmer-settlers sailed out of London on the Honduras Packet, bound for the blessed port of Poyais where the Black River spilled into the Caribbean Sea.

Roughly four months later, on Jan. 22, 1823, MacGregor’s second wave departed out of Leith, Scotland on the Kennersley Castle—180 settlers packed and stacked into a 100’-by-30’ ship—the hold jammed with tons of agriculture equipment and seed. Fitting the occasion’s pomp, the Kennersley Castle flew the national flag of Poyais, a white background splashed with a green cross of St. George.

Two months of trans-Atlantic travel later, the Kennersley Castle arrived at the shores of Poyais, its crammed, but delighted, passengers craning for a look at the bustling Black River port. Instead, they saw wilderness. Silence.

One shilling per acre.

(Public domain)

No people. No ships. No docks. No roads. No civilization. And farmland? Only wretched wilderness. James Hastie, one of the forlorn, would later provide court testimony regarding Poyais’s farming potential: “It is such a soil that if he were to put a turtle’s egg into the sand, in 10 minutes it would be as well boiled as if it had been put into a kettle.”

Almost 4,500 nautical miles from home, Hastie and 180 trusting hopefuls stumbled into MacGregor’s demented version of Gilligan’s Island. Most would pay with their lives, dead within months.

Meanwhile, back in Great Britain, the faithful were loading six more ships for the trip to nowhere.

Cazique Goes AWOL
Exploring on foot around Black River, the bewildered passengers of the Kennersley Castle were greeted by a ragtag band of English-speaking castaways—the original 70 from the Honduras Packet—living in tents and huts. It was a sobering reunion and confirmation of MacGregor’s epic con job.

When rumors filtered along the Mosquito Coast that 250 Europeans were camped out and claiming deeded ownership of a massive chunk of land, the titular king of the region, George Frederick Augustus l (the same ruler MacGregor claimed had gifted him 8,000,000 acres), made a surprise appearance at Black River. Enraged, George Frederick called BS on the entire affair and threatened to kill every castaway. (Unless, of course, they pledged undying loyalty to him.)

The farming bottom line, according to MacGregor: Plant seed and reap a bin buster.

(Public domain)

As word of the plight leaked up the coast, ships were dispatched from the British colony of Belize and survivors transported to relative safety. However, hardship and disease (malaria and yellow fever) killed 180 of the 250—either dying in Poyais or later of illness in Belize.

When news of the debacle reached London, MacGregor’s other Poyais-bound ships were halted. The Royal Navy managed to turn back five outgoing ships, missing only a single vessel that managed to cross the Atlantic, but wisely dropped its settlers in Belize, forgoing the deathtrap of Poyais.

Of the original 250 farmer-settlers dumped in Poyais, only 50 made it back to Great Britain.

And where was MacGregor? Running like a blind man from a burning barn. Poyais’ grand cazique was AWOL.

Teflon Don
Déjà vu all over again. Skipping across the English Channel to France, MacGregor struck up the Poyais band once more, issuing new promises to French farmers, selling more nonexistent acres, and preparing a ship for trans-Atlantic transport. This time, investigators caught wind of the stench and jailed MacGregor. He was tried—and acquitted—in 1826, truly a Teflon Don.

Equal parts swindler and sociopath, Gregor MacGregor.

(Photo public domain)

Bouncing back to Great Britain, MacGregor unsuccessfully tried to crank up interest in the Poyais scam at least into the mid-1830s. In 1839, he stopped preaching on the Poyais Eden and moved to Venezuela, dying in 1845, at 58.

Beyond the death of 180 farmer-settlers, MacGregor’s charade cost multi-billions of dollars in modern currency, by some estimates. According to Almost History, MacGregor’s frauds “would run to £1.3m. As a share of Britain’s economy, this is equivalent to around £3.6 billion today.”

If accurate, the £3.6 billion translates to over $4.7 billion at current rates. Again, one agriculture fraud to rule them all.

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man

Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Judas Goats: Agriculture’s Bizarre, Drug-Addicted Masters of Deceit Once Ruled the Killing Floor

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam

The Arrowhead Whisperer: Stunning Indian

Artifact Collection Found on Farmland

Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas

Farmhouse Hides Civil War History

US Farming Loses the King of Combines

Blood and Mud: How an Arkansas Farm Family Birthed America

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 15:17:47 GMT

Thomas Atwood dropped a hornet’s nest down his stepmother’s dress, ran for the fields, and never returned home. It was 1870 and he was 13.

Young Thomas built a raft, floated down the Cumberland River, and unleashed an epic farming tale: 7’ giants, snuff-chewing women, hymnal chunkers, beehive cash hordes, panther hunts, entrepreneurial geniuses, and consummate survivors.

It is the story of the Atwood clan, but also the chronicle of many a multi-generational farm family. Pathos, determination, faith, failure, grit, and triumph—the gauntlet of American experience.

Death and Dysentery
Across the big pond, the Atwood name is a British headliner dating back 1,000-plus years, connected to Richard the Lionheart and William the Conqueror. Mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Domesday Book, the Atwood family thrived as landed gentry.

However, in 1650, the refined went redneck when a branch of the Atwood tree fell onto American shores. The family later settled in northern Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley as farmers and blacksmiths.

In the time-honored hunt for better land and bigger yields, the hot-tempered and high-intellect Atwoods migrated almost 500 miles to the wilderness of central Tennessee’s Smith County, led by the pluck of Moses Atwood—owner of 18 stout mules. By 1861 and the start of the Civil War, Moses and his mule team hauled freight for the Confederacy. In approximately 1863, in his early 30s, Moses was captured by Union soldiers, hauled to Johnson City, Tenn., and tossed on a train to Baltimore, Md., bound for incarceration at Fort McHenry, which served as a prison camp for Southern soldiers and sympathizers. Surrounded by the Patapsco River and Baltimore’s waterfront, Moses succumbed to disease, the No. 1 killer of the Civil War, inside the 35’-thick walls of Fort McHenry.

Back home in Tennessee, Moses’ firstborn son, 7-year-old Thomas Hooker Atwood, chafed under the thumb of a Native American stepmother. Mutual detestation. In his early teens on a spring day in 1870, Thomas crossed a line of no return. Sneaking behind his unsuspecting stepmother as she hung washing on a clothesline, Thomas slipped a hornet’s nest down the nape of her dress and hit the road.

Scraping a toehold as a farmhand, Thomas worked the fields of Smith County, and eventually bought ground, built an operation, started a family, and placed hopes for another generation on his goliath son, Joe Lee Atwood, a 7’1” gentle giant with a penchant for preaching the Word. Measuring 21” in combined handspan, Joe Lee frequently stunned farm visitors by lifting a 150 lb. anvil to shoulder level with a single hand.

In 1880, with soil wearing thin, Thomas and Joe Lee found opportunity to pull stakes. They constructed a massive raft beside the Cumberland River, loaded their belongings, and floated with the current to the Tennessee River, onto the Ohio River, spilled into the Mississippi River, and settled at Cayce in Fulton County in the extreme southeastern pocket of Kentucky. In Cayce, as always, Thomas and Joe Lee swung hammers over an anvil and worked the rows—always with eye on better ground.

From Scratch
In natural order, Thomas passed. The loss was bookended by blessing: a firstborn son and farming legend, John Henry Atwood—true maverick, eccentric, and pioneer.

Joe Lee and John Henry (a diminutive 6’1”) felt the same stir that pulled the family across centuries from Virginia to Tennessee to Kentucky. The past again spoke: “Go South.”

John Henry Atwood used bees as his banker, hiding jars filled with cash in the middle of hives.

(Photo courtesy of Stephen Atwood)

They sold their holdings, built a raft, loaded family and belongings, and bobbed along the banks of the Mississippi River, eventually crossing the big water at Charleston, in southeast Missouri. As their Atwood predecessors; as near-countless American farm families; they settled in virgin hardwoods inside the levee on ground replete with panthers and steady flood threats—raw acres that broke men.

Yet, piece by piece, they built a successful farm. Every fall at lay-by, the Atwood family would camp on the banks of the Mississippi for a week, setting trot lines and barrel nets. The men loosed hounds on panthers at night, gathered fish in the morning, and slept during the day. The women cleaned and processed fish, using pressure cookers and canning equipment.

“That’s what my family did—farming, fishing, blacksmithing,” says Stephen Atwood, great-grandson of John Henry. “That’s the sort of thing all farm families did—whatever it took to survive.”

Wash, rinse, repeat. In 1910, after battling floods from the mercurial Mississippi, Joe Lee and John Henry gathered the components of their multi-generational Missouri farming operation and moved 100 miles southeast, across the Bootheel and into Arkansas’ northeast corner outside Paragould, in Greene County, buying timberland on the extreme cheap. Once more, the Atwoods built an existence from scratch.

King Leo’s
By way of two-man crosscut saws, dynamite, and mule teams, hardwoods were replaced with cotton plants. Houses went up, dressed in brown-speckled clapboard and tar paper galore, buttressed by big front porches, cisterns, and outhouses.

At Joe Lee’s passing, John Henry took the wheel. Reign of the maverick patriarch.

With a madman’s cackle, soft heart, and keen business mind, John Henry was a walking contradiction, believing in a folk mix of natural order and modernization. He ran geese in the middles of cotton rows to control weeds, and never sprayed for boll weevils. “He refused,” explains great-grandson Stephen Atwood. “He always said, ‘God made the boll weevil, and he made him for something.’ That was just how he operated.”

At John Henry’s side stood his wife and equal in mettle, Lucinda Patrick Atwood. A Levi Garrett devotee, Lucinda packed her lip. She kept a spit cup at arm’s length and sported ever-present vertical streams of tobacco juice leaking from the corners of her mouth. Beloved by all in a family of sportsmen, Lucinda was the fisher queen, adept at pinching a piece of dough ball (flour, whole kernel corn, and chopped onions briefly boiled and rolled in corn meal) and dropping the mix on a hook, covered in a spit of snuff juice as the coup de grace. It was, by family lore, a catfish guarantee.

Joe Lee Atwood, second from left, and Myrtle Lucinda Atwood, far right.

(Photo courtesy of Stephen Atwood)

Lucinda bore John Henry a son, Moses Lee, and the overall Atwood business enterprise in northeast Arkansas grew to 1,000 acres, two cotton gins, and a fish market beside the St. Francis River. Yet, despite financial success, John Henry hated banks—but loved honey.

He maintained 100 hives and used bees as his banker. In a back yard apiary, in hexagon-shaped hives, he secreted mayonnaise jars filled with silver dollars and wads of cash—stuffed directly into the middle of the hives. Security by stinger.

Busier than a funeral home fan in July, John Henry carried no debt, tended the farm, taught Moses Lee the ropes, oversaw business interests, and provided a steady stream of assistance to local widows and orphans caught in the vise of the Great Depression.

Every night in the family den, seated beside an end table topped by a can of King Leo peppermint sticks and a leather Bible, John Henry read the Word, ate a single peppermint, and drank a cup of hot water. Simple pleasures.

However, John Henry’s contradictions surfaced in a particularly shiny indulgence: vehicles. Annually, without fail, he bought a new GMC pickup truck. Cash on the barrelhead.

During his silver years, when Social Security arrived, John Henry bucked, and began dropping government checks—one after another—into a drawer. A year later, a Social Security official knocked on John Henry’s door. “Mr. Atwood, have you been getting any checks? None of them have been cashed.’”

“Yessir, I got’em. They’re in a drawer. You want’em? I don’t want’em. Give them to someone else.”

Nutt’s Chapel
In 1935, in the heart of the Great Depression, John Henry suffered a shattered leg while working at one of the family cotton gins during picking.

Confined to bed, he lacked the manpower numbers to complete harvest. By chance, a traveling band of Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on the farm door and made John Henry an offer he couldn’t refuse: Listen to our theology, accept our literature, and we’ll help pick your crop.

The Atwood clan: back row, L-R, Moses Lee Atwood, Earl Noah Atwood, Myrtle Lucinda Patrick Atwood, and Bessie Atwood. Front row, L-R, Cletus Atwood, Mary Jane Baker Atwood, three remaining children uncertain.

(Photo courtesy of Stephen Atwood)

Bingo. The Jehovah’s Witnesses kept their word and picked; John Henry provided an open ear and accepted a pile of tracts. Deal done, the Jehovah’s Witnesses left for parts unknown, and John Henry maintained his Baptist beliefs.

However, the Jehovah’s Witnesses episode proved more than a curiosity. The Atwoods were members of Nutt’s Chapel, where Moses Lee served as song leader and John Henry was a deacon. All deacons at Nutt’s Chapel were farmers. When John Henry broke his leg, the deacon brethren were all under the farm gun, smothered by harvest and unable to help him. Days after the Jehovah’s Witnesses appeared, the deacons gathered and visited John Henry, genuinely concerned about his welfare.

On entering the Atwood home, several deacons eyeballed Jehovah’s Witnesses publications stacked in plain view. Accusations of apostasy spread like wildfire: The deacons returned to Nutt’s Chapel and reported that John Henry had jumped the pew. With haste, the congregation churched John Henry and kicked him to the curb.

Moses Lee was incensed. Backing his father, Moses Lee left Nutt’s Chapel.

Emotionally scarred, John Henry never sought membership in another church for the rest of his life.

Flying Songbooks
The next to farm, Moses Lee, was also the last to farm in the Atwood line.

Moses Lee Atwood, pictured alongside his mother, Myrtle Lucinda Atwood.

(Photo courtesy of Stephen Atwood)

A stoutly built man with the thick legs of a pole tosser, Moses Lee operated with both commerce and community in mind. As area farmers plunged into economic freefall, Moses Lee stood on the steps of the Greene County courthouse and bought 110 farms at auction during the 1930s.

As described by Stephen Atwood: “Moses, my grandfather, went to those same farmers and told them not to leave their land; not to give up. He promised them, ‘We’ll farm together on portions. I’ll give you the seed and you make the crop and give me 50%. You save all you can and pay me what I paid for the land, and you can have it back.’ All but two of the 110 farms that Moses paid for at auction were bought back by the original farmers.”

Nutt’s Chapel made an inevitable return when Moses Lee’s son, Raymond, heard the Lord’s call to ministry and left the farm for the pulpit. Raymond was asked to preach a two-week revival at Nutt’s Chapel and accepted the invitation.

Raymond sought John Henry and extended the invite. John Henry declined. However, night after night, a two-tone, red-and-white GMC was parked under an oak outside the church, with John Henry behind the wheel, windows down, listening to his grandson’s sermons.

On a Thursday night of the second revival week, Moses Lee braved the doors of Nutt’s Chapel, alongside his wife, Vuler Jane, and sat on the second row, according to Stephen. “I was on the front row and my grandparents were behind me. The Nutt’s Chapel song leader, who was one of the same deacons that had churched them, walked up to my grandpa and asked, ‘Moses, why don’t you lead the songs tonight like times past?’”

Moses accepted and took his bass voice to the podium. Music and worship began; the sanctuary stirred; the Spirit moved. “All of a sudden, I felt a book fly past my head, followed by a whole lot of screaming and shouting,” Stephen says. “It was my grandma, hollering and throwing songbooks. Just then, my great-grandpa, John Henry, walked into the church. They all came back for the remaining three nights.”

A hymnal chunked and a hatchet buried.

Chain of Blood
Away from the farm, Raymond spent a career as a pastor. His son, Stephen, followed into ministry, eventually joining the Tennessee National Guard as a chaplain. He switched to active-duty status in 1982 and served in Desert Storm with the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment.

Stephen Atwood, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2ND BDE, 82ND ABN DIV. Photographed in the bay of Camp Red, Saudi Arabia, Desert Shield/Storm.

(Photo courtesy of Stephen Atwood)

Now retired, Stephen, 72, still feels the pull of the farm. “Milking cows, pulling corn, cleaning lots, chopping weeds, and so much more was a part of my life as a boy,” Stephen says. “But it was growing fainter all the time. I rented my land out for a while and sold out completely in 2008.”

Multi-generational farm families store history in vignettes. The stage remains the same, but the actors change: Moses to Thomas to Joe Lee to John Henry to Moses Lee to Raymond to Stephen.

Respect to the Atwoods and their American tale.

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man

Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam

The Arrowhead Whisperer: Stunning Indian Artifact Collection Found on Farmland

Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas Farmhouse Hides Civil War History

Fake Farmer Steals $8.75M In Green Energy Scam

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 22:26:49 GMT

Wearing a saccharine grin, Ray Brewer swished fat fingers through a bucket of fertilizer pellets and rattled out the mating call of a con man—the sweet sound of money. In droves, the faithful dumped $8.75 million into his agricultural skin game.

Nestled in a basement chop shop beneath the glamor of an infinity pool and a house in the hills, Brewer bilked investors and farmers from 2014-2019, based entirely on cow manure and the lure of biogas, renewable energy, and tax incentives.

Most agriculture crimes are coated in a veneer of reality—enough truth to hide the rot. Not so with silver-tongued Brewer. His scam was a total lie.

He understood the rules of a modern ag heist: Nothing so green as a green energy con.

The Man From Nowhere
In a single day, a dairy cow can expel close to 100- plus lb. of waste. The U.S. leader at roughly $9.7 billion in annual milk sales, California is home to the nation’s largest dairy herd: 1.7 million defecating milk cows.

In 2014, Ray Holcomb Brewer, 57, navigated California’s Central Valley agriculture as a commanding, highly intelligent, and persuasive predator. At 6’ and 300 lb., balding and silver-mustached, Brewer presented himself as an engineer with knowledge of each nut and bolt, along with every profitability angle, of anaerobic digesters—alchemy machines that churn turds into money.

He made the rounds of dairy industry events, conferences, and equipment tradeshows, showing leg to potential investors via construction or operation of a whopping 12 anaerobic digesters ( 129 digesters are currently functioning statewide) in Fresno, Kern, Kings, and Tulare counties, and a lone digester in Idaho. As the CEO of CH4 Power, headquartered in Tulare, Brewer promised investors returns in less than two years, generated from 66% of methane gas sales, carbon offsets, fertilizer, and tax breaks—all derived from his dairy digesters.

Brewer paved his scam with fake digester construction photos.

(Photo by DOJ)

In truth, despite Brewer’s peacocking, he had no digesters under construction; no functioning digesters cooking manure; no byproducts; and no farmland. Nuffin.

Brewer’s track record was blank, says Henry Carbajal, assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California and Unit Chief for White-Collar Crime. “It was almost like he popped out of the blue. Prior to the early 2000s, we still don’t know where he came from. We believe he had a background in the agriculture industry, but it was very difficult to find records beforehand.”

“The evidence we uncovered shows he worked as a consultant or had a digester-related role, but we don’t know where,” Carbajal says. “That was in the early 2000s, but again, before that he is somewhat of an unknown.”

Joseph Barton, assistant U.S. attorney under Carbajal, says Brewer mastered the lexicon of the agriculture industry. “He created entirely fake power generation reports which were extremely complicated and detailed. He’d send the reports to investors and say, ‘Look how much power my digesters are generating.’ Where did he learn to prepare those? We don’t know.”

“This was not someone who decided overnight to execute a fraud,” Barton adds. “Brewer was a guy with a past in something agriculture related.”

Indeed. The man from nowhere knew precisely how to build a Ponzi on farmland.

Ray’s Magical Beans
Brewer hung a shingle in Tulare. His company, CH4 Power, occupied an executive suite in an office park, manned by less than 10 employees. Purposely, Brewer hired agriculture newbies unfamiliar with livestock or farms. “We don’t believe any of them knew what was going on,” Barton explains. “The people working for him thought he was running a legitimate business.”

As always with Brewer, nothing was real, including fake construction schedules for nonexistent digesters.

(Photo by DOJ)

And business, Brewer asserted, was building a better mousetrap. He didn’t claim to invent breakthrough digester technology. Rather, he insisted, his innovation was streamlining the overall digester process with superior knowledge in mechanics, land approval, environmental regs, code compliance, timeline, local authorities, farmer connections, and permitting process: I am the engineer and I know.

As described in a federal 2019 indictment: “Defendant Brewer purported to have developed an anaerobic digester that would help dairies meet or exceed greenhouse gas emission standards and generate up to ten times the amount of energy that the dairies used, which would create reliable revenue streams for years to come.”

He sought big-city investors (domestic and foreign) eager to catch the carbon wave, but ignorant about agriculture, and wooed them via marketing materials, power generation reports, digester photos, and signed buyer contracts. As a cherry on top, Brewer promised a green energy tax incentive if payment was made before the calendar year ended. The investors, on Brewer’s word, anticipated the immediate tax money bump, followed by booming returns upon digester completion the following year.

To build his bonafides, Brewer signed several lease agreements with Central Valley dairies, falsely promising to build digesters. Simultaneously, he forged lease agreements with other dairies, backed by fake farmer signatures. Brewer then used the growing pile of counterfeit documents to deceive investors. All the while, he never began construction on a single digester.

Fancy house, smooth driveway, and loads of furniture: The money all filtered to Brewer’s pocket.

(Photo by DOJ)

Whenever investors visited on-site in Tulare to eyeball completed digesters or units under construction, Brewer took them to a genuine, functioning digester and feigned ownership, or carried clients to a farm (that he didn’t own) and claimed that digester construction was imminent.

“With the ties he had in the agriculture industry, he got access to a real digester,” Barton says. “It wasn’t his, but he passed it off as his. These were machines that had to be managed, but ran by themselves for extended periods of time, so Brewer would take his tours there at the right time and there wouldn’t be hardly anyone around.”

Adding layers to the cake, Brewer kept buckets of digester-produced, no-scent fertilizer pellets in his Tulare office, gleefully showing the contents to curious investors as tangible proof of amazing returns, i.e., Ray and his magical farm beans.

“It was such a compelling prop,” Barton notes. “He had pails of pellets to give to investors. He’d say, ‘We’re so successful that even our byproducts are selling and I’ve got contracts I can show you right here. A win-win.’”

Capping off the tours, Brewer wined and dined visitors roughly 120 miles north of Los Angeles at his fine residence in the hills, a 3,700 sq ft home on 10 acres purchased with seed money from his initial investors, complete with infinity pool and the new shine of several Dodge Ram trucks parked in the driveway, along with ATVs aplenty.

Money, honey. The manure Ponzi climbed higher and higher. If, and when, the base began creaking, Brewer would take his millions and run.

$100 Million Flex
The levers of fraud were pulled in an office basement at Brewer’s home—a chop shop.

Hunched over a desk, Brewer forged financial records, power generation reports, invoices, REC certificates, construction schedules, and permitting documents, keeping unsigned templates at the ready for repeated use. He also manipulated photographs, according to the subsequent federal indictment: Defendant Brewer obtained stock photographs of anaerobic digesters that were under construction that he did not own or control and had no involvement in building. Defendant Brewer then sent the photographs, sometimes after causing alterations to be made to the photographs, to different investors at various times to show them progress on different purported digesters when there had not been any construction.

Fake license of Ray “Lenair” Brewer, purported military hero and international businessman.

(Photo by DOJ)

Each time Brewer received new investor money, he opened a corresponding bank account, and then slid the money into sub-accounts with deceptive titles (Interconnection Engineering; Interconnection Permit; Water Board Fees) seemingly related to digester construction. He then blew the funds on personal items, while maintaining forged invoices as proof the money was spent on digester materials.
As dollars poured in, Brewer partied.

According to investigators, every penny of the Ponzi traced to personal expenditure: RVs, trucks, Harley-Davidsons, scores of guns, property, and more personal assets. He spent zero on construction material.

Beyond U.S. agriculture, Brewer managed to pull in big money from foreign investors.

(Photo by DOJ)

“The dedication and detail to money laundering is almost unique to Brewer,” Carbajal says. “You just don’t see it often in these cases because it takes heavy forethought and planning.”

Brewer’s wire transfers composed a steady chain of theft across 2016-2018, ranging from $14,900 to $5,000,000. As the money flowed, Brewer made a $100-million flex: He faked a letter from Rabobank backing a $100-million loan to build anaerobic digesters.

“I think he was having a good time,” Barton says. “It was as if he’d gotten his Series A startup going with several million dollars, and now it was time for Series B. The fake $100 million letter was a broadcast to investors that a real financial institution was backing it all up. With a number so big, investors assumed everything must have been vetted. Therefore, this had to be the real McCoy.”

“But it was a lie; the letter was altered by Brewer,” Barton continues. “In the genuine letter, the bank stated it was not committed to lending money until due diligence was performed. Investors never saw the genuine letter.”

In classic Ponzi mathematics, Brewer kept his early CH4 Power investors smiling by providing them with small payments gleaned from subsequent investors.

However, as the months rolled by, he ran short of Peters to pay Pauls. Irate investors, sick of Brewer’s promises, began filing lawsuits.

One step ahead of tar and feathers, it was time for Brewer to bounce. The natives were restless.

Grifters Gonna Grift
Arkansas and Nevada were Brewer’s ticket out of California. With a stolen Social Security number plucked from a dead man in Arkansas (first used by Brewer at least as far back as 2003), and a bogus “Ray Lenair Brewer” Nevada driver’s license, he moved 1,100 miles northeast to Sheridan, Montana, and switched his remaining assets to his wife’s name.

Brewer may have separated his scams from pillow talk. “He was married, but his wife later claimed she never knew he was doing anything illegal—and based on the evidence, we believed her,” Barton says. “When we talked to victims, they had met his wife, but they said that during business talks, she wasn’t around or referenced.”

In southwest Montana, Brewer hit the ground running in a blur of skullduggery: He bought a 12-acre property in Madison County, obtained a $118,000 COVID Paycheck Protection Program in the name of defunct CH4 Power, started another digester company—Mesa Renewable Energy, and quickly scalped his first victim of $90,000 by masquerading as a custom storage shed builder.

Grifters gonna grift.

However, Brewer finally reaped the whirlwind of his prior scheme. His power generation reports from the ghost digester in Idaho, sent to a nonprofit for certification of carbon offset credits, had generated an audit. The result? A blank, i.e., the Idaho digester didn’t exist. A federal investigation opened as the dominoes fell, and Brewer popped into the crosshairs of two bulldog U.S. attorneys—Carbajal and Barton.

According to indictment records, Brewer was a major Dodge Ram fan and repeat customer.

(Photo by DOJ)

Arrested by Madison County sheriff’s deputies in November 2020, Brewer maintained flimflam form in custody, insisting his identity was “Ray Lenair Brewer,” and not “Ray Holcomb Brewer.”
When the ID switcheroo failed to gain traction, Brewer spat out stolen valor.

Hoping to gain sympathy, he told deputies he was a Navy veteran who had once saved several members of a flight crew on the deck of an aircraft carrier. After an incoming jet caught fire during a rough landing, Brewer suffered burns while shielding the crew from flames, according to his fabrication. (Significantly, Brewer floated the identical war story to several digester investors.)

“Not true,” Barton says. “Complete lie. It wasn’t true for any of his identities. He never served in the Navy or any other branch of the military.”

“In our experience, most Ponzi schemers finally give it up when they’re caught solid,” Carbajal adds. “Not Brewer. It was doubling and tripling down. He tried to get out of anything and everything to the end.”

Sent back to California for trial, Brewer was nailed to the wall when Carbajal and Barton exposed the paper trail. Brewer, 66, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft charges—yet lied to the end.

Brewer, the man from nowhere, stole almost $9M based on biogas, renewable energy, and tax incentives.

(Photo by Madison County Sheriff’s Office)

At sentencing in June 2023, he arrived in a wheelchair with a final tale to spin. During his detention at Fresno County Jail, a nurse had been attacked by inmates. Brewer played on the incident in open court by telling the judge he had jumped into the assault and saved the nurse from further injury, resulting in knee damage to himself and the necessity of a wheelchair.

Barton sets the record straight: “He lied—again. Brewer had hurt his knee previously in a motorcycle accident on one of the Harley-Davidson motorcycles he bought with stolen investor money.”

Brewer, federal inmate #14502-097, received six years and nine months in prison and was ordered to pay $8.75 million in restitution.

Green Web
At the peak of his Ponzi power in December 2016, while raking in millions, Brewer spoke to the Visalia Times-Delta about the failure of past digester models, and told a telltale lie: “In our world, we’re the guys that come in with the fund. All the dairymen have to do is collect the money.”

It was one more gross falsehood in a green web of fiction: “It was all fake,” Barton says. “There were no contracts, no digesters, no end customers, and no farmland. There was nothing but the investors.”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man

Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam

Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam

The Arrowhead Whisperer: Stunning Indian Artifact Collection Found on Farmland

Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas Farmhouse Hides Civil War History

Conduit’s Cyber Week Highlights How to Cut Costs For Inputs

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 17:51:55 GMT

Purchase one of three available bundles (one corn and two soybean) and receive free glyphosate or glufosinate. Plus 0% financing. That’s the offer Conduit is putting in front of farmers Nov. 25 to Dec. 2.

When farmers log on and purchase a bundle of select AcreEdge products, they will get a glyphosate or glufosinate product matched to those same acres for no additional charge. The AcreEdge portfolio includes adjuvants, foliar nutrient products, seed treatments and biostimulant products.

Launched earlier this year, Conduit spun out from Landus as a separate business that removes unnecessary links in the supply chain with the goal of improving farmer profitability through competitively priced inputs and 0% financing.

“Every farmer buys differently, and there is absolutely still a need for the full service ag retail, like Landus and many others that are out there,” says Landus CEO Matt Carstens. “But as you look at the fastest growing segment, it’s that self-reliant farmer. They are very comfortable buying online; they know what they want to do; they know why they want to do it.”

Regarding this buy three get one offer, Carstens says he doesn’t think there’s ever been anything like it in the market.

“We have gotten fantastic yield results from our farmers, and I’ve received more positive comments on that portfolio of products,” he says. “Our focus is to help farmers be successful, control the controllables, and get the most bushels they can.”

In its first six months of doing business, a leading product for Conduit has become its financing offer.

“We’re nearing having a half of a billion dollars of available financing that farmers have applied for,” he says. “And from Thanksgiving all the way through the holiday season, this financing offers meets farmers where they want to spend money and get ahead of prepay and taxes. There’s a great opportunity to take advantage of 0% financing today all the way through January 15 of 2026.”

Carstens says the special online purchase offers and the financing offers are just two of many examples of how Conduit is targeting taking costs out of the supply chain. With the current economic strain on row crop farming, he says now is the time to bring better efficiency.

“We’ve got to get better at taking the links out of the supply chain and ultimately taking cost out of the supply chain. Think about some of these products that we have that go from a manufacturer to a wholesaler, to a retailer, to a farmer in 2024. That’s nuts. It’s absolutely wrong as a matter of fact,” he says. “Conduit was really built on taking links out. We’ve got to take our costs down. We like to say right now, it runs just slightly over 90% cost savings over our full service model. So comparatively, Conduit is taking 90 plus percent of the cost out that we have in a full service model.”

He adds, “You know every farmer wants to take costs out. But you can’t do it today in a completely full service model. If that’s the goal of the farmer, we’ve got to look at the world differently, and Conduit is going to do just that.”

Carstens says there are examples from the consumer world with how technology has improved the purchase process giving nod to Facetiming, less than one hour delivery via Amazon or Doordash, and others.

“Today is a different day than the past when our ag retail business structures were formed. If we don’t take a step back and look at some of these problems from the farmer side, we are missing a real opportunity. There’s got to be parts of our channel that’s got to be collapsed,” he says.

Through the buying timeframe of the 2025 crop year, Conduit has additional offers forthcoming.

Ag Lenders: Just Over Half of Farmers Will Be Profitable in 2024

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 21:52:57 GMT

The American Bankers Association (ABA) and the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (Farmer Mac) have released their joint 2024 Ag Lender Survey.

The big takeaway: lenders believe only 58% of farmer borrowers will be profitable in 2024. That’s down from 78% in the previous year’s study.

“The agricultural economy is inherently cyclical, and ag lenders are navigating the changing conditions across the sectors they serve,” said Jackson Takach, chief economist of Farmer Mac.

“While the responses highlight slowing land values and a profitability shift from crops toward animal proteins, ag lenders remain steadfast in leveraging their resources and relationships to guide producers through all parts of the cycle,” Takach says.

Profitability expectations did vary by region and commodity category. Optimism was greater for livestock producers over row crop farmers.

The two top concerns listed by lenders for agricultural producers are liquidity and farm income.

For lending institutions, the respondents said the biggest concern was credit quality along with agricultural loan deterioration in the next 12 months.

“Agricultural credit quality remained robust in 2024, but lenders expect deterioration in the coming year as farmers face a more challenging environment,” said Tyler Mondres, senior director of research at the American Bankers Association. “Lenders are taking prudent steps to manage risk such as tightening underwriting standards, and they remain committed to working with and supporting their borrowers.”

Demand for loans secured by farmland and agricultural production loans increased in 2024, and both categories of loans are expected to rise in the next year as well.

The ABA/Farmer Mac survey has been conducted for nine years, and this year’s responses included more than 450 ag lenders who represent institutions ranging from less than $50 million to more than $1 billion.

You can read the full report here

Co-Op Board Delays Merger Vote, Farmers Will Consider Two Offers

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 21:29:41 GMT

With a message also posted on its website and social media , the West Central Ag Services board of directors has delayed its member vote on a potential merger.

The original vote was scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 7 after members had an opportunity to review the offer from CHS for acquisition. However, earlier in the week The Arthur Companies launched a campaign alerting farmers of its previously denied offer to purchase the business. This was reported on Tuesday in the story: Can A Last-Minute Campaign Derail An Ag Retail Merger?

The message from the West Central Board reads:

As you may already know, on November 4, 2024, West Central Ag Services received an unsolicited bid to be acquired by The Arthur Companies. Our Board of Directors has reviewed this unsolicited offer and has decided to postpone the November 7, 2024 patron meeting until November 26, 2024 in order to further evaluate this offer. Rest assured, our Board of Directors is taking The Arthur Companies offer seriously and is focused on ensuring the best outcome for our patron members. We apologize for this inconvenience, as we know many of you have made special arrangements to attend the November 7 patron meeting to exercise your vote with this important matter. As always, you may reach out to the West Central executive management team if you have any questions or concerns.

The vote is being held at the company’s headquarters in Ulen, Minn. On social media, some individuals posted concern having the rescheduled vote the week of Thanksgiving citing travel conflicts during the holiday.

CEO of the Arthur Companies, James Burgum says, “We’re grateful for the leadership of West Central’s board of directors for giving their growers the appropriate time and space to evaluate both of these offers. The Arthur Companies would welcome the opportunity to meet with the board and answer any questions they have about our offer.”

Can A Last-Minute Campaign Derail An Ag Retail Merger?

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 18:38:10 GMT

There’s another vote this week getting attention in farm country across Minnesota.

As announced in May, CHS and West Central Ag Services have signed a nonbinding letter of intent for acquisition. The farmer member vote is Thursday, Nov. 6.

“We believe strongly in the value of the cooperative system and think CHS is a great home for West Central Ag Services. CHS is a farmer-owned cooperative that connects farmers to a global supply chain while providing patronage back to owners,” says Rick Dusek, EVP, ag retail, distribution and transportation at CHS.

However, on Nov. 4, The Arthur Companies disclosed they had put in an unsolicited bid for West Central acquisition in April. When the details of the merger with CHS were revealed in the voting paperwork received by farmers, Arthur Companies’ CEO James Burgum launched an unprecedented outreach effort.

“We know, after reviewing the proposal, that our alternative proposal is a stronger proposal for growers’ bottom line,” he says. “We wanted them to make sure as they go in to vote this Thursday and make a decision about the future of their cooperative, they have all the information and all the facts about The Arthur Company’s proposal about who we are and why we’re excited and interested to put ourselves in front of the patrons as an alternative path.”

Three things make this unique in the ag retail business:

This represents a family-owned business looking to acquire a cooperative
Typically, when a company does not get chosen as the winning bid, they don’t reveal themselves
Not only is Arthur Companies making it known they sought to acquire West Central, they are actively asking farmers to reconsider a resubmitted indication of interest

As detailed on ArthurAdvantage.com , the company outlines what is different about the proposals and posts the letter Burgum sent to West Central farmer members, which includes his contact information for direct outreach, and he says there has been a lot of inbound calls.

“This is important that they know there are still alternatives for them as they think about the future of their cooperative,” he says.

West Central Ag Services was founded in 2000, is headquartered in Ulen, Minnesota and has 14 locations.

Unbowed: Farmer Fights County’s $120,000 Fine For Housing Worker On-Site

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 14:01:06 GMT

In the annals of clashes between government control versus private property rights, Michael Ballard’s story is standalone. Ballard faces $120,000-plus in fines for allowing his farm manager to live on his California farm.

When Ballard let Marcelino Martinez, a 23-year career employee, live on-site in a trailer, Santa Clara County officials reacted with a blitz of code violations. Yet, those same officials permit thousands of homeless to reside in tents, shanties, and RVs across the county without penalty.

Bottom line, according to the county: If Martinez lives homeless on the streets and commutes to work on the farm, no problem. However, if he resides on the farm in a trailer—even out of site from public roads and neighboring properties—the action is illegal and deserves draconian fines.

Ballard is unbowed, represented by Institute for Justice: “Our city roads and cul-de-sacs have rows and rows of homeless camped on public property and that’s just fine with the county—no repercussions for anyone. However, I’m being prosecuted because my vineyard manager and his family live on my private property.”

“I’m fighting the county and I’ll never listen to power-crazy bureaucrats that tell me I have to kick a family off our place,” Ballard adds. “Never. I want the public to know the shocking details and see extreme injustice by our own government.”

Soapbox Love

In 1996, Michael and Kellie Ballard bought Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards in east-central California outside Saratoga—60 acres of exquisite beauty overlooking redwoods and rolling hills.

The surrounding Saratoga community, tucked beside Silicon Valley, consistently ranks at the top of per capita income and home value in the United States. Big-name tech entrepreneurs reside in Saratoga and want their homes cleaned, lawns mowed, and tables waited—creating a massive housing crisis.

“Michael Ballard used his own land to solve a problem for a friend and farmworker in a county with arguably the most severe housing crisis in the country, and the government cracked down,” says IJ attorney Paul Avelar adds. “That is madness.”

(Photo by IJ)

“The labor-based population cannot afford a place to stay,” Ballard explains. “It’s not a secret. Most people cannot find a house or apartment to rent.”

Additionally, beneath the affluence of the region, a Santa Clara County-wide homeless debacle has developed. “People want to pretend this problem is something other than what it is,” Ballard explains. “You’re not even supposed to say ‘homeless’ anymore, because it’s supposedly disrespectful to the homeless. Everyone loves the soapbox, but when visitors from out-of-state see the homeless on our streets, they can’t comprehend what’s happened.”

Since 2013, Marcelino Martinez, Ballard’s vineyard manager and long-time employee, has lived at Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards in a 42’ trailer with water, electricity, and septic hookups, alongside his wife and three children.

“The Martinez family is also our family. They could not find housing and we wanted to help,” says Ballard. “The trailer sits by itself in a redwood grove down a hill from our winery and can’t even be seen from most spots on our property. Literally, it bothers no one.”

In September 2017, Santa Clara County got an anonymous call about sewage dumped in a creek on the Ballard’s operation. County inspectors visited Ballard’s land and found the charges were fabricated.

However, while on the vineyard property, inspectors spotted Martinez’s trailer.

“They saw the trailer and said, ‘What is that? No one’s allowed to live in an RV trailer in the county.’”

A bureaucratic nightmare began.

Bullfrogs and Shotguns

Ten days later, a notice from the county arrived in Ballard’s mailbox, demanding removal of Martinez’s trailer within two weeks, and declaring the structure a “public nuisance.”

The irony was stark: If Martinez and family slept on county streets—no fines and no foul. However, if Martinez dared to sleep in a trailer at the farm of his employment—instant county rebuke.

“Ludicrous,” Ballard says. “We’re on 60 acres of private property, bothering nobody, and the trailer is not even visible to the public. The man who lives inside works in our vines and is integral to all the physical parts of our operation. Yet, the county was ordering me to throw him and his family off our property. Homeless is just fine with the county; a trailer in Saratoga is not.”

(Santa Clara County declined Farm Journal interview requests regarding Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards.)

Marcelino Martinez, farm manager and 23-year veteran at Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards.

(Photo by IJ)

In 2019, county officials levied $1,000-per-day fines on Ballard: Remove the trailer or fork over $365,000 every year. “Hell no,” he says. “I wasn’t going to make a family homeless.”

Ballard sought a solution via a prefab dwelling for the Martinez family. Best laid plans. Building any structure—even an 850 sq. ft. home—was a bureaucratic maze filled with exorbitant expense.

“We looked into developing a parcel, knowing the county might approve and might not; knowing it would take a couple years; and knowing it would total maybe $100,000-plus just for the pre-permit application process.”

Convoluted, complicated, and costly, and toe-tagged with a laundry list of checkoffs, Ballard notes. “It took us one year to complete the geological studies and road composition, have a septic system designed, retest an existing well, and get electricity and a fire hydrant approved.”

“Meanwhile, as we’re spending all this money, county officials said we were taking too long,” Ballard says. “After that, we assembled enough of the preliminary engineering work to put in our first application. Several months later, the county countered with another laundry list of things to do.”

And then COVID hit. By law, Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards was shuttered for two years.

Following COVID in 2023, Ballard’s property was hit by a catastrophic landslide that closed the winery for a full four months. “And next it was flooding in 2023-24 that closed us for five months,” Ballard adds. “One thing after another, and the whole time, the government is telling us we’re taking too long to follow their endless list of building requirements—all to house a family on our private land.”

The fines, although reduced to $250, and later $100 per day, kept stacking, tightening the pressure on Ballard and Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards .

The county was hunting a bullfrog with a shotgun, Ballard contends: “Look at the power of the bureaucracy over our lives at the local and national levels. Rules are necessary, but these agencies and institutions keep regulating to justify their expansion and existence. They always grow and never shrink. The end result is a loss of reason by the government and a loss of liberty for the citizen.”

Individual Liberty

In 2024, attorney Paul Avelar and Institute for Justice stepped into the fray and took over Ballard’s appeal for relief.

“This injustice is absolutely bewildering to the public,” Avelar describes. “The county tells Michael Ballard, a landowner and business owner, to kick a family—bothering no one and working hard—to the street or get fined $100 or even $1,000 per day. Then Michael is required to endure a permitting process that drags for years and costs at least tens of thousands of dollars before building even begins. It’s hard for people to believe.”

The fines imposed by the county, since dropped to $100 per day, but totaling over $120,000, are a massively outsized penalty for a minor violation, and a breach of the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines clause, Avelar insists. “A daily accruing fine means that every day is a new harm to the Ballards. The Institute for Justice has taken over the Ballard’s appeal to assert the Eighth Amendment, as well as due process, and we believe no fine is appropriate.”

“Michael Ballard used his own land to solve a problem for a friend and farmworker in a county with arguably the most severe housing crisis in the country, and the government cracked down,” Avelar adds. “That is madness.”

Michael and Kellie Ballard. “I’m fighting the county and I’ll never listen to power-crazy bureaucrats that tell me I have to kick a family off our place,” says Michael says.

(Photo by IJ)

Ballard is adamant: Reason will prevail. “In the United States, we don’t have a democracy ruled by the whim of the masses. Our forefathers gave us a constitutional republic steered by elected representatives of the people. That’s a very distinct difference, and crucially important because it means our elected leaders have authority, but are restricted by the Constitution, which protects individual liberty.”

“That’s what is abused in my case—individual liberty,” he adds. “And I see it abused in so many cases across this country because the government seeks more and more control of private property. It’s undeniable and getting worse with time.”

Ballard concludes with a line in the sand. “I don’t care about the fines or prosecution. I will protect the Martinez family and the county will not put them on the street.”

For more articles from Chris Bennett ( cbennett@farmjournal.com or @ChrisBennettMS
or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud
Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic
Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market
Power vs. Privacy: Landowner Sues Game Wardens, Challenges Property Intrusion
Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.
Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years
While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

Organic Implosion: How Two Grifters Cooked $50M In Fake Fertilizer and Rocked Agriculture

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 15:30:12 GMT

Once upon an organic fraud, two grifters sold farmers a $50-million river of fake fertilizer. Fish guts and chicken feathers, juiced with synthetic nitrogen, became the nutrient steroids of the gods. And, year over year, millions of pounds of organic fruits, nuts, and vegetables purchased from supermarket shelves by the faithful—weren’t so organic.

Peter Townsley and Kenneth Nelson engineered twin hustles in the breadbasket of California by slipping nitrogen mickeys into vats of organic fertilizer and selling the hooch with a wink. Secret tanks beneath floorboards, falsified paperwork, mysterious railcars, and magical sludge almost buried a portion of the organic agriculture industry in a staggering swindle that lasted almost a decade.

How did the crooked duo pull off the heist?

Peter and Ken

After weathering the economic hell of the 1980s, a wave of farmers lined up to change horses from conventional to organic production. In a state of flux, organic agriculture was a Wild West of opportunity, and thereby ripe for a con.

The tentacles of the scam ran through every layer of the agriculture industry.

(Photo by USDA)

In 1990, USDA established the National Organic Program (NOP) to ensure crops were the real organic McCoy. Among NOP rules was a fertilizer regulation banning synthetic ingredients. Fertilizer regulation was the bailiwick of individual states, and loopholes abounded, i.e., criminal, intentional, accidental, and incidental were overlapping terms.

Organic growers searched for affordable nutrients. They needed fertilizer packing nitrogen muscle that could be applied via drip irrigation without the clogging problems associated with typical organic slurries of fish carcasses or bloodmeal.

Into the gap stepped a pair of contrasting Walter White devotees. Peter Townsley, a laid-back Canadian microbiologist from British Columbia—erudite and sincere; and Kenneth Nelson, a boot-wearing son of Bakersfield—brash and boastful. Peter the polite and Ken the colorful were not criminal newbies: They honed their fertilizer cooking skills in the 1990s.

“Both were caught spiking their products; 1997 for Nelson and 1999 for Townsley,” Brian Baker says. “Both claimed it was a just a mistake and asked for another chance. When we gave them one, they learned to cheat better and burned the hell out of us.”

A River In Egypt

The smell of rot was present from the get-go, contends the plain-talking Baker.

Highly respected as likely the first person in the U.S. to work full-time on organic certification, Baker’s agriculture history runs deep into the 1970s. From 1997 to 2009, he evaluated inputs at the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI), the preeminent organization tasked with verifying organic inputs.

(OMRI declined Farm Journal interview requests regarding the actions of Peter Townsley and Kenneth Nelson.)

Baker had an up-close seat to the antics of Townsley and Nelson. “There were a lot of colorful characters in organic agriculture at the time, but those two pulled new scams. They were liars. We knew they were lying. They knew we knew they were lying,” Baker sighs. “But could we build a case that would hold up in court? That question took much work over many years to answer.”

“As time goes by, I have more questions than I started with,” Baker says. “The more I find out, the more I realize how much I don’t know about who was involved.”

(Photo by Lance Cheung, USDA)

Fertilizer manufacturers sought OMRI listing. In return for OMRI’s respected stamp on the label, the manufacturers were required to disclose ingredients and production processes. Townsley and Nelson hijacked the system.

“They were clever in concealing their tracks and they were in it for the long con. That’s what makes a good grifter,” Baker adds. “In fact, they were so good that after it all came crashing down, there were people in the field still denying the con—refusing to admit they were hoodwinked.”

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Sneaky Pete

The scheme.

In 2000, headquartered in the Salinas Valley, among the most productive agriculture regions on the planet, science-touting Townsley was steering his company, California Liquid Fertilizer (CLF), through financial doldrums.

Drawn to the Salinas Valley by the opportunity to utilize Monterey Bay, Townsley fermented fish bycatch in massive tanks and turned the mash into a slurry for fertigation, essentially the holy grail of crop delivery. However, Townsley was vexed by emitter clogs, the persistent thorn of liquid organic fertilizer. Most of the nitrogen in fish and organic forms is insoluble, i.e., particles plug the pipes.

Biolizer XN was Townsley’s juiced racehorse of liquid organic fertilizers—and the beast ran like hell.

(Photo by DOJ)

Back in 1998, Townsley had gained OMRI approval for what later became his flagship product—Biolizer XN. He told OMRI it was composed of fish, fish by-products, feathermeal, and water. However, by 2000, on the verge of business collapse, mild-mannered Townsley secretly switched the contents of Biolizer XN by adding Protoferm, a soybean processing waste product that contained ammonia chloride, a chemical banned by organic fertilizer guidelines.

Despite Biolizer XN’s new illicit formula, Townsley’s customers howled within the year about damaged crops: ammonia chloride levels in Biolizer XN were too high. Back to the drawing board, he sought another secret synthetic, and at an Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) plant in Illinois, he sourced a soybean ringer—ammonium sulfate as a leftover of lysine production.

Erik Heggen, who worked with specialty feed ingredients at ADM from 2001-2008, provided federal investigators with written testimony: “I became familiar with a substance that was a by-product of ADM’s lysine production process. ADM referred to this by-product as ammonium sulfate and sold it for uses as a liquid fertilizer for conventional farming practices.” (ADM had no license to ship ammonium sulfate to California and was later issued a violation by the California Department of Food & Agriculture.)

“In the 2001 to 2006 time frame, ADM manufactured lysine in Decatur, Illinois,” Heggen continued. “The ammonium sulfate was a by-product of this manufacturing process and was sold in a liquid form which had a nitrogen level ranging from 5% to 6%.”

Townsley was in love—or at least in lust: He bought 14-plus tons of ammonium sulfate. ADM’s soybean castoff became the key that picked the lock on the entire fraud: Move ammonium sulfate in rail cars from Illinois to California, pump the brown swill into CLF fermentation tanks, print labels claiming Biolizer XN only contained fish and feathermeal, lie like a dog to OMRI for approval, flood the market with cheap conventional fertilizer masked as organic, undercut all legitimate organic fertilizer manufacturers, and sell, baby, sell.

CLF’s other products fell to the wayside: Customers wanted nothing below the wonders of nitrogen-rich, free-flowing Biolizer XN. Everyone in the industry knew a fish crud fertilizer at a minimum of 6% nitrogen could never flow properly through drip irrigation systems—but Biolizer XN did.

With profits pouring in, Townsley went full sneaky-Pete. In an April 2009 FBI interview, CLF’s second in command, Jacob Evans, described a point where his boss, Townsley, injected directly into the vein: “Evans remembered numerous times where the ADM product, ammonium sulfate, did not go through the digesters. At times, CLF took the ADM product straight from the railcars and packaged it for sale.”

Townsley’s Biolizer XN didn’t constipate drip irrigation systems; packed a powerful nitrogen punch; and smelled curiously like dirt, rather than fish.

(Photo by Lance Cheung, USDA )

Arture Corona, plant manager at a satellite CLF plant in Gonzales, oversaw fertilizer processing. According to an FBI interview of Corona in March 2009: “Corona only put a brown liquid into the digesters, but never added fish and feathermeal. Corona did not know what was in the brown liquid and he only knew the brown liquid as ‘XN’ as in Biolizer XN. The brown liquid arrived in trucks and went straight into the digester.”

Townsley was riding high with almost a third of the California market, dispensing a river of liquid fertilizer that didn’t constipate drip irrigation systems; packed a powerful nitrogen punch; and smelled curiously like dirt, rather than fish. Biolizer XN was Townsley’s juiced racehorse of liquid organic fertilizers—and the beast ran like hell.

Doppelganger

Lucre. Simoleons. Cheddar. “The motivation wasn’t complicated,” Baker notes. “There was so much money to be made.”

Ammonium sulfate cost one-twentieth the price of ground-up fish remains. Townsley sold millions of gallons of Biolizer XN to some of the biggest organic companies in the nation, including Earthbound and Driscoll’s.

His biggest buyer was Tanimura & Antle, partly owned by farm manager Ron Yokota, with operations in Arizona and California. According to a federal complaint, “Tanimura was CLF’s single largest customer for XN, having spent more than $1.1 million on XN during the period that it contained prohibited substances. Yokota stated that CLF, including salesman Jacob Evans, provided him with documentation, including a brochure, that clearly stated that Biolizer XN was a certified organic liquid fertilizer approved by OMRI ... To Yokota, the most important feature of the brochure was the OMRI logo.”

Everyone in the industry knew a fish crud fertilizer at a minimum of 6% nitrogen could never flow properly through drip irrigation systems—but Biolizer XN did.

(Photo by Lance Cheung, USDA )

Baker inspected CLF’s production facilities on multiple occasions.

“Railroad cars of ammonia came into CLF and they were siphoned with hoses into fermentation tanks, but Townsley claimed the tanks were for other products,” Baker notes. “He had large facilities and was making conventional and organic products in the same facility, which wasn’t illegal.”

CLF had a constellation of fertilizer offerings. “Townsley was able to say, ‘I do make other products and not all are OMRI-listed. Yes, I’ve got tanker cars rolling in here with different synthetics, but they’re not used in Biolizer.’”

Standard laboratory tests could detect how much nitrogen was in a fertilizer, but not where it originated. Running a chemical breakdown of Biolizer XN was no smoking gun, Baker emphasizes. “The technology to catch Townsley was suspect. What would hold up in court? The isotope fingerprint for synthetic nitrogen is atmospheric. However, plants also fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and plant sources of nitrogen have roughly equivalent ratios to synthetic.”

Additionally, Townsley was a PhD microbiologist and knew how to turn the dials. “He typically was putting in just enough fish solubles to avoid a straight-up switch,” Baker describes. “In other words, Townsley fine-tuned the fish solubles level to make sure the stable isotope range was plausible.”

Adding to the spectacle of CLF’s Salinas fraud, Townsley’s flim-flam doppelganger was partying 350 miles to the southeast in Bakersfield. Kenneth Nelson was busy pulling the same stunt and making outrageous coin: $40 million in illicit sales.

Insider Squeals

In the Central Valley, annual birthplace of over half the nation’s fruits, nuts, and vegetables, Nelson helmed Port Organic and showed plenty of leg. From roughly 2003-2008, he bought prodigious amounts of aqueous ammonia, ammonia sulfate, and urea, and dumped the loads into liquid organic fertilizers: Agrolizer, Marizyme, Fishilizer, Birdilizer, and more.

A fraud in the tens of millions of dollars and a public that paid premiums for fruits and vegetables that weren’t organic.

(Photo by Minnesota DOA)

He hid a 1-million-plus-gallon storage tank beneath floorboards on a property adjacent to Port Organic: Move the fence, drag out hoses, pump synthetics into legit tanks, and stow hoses in case of inspection.

Echoing Townsley, Nelson was careful to keep up appearances with a modicum of fish, guano, or bloodmeal. Marizyme, for example, had OMRI approval based on the purported ingredients of fish meal, phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid, citric acid, sulfate of potash, and burcotase AL-25. From 2000-2008, Nelson applied for renewal of Marizyme’s OMRI listing and reported no formula changes. He did the same with Agrolizer and Fishilizer.

Demand was near-insatiable for Nelson’s organic brews. Port Organic gained status as a premier organic fertilizer source in multiple Western states, raking in over $40 million in six years, with $9 million going into Nelson’s pocket.

Despite appearances of deepest gratitude to the agriculture community, Nelson, along with Townsley, heaped mockery on growers. With every single sale, they put the livelihood of farmers at risk: A prohibited substance in the rows meant a three-year wait to return the soil to organic status.

Strikingly, there was no veil of secrecy protecting the massive frauds. An insider had squealed as far back as 2004.

However, the California Department of Food & Agriculture (CDFA) responded at a snail’s pace, contends Ray Green, leader of CDFA’s Organic Program for 12 years: “Once in the hands of CDFA legal, program staff are not allowed to discuss the case. CDFA legal simply stated that the investigation was ongoing and refused to comment.”

(CDFA did not respond to Farm Journal interview requests regarding Peter Townsley and Kenneth Nelson.)

Retired or Dead

In 2004, a CLF employee post-mailed a complaint to CDFA, specifically claiming Townsley was buying ammonium sulfate from ADM and mixing it into Biolizer XN (and another CLF product).

Jacob Evans told FBI investigators that, “At times, CLF took the ADM product straight from the railcars and packaged it for sale.”

(Photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli, Creative Commons)

The whistleblower’s allegations resulted in a 2005 CDFA investigation, spearheaded by Pierre Labossiere, who tracked ADM shipments by railway and truck, and obtained product samples of Biolizer XN and ADM ammonium sulfate. Per a federal complaint: “The lab results of these samples were not sufficiently detailed to provide a fingerprint-type identification, that is, they did not show that the chemical composition of the ammonium product sold by ADM was identical to the product being sold by CLF as Biolizer XN. The lab results did, however, show that the chemical composition of XN was consistent with that of the ADM product. This helped explain what CLF was doing with the 14-plus tons of the liquid ammonium sulfate product that it purchased from ADM from June 2001 through the end of 2006.”

In December 2006, Labossiere turned in his finalized report. Finger to the wind, Townsley immediately pulled Biolizer XN.

And next? A period of silence, according to Green, who was pushing to widen the investigation to Townsley’s cohorts. “I have no idea as to why the CDFA legal office failed to file legal proceedings. To guess is simply a guess.”

White Whale

In 2010, six years after a whistleblower rang the alarm, Townsley was arrested and indicted, charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and seven counts of mail fraud. He pled guilty to two counts of mail fraud based on the mailing of false statements on his annual renewal forms to OMRI.

“Railroad cars of ammonia came into CLF and they were siphoned with hoses into fermentation tanks, but Townsley claimed the tanks were for other products,” Baker notes.

(Photo by Ron Bolte, USB)

Almost in tandem, Nelson was indicted in 2011. He pled guilty to four counts of mail fraud. (Port Organic was raided in 2009 and authorities found thousands of gallons of aqua ammonia. Ironically, Kern County Environmental Health Services had fined Port Organic $18,000 in 2005 and 2007 for mishandling/storage of aqua ammonia.)

In November 2012, both men were sentenced. Townsley, 50, admitted that from April 2000-December 2006, he sold Biolizer XN tainted with chemicals prohibited for use in organic farming, and received one year in prison and a $125,000 fine. (As an arguably satirical bonus, Townsley also was required to “perform 1,000 hours of community service related to organic production.”)

Nelson, 59, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison, $9 million in restitution, and the loss of a 2006 Chevrolet Silverado, 2005 Mini Cooper, and 2004 Porsche Cayenne. (Released on Nov. 17, 2017, Nelson was stabbed to death a year later, Nov. 16, 2018, by his son, Timothy Noel Nelson, who got 17 years to life.)

Legalese aside, Townsley and Nelson were pinched for mail and wire fraud; the rest of their scam was a tangle. And their co-conspirators and confederates? Everyone else skated, yet the tentacles of the scam ran through every layer of the agriculture industry.

Who all was in the know? On many levels, the question answers itself.

“Both guys were surrounded by teams and employees. I always believed Nelson was a patsy—controlled or influenced by others,” Baker says. “There were people making the products, selling them, and transporting them. There were big agribusinesses buying the products and grower-packers and shippers moving them and they all had agronomists that were suspicious. Were some of the people in the field knowingly using prohibited substances? Everyone knows the allegation has been made—it’s always been out in the open. How could they all not know?”

How many players and companies were involved in the fraud? In the end, Townsley and Nelson were the only heads on the chopping block.

(Photo by Tiffany Edmundson, USDA)

CLF and Port Organic took the fall. However, were other actors engaged in precisely the same scam? Baker contends the organic input industry was a chess game during the heyday of Townsley and Nelson. “One of the reasons for their downfall was competition from other companies. Literally, employees and competitors were informing on each other. I had one person from another company tell me, ‘Townsley and Nelson are cheating. I’m a damn fool if I don’t cheat too.’”

“This case used to be my white whale, but I had to give up being obsessed,” Baker adds. “As time goes by, I have more questions than I started with. The more I find out, the more I realize how much I don’t know about who was involved.”

The Band Played On

The truth was ugly for all: A fraud in the tens of millions of dollars with the biggest names in organics, and a public that year after year got fooled into paying premiums for fruits and vegetables that weren’t organic.

Regulations and oversight were tightened, but what was USDA to do with farmers’ organic certification on operations tainted by Townsley and Nelson across massive acreage? Make the farmers sit out three years? Refund the public? USDA chose to continue organic sales as if nothing had happened.

“As time goes by, I have more questions than I started with,” Baker says. “The more I find out, the more I realize how much I don’t know about who was involved.”

(Photo by USDA)

In the end, Townsley and Nelson were the only heads on the chopping block.

During the midst of the debacle in 2009, alarmed by the chaos, California Senator Dean Florez held a hearing on organic food and fertilizer. Addressing CDFA, Flores summed his frustrations (emphasis added):

“So, at the end of the day nobody lost except the consumer who bought a product, consumed the product that they thought was organic, paid a premium for it at the marketplace, and our only answer to them is, ‘All’s good because we’re going to fix it. But sorry for what you may have consumed. It’s our big mistake.’ And I’m not pointing to you, I’m just saying generally in this whole issue it seems as though the only person that’s going to lose in this, or has lost in this, is the consumer. Because the farmer is not going to be decertified, the companies have been reengineered, your organizations are now on different types of tracks, CDFA has a completely different process, but yet no one will be to blame in this.”

Now a vigilant skeptic, Baker offers a final balls-and-strikes call. “You reach a point where you believe no one, and that’s not healthy. The lesson here is to stay awake to fraud in any type of agriculture, for the good of agriculture. Will something like this happen again? Sure could. Just saying.”

For more articles from Chris Bennett ( cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Power vs. Privacy: Landowner Sues Game Wardens, Challenges Property Intrusion

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

How The Deep State Tried, And Failed, To Crush An American Farmer

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 14:03:53 GMT

Under the nose of U.S. marshals and FBI agents, Wayne Cryts stole 32,000 bushels of his own soybeans, and then faced the wrath of a judiciary hellbent on his imprisonment. Staring at 20 years behind bars, Cryts was acquitted by three separate juries.

“It’s called lawfare,” he says, “but there was always one thing the government didn’t understand. When they took everything I had, there was nothing left for me to lose.”

Judas farmers, kangaroo courts, bucket brigades, gun grabs, crooked politicians, sacks of cash, crazy Cubans, tractorcades, and The Dukes of Hazzard: Welcome to the saga of Wayne Cryts, the farmer who charged hell with ice water.

An Old Flame

In 1946, a stone’s throw north of the Missouri Bootheel in Stoddard County, Cryts was born to corn and cotton 12 miles west of Crowley’s Ridge. The fourth-generation, teen-aged Missouri grower fell to the charms of Sandy Hyten, and the pair wed in 1964, living in a bare-bones, tin-roof shack, grateful for a crude outhouse and a kitchen sink with no drain.

A decade later, pennies pinched and dollars stretched, on winding gravel outside the tiny town of Puxico, the couple built a small, ranch-style house—the home where they remain today. Simple. Private.

Wayne and Sandy Cryts, Puxico, Missouri.

(Photo by Chris Bennett)

By the late 1970s, Cryts worked roughly 2,700 dryland acres (1,400 owned) of corn, milo, and soybeans. He stored a portion of the grain roughly 45 miles southeast in New Madrid County at the Ristine Elevator.

“Ristine. Ristine. Ristine,” Cryts, 78, slowly repeats, as if conjuring the name of an old flame. His words slide out in the crawl of a heavy drawl—a sonorous voice registered between backwoods and Southern. “If Ristine hadn’t happened, you’d have never heard of me.”

Lizards and Levi’s

Farm country was on the boil in the late 1970s. A deep market rut and high interest rates pushed many farmers toward a dire fork—pathetic commodity prices to the left and foreclosure to the right.

In 1977, five farmers in Campo, Colo., seeded the American Agriculture Movement ( AAM ), sparking an explosion of grassroots meetings across the U.S. with participation from 1.5 million producers. AAM’s dual pillars rested on a call for parity (a crop price to cover production costs and enable a survivable living) and country of origin (COOL) changes.

Epic 5,000 tractor army on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1979.

(Photo courtesy of Oklahoma Historical Society)

Cryts heard the AAM gospel and caught the fire. He stood in the conversation pit at scores of meetings, rallied the faithful, and joined tractor caravan protests. “I was the guy that took no interest in anything beyond my own rows, but I finally woke up to the trouble all farmers were in.” (Cryts drove in the epic AAM 5,000-tractor army to Washington, D.C. and was part of the McAllen Bridge war in Texas.)

“Wayne was a workaholic and never took off for nothing, but he took to AAM naturally,” Sandy echoes. “One day he wasn’t a coffee shop farmer; then suddenly he was.”

In 1979, as Cryts felt populism’s pull, he averaged 35 bushel-per-acre soybeans, and held back part of the crop, hoping to catch a market wave. He deposited 32,331 bushels in three 1950s vaulted Quonset huts at the 23-acre Ristine Elevator facility—owned by the James Brothers Co. of Corning, Ark. The price for storage? One-twelfth of a penny per bushel per day.

Cryts was the single largest holder of soybeans at Ristine. He had a Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) loan on the soybeans at $4.54 per bushel; $146,778. The December 1979 market price was $10.86; $351,103.80.

“I was holding tight,” he recalls. “Beans had climbed over $10 per bushel and I was looking to nail that crest. Interest rates were at 18% and I needed every penny from those beans. They were my family’s future.”

In August 1980, with his present year’s soybeans burning in the rows due to severe drought and his previous year’s soybeans still in the Ristine bin, Cryts hit the Big Apple. Alongside Texas producer David Senter (future AAM director) and Nebraska producer Corky Jones, Cryts hauled a Ford tractor to New Jersey, hopped into the open-cab seat, and drove across the George Washington Bridge to crash the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden. “I was a yellow dog Dem,” he recalls, wearing a wide grin. “I couldn’t be more opposite now, but things were sure as hell different then.”

Loosed on the streets of NYC, Cryts was transformed into a 5’ 10” concrete cowboy, and the sight of a Missouri farmer atop a tractor decked in AAM flags rolling down cosmopolitan streets was a genuine spectacle. “We went through Harlem and the south Bronx and got stopped under an overpass surrounded by hookers and homeless,” he describes. “I honestly don’t think they’d seen anything like us in their lives. The police sent a vice squad over to make the hookers leave us alone.”

Tractorcade snakes along the highway to D.C. in 1979.

(Photo courtesy of Oklahoma Historical Society)

Rumbling down the final stretch of Seventh Avenue wearing a jean jacket, high-rise AAM trucker hat, ever-present Levi’s, and a Case knife on his hip, Cryts pulled directly in front of Madison Square Garden, turned off the engine, and stepped onto the sidewalk in lizard-skin Justin boots, surrounded by a circus of activity: suits-and-ties hollering in thick NYC accents; environmental protestors in sandwich boards alarmed over acid rain, purple-haired gay rights activists, and a host of characters screaming for peace in the Middle East.

Cryts split the throng and beelined to a payphone to assure his wife of a safe arrival. Standing in a booth outside the Garden, over 1,000 miles from Bootheel dirt, Cryts heard words that changed his life when Sandy picked up the horn: “Wayne, the Ristine Elevator went bankrupt.”

Flash to bang, Cryts was hurtling toward history.

A Bureaucrat Scorned

James Brothers Co. (Corning, Ark.) had pledged 11 grain facilities in Arkansas and Missouri against a $3 million loan from the First Tennessee Bank of Memphis. The bank called the loan; James Brothers nosedived.

A federal bankruptcy judge in Little Rock, Charles Baker (born and raised in Missouri), stepped into the fray, and took control of the elevators, including Ristine. Baker determined that stored grain was an asset of James Brothers to be sold free and clear of liens to pay off elevator debts.

“I was supposed sit back, be quiet, risk getting pennies on the dollar, and like it,” Cryts says.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Concern creeping, Cryts dialed Tom Hopkins, director of the Division of Grain Inspection and Warehousing at the Missouri Department of Agriculture. “The James Brothers told the Ristine manager to ‘take a vacation’ because he wouldn’t let them sneak out the stored grain,” Cryts explains. “The manager blew the whistle to Tom, who put padlocks on the elevator. Tom assured me all the grain was accounted for and that I’d have access in a month after the red tape was cut.”

“Ristine was the same old story,” Cryts continues. “Bankruptcy comes in; lawyers appear who play a game of receipts; a trustee is appointed who is paid by percent and drags it out five years; judges lord over the whole business; and farmers eat a crap sandwich. It’s called a gravy train and everyone gets a seat, except the farmer.”

Cryts and family in 1981. Photo courtesy of Wayne Cryts

(Photo courtesy of Wayne Cryts)

“I knew how these bankruptcies worked,” Cryts adds. “The elevator’s bills get paid, with farmers last in line. Then they tell everyone farmers got paid 100%. Hell yes, farmers sure do get paid 100%, but only of whatever was left in the pool at the end. From 1974 to 1982, there was something close to 140 elevators in 20-plus states that went under. Most of those farmers got 5 cents to 59 cents on the dollar. In my case, I was supposed sit back, be quiet, risk getting pennies on the dollar, and like it.”

Days later, eating breakfast over television with Sandy, Cryts watched a reporter announce the reopening of the Ristine Elevator the following day at 8 a.m. Was his grain was about to pour out of Ristine?

Cryts called New Madrid producer N.J. Howell, the second largest holder of soybeans at Ristine—25,000 bushels and delivered the news. “Wayne, what should we do?” responded Howell.

At sunrise, starting in nearby Kewanee, Cryts hooked a disk to a 1586 International, and drove to Ristine with Howell (also on a tractor and disk). They parked and unfolded on opposite ends of the elevator scales. No grain in; no grain out.

“I had to keep the grain from getting away,” Cryts says. “As long as the beans were in the bin, I had a chance. Once they were turned into money, it was all over because I sure wasn’t going to rob a bank.”

Two-hundred and fifty miles southwest, Judge Baker was taking notes. Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

The Great Soybean War

A monumental showdown brewed, pitting farmer against government, and state against federal authority, all over who owned a Bootheel bean crop.

Baker ordered federal seizure of the Ristine Elevator. Arriving in sedans, decked in suits and badges, U.S. marshals, led by George Welch, set up shop at Ristine on Sept. 16, establishing a control center inside the elevator office.

Cryts held tight to his warehouse receipts. “The grain was not leaving. I would go to court and prove my case, but I would not let them take my beans.”

After marshals put additional padlocks on the elevators, Cryts and his fellow farmers responded with their own padlocks, resulting in ludicrous soybean security: three separate sets of locks on the bins.

Cryts and company kept eyeballs on the elevator. All day, all night. “We slept in the parking lot, or on cots inside the office, watching every minute over the grain. We knew there was grain moving out of other elevators involved in the bankruptcy, like in Piggott, Arkansas, and we made sure Ristine didn’t follow.”

“The marshals were highly sympathetic to us and were just doing their job,” Cryts notes. “We agreed to move our machinery, with assurance that grain could go in, but not out. But guess how many farmers delivered grain? None. Who in the hell would risk delivery to such a place? In fact, the trustee, Robert Lindsey, sued 20 farmers for failure to deliver grain. You couldn’t make up how crazy it was getting.”

Cryts’ phone rang off the hook with producers providing advice and warnings about nightmare experiences in elevator crashes. As media picked up the story, support swelled for Cryts across farm country.

Homer repeat: Homer Evans of Puxico, Mo., and Homer Evans of Ulysses, Kan., helped organize the Ristine coup.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Support also flowed from the governor’s office: Judge Baker’s claims of federal authority ruffled feathers in Jefferson City. Backing Cryts, Missouri Gov. Joseph Teasdale and Secretary of Agriculture Jack Runyan declared Ristine within their state jurisdiction. Teasdale obtained a temporary injunction in the Missouri Circuit Court of New Madrid County, along with an order to use force if necessary to control Ristine.

However, when Baker called the bluff, firing back with contempt of court charges and the potential arrest of Teasdale, the governor washed his hands of Cryts. The constitutional jam ended with a whimper. Teasdale and the Missouri Department of Agriculture walked away, leaving Cryts, 35 years young, holding the bag.

“It was a gut punch when Teasdale backed off,” Cryts recalls. “Suddenly, there was nothing standing between me and the federal government.”

The Great Soybean War was on: Farmer versus feds.

Damn Farmer

Refusing to close a pocketknife he didn’t open, Cryts attended a drumbeat of hearings, stretched across months, over grain ownership in Little Rock, all while overseeing a 24-7 vigil at Ristine. The steady drip of courthouse trips was maddening for Cryts: He listened as sticky-fingered attorneys argued over his soybeans.

Cryts holds a sample jar of his “liberated” beans from Ristine.

(Photo by Chris Bennett)

“That’s how they bleed a man,” he says. “We had to be at each hearing so we didn’t lose our claim. I’m talking about endless court dates and postponements and gavels and collection of bills, only for Judge Baker to deny, deny, deny.”

“The fix was in and everyone knew it,” Cryts contends. “The notorious Rose Law Firm was involved and it’s no coincidence that Baker was hired by the Rose Law Firm shortly after my case. Baker called me a ‘damn farmer’ behind closed doors. I don’t know where his personal hate came from, but it was very real.”

In January 1981, the month of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, Cryts caught advice from a Minnesota farmer, urging Cryts to ask freshly arrived USDA staff to pay the difference between market price and loan, an out used in several prior elevator crashes. Alongside Missouri Rep. Bill Burlison, Cryts flew to Washington, D.C., and met with two newly appointed USDA undersecretaries: An agreement was reached. Finally, relief.

Cryts had full support from Sandy: Return with your shield or on it.

(Photo by Chris Bennett)

“All of a sudden, this career USDA bureaucrat, Arnold Grunden, walks in the room,” Cryts recalls. “He was an unelected lifer, in position regardless of who was president. He said, ‘No. I’m legal counsel here and we’re not doing it.’ Congressman Burlison smacked both hands down on the table in disgust, but it was over. That was a moment I understood the second, third, and fourth layer of bureaucrats. That was a moment I understood who controlled government. I flew back to Missouri—emptyhanded.”

The time was nearing for Cryts to steal his own grain—and he didn’t care if it harelipped the judge.

No More Talk

No secrets. Cryts announced his intention to raid Ristine. On Jan. 15, 1981, an American farmer proclaimed open defiance of the federal judiciary.

In a conference room at the Ramada Inn in Sikeston, assisted by KSIM’s radio man Bill Anderson, Cryts held a press conference with flash bulbs galore: newspaper and television reporters from Memphis, St. Louis, Jonesboro, and more. Additionally, the FBI and U.S. Marshals attended, along with a large contingent of AAM farmers.

AAM’s five founding fathers with Wayne Cryts on Ristine coup eve. L-R: Jerry Wright, Derral Schroder, Lynn Bitter, Gene Schroder, Wayne Cryts, and Alvin Jenkins.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Cryts promised he would remove his grain from Ristine on Feb. 16, George Washington’s birthday, at 10 a.m. on a Monday. “I told them there was going to be no sneaking or hiding. I was going right through the front door to get my beans before I financially bled to death. Shoot me, beat me, lock me up—it’s happening.”

Cryts had the full support of his wife, Sandy: Return with your shield or on it.

“Everyone in farming knew Wayne was going to Ristine to get our grain or get arrested. He had given his word and he would back up his word,” Sandy says. “Talking was over.”

Pillow of Doubt

Ristine’s fuse burned shorter by the day. Against a backdrop of barrel-roof bins, the 23 acres of elevator grounds were packed with federal marshals, FBI agents, Judas farmers—government moles dressed in in ill-fitting overalls and trucker hats, Pinkerton Detectives, Missouri state troopers, television reporters, newspaper writers, Cryts’ contingent of Bootheelers, and a steadily increasing flow of farmers from across the nation.

Federal marshals wait to serve Cryts with papers at Ristine.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Twenty-plus state flags, each representing a block of on-site farmer support, along with countless AAM slogans, signs, and banners, adorned the elevator. And still they came.

“As we got closer to Feb. 16, there was about 3,000 farmers piled in, including a few fake farmer plants working for the feds who tried to blend in the crowd,” Cryts says. “The pressure was building on me because I had no clue what might happen. There was going to be no violence on my part, but that grain was coming out.”

The night of Feb. 15, Cryts held a rally and called for calm. “Farmers were talking rough. Hell, everybody back then had a shotgun and rifle in their back window. And all the government officers certainly were armed. But I declared there would be no violence no matter what on our part, and I told the marshals that if anyone in our farmer group acted out, then they should be arrested accordingly.”

Sidestepping potential congestion, Cryts’ farmer army parked 70 trucks on the gravel shoulder beside Ristine, with an additional 10 trucks parked at the Ramada Inn in Sikeston. Inside one of the trucks, in case of emergency, were stacks of 5-gallon pails—enough to arm a bucket brigade. If by no other means, Cryts was ready to hand-scoop 32,331 bushels of soybeans.

As Sunday, Feb. 15 wrapped, Cryts laid his head on a pillow of doubt. The swirling dynamic was bizarre. Farmers watched the grain; marshals watched the farmers; news media watched the marshals; and Judge Baker watched them all.

The Dukes of Hazzard

Cryts woke to a deep-holler fog. Wrapped in a peculiarly heavy, early-morning mist blanketing the level land around Sikeston, Cryts took a phone call from a constitutional lawyer with a last-minute legal pointer. Cryts scratched down the incoming advice on a napkin and stuffed the paper in a front pocket. He walked toward a white Ford bob-truck, and ushered his daughter, Paula, into the cab, alongside Sandy. His son, Terry, climbed into the bed, and stood at the ready beside a dozen Bootheel farmers. Fifteen miles from hotel to elevator.

Flanked by Alvin Jenkins, Cryts walks the federal gauntlet at Ristine.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

At Ristine, Cryts approached Ristine like Bootheel Moses, fronting a bewildering cavalcade of several thousand farmers driving pickups, bob trucks, and 10-wheelers, caboosed by an elderly Oklahoma farmer pushing a wheelbarrow mounted with Old Glory.

At 9:50 a.m., Cryts waited in his cab, nervously chewing over the final 10 minutes. In all the details and rabbit trails of preparation, he had made a glaring omission. A thick logging chain ran across the driveway—a simple, but effective deterrent. Into the gap stepped Herman Linville, a Hatfield & McCoy type farmer from Stoddard County, cloaked in a long-hanging Levi’s jacket atop bib overalls. Often mistaken for Cryts’ shadow, Linville had stood with Cryts during the McAllen Bridge melee. Wielding heavy-duty bolt-cutters, Linville waltzed in plain view of authorities and dropped the chain.

At 10 a.m. on the dial, Cryts exited his truck and walked up to big and tall Howard Safir, the U.S. marshal lead. Safir produced a court order and read aloud, forbidding Cryts from grain removal. Cryts stood his ground, fumbled in his pocket, pulled out the breakfast napkin, and responded in kind, toe to toe: Your court order was written under equity law. I am a sovereign individual and a citizen of the State of Missouri operating under common low; therefore, your court order has no weight of law against me, nor does it have jurisdiction over me.

Safir handed Cryts the court order, and in a surreal, impromptu diplomatic response, Cryts presented Safir with the napkin. Cryts then proceeded down the line and shook hands with each marshal, before climbing back in the cab, putting the Ford in granny low, and easing forward, unsure if the marshals and agents would pull sidearms.

“I had no backup plan in that moment,” Cryts admits. “If they’d have refused to move, I wasn’t going to run anybody over. Maybe we would have cranked up the bucket brigade—by any peaceful means necessary.”

Cryts reads his napkin declaration to federal marshals.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

As Cryts rolled forward, Safir and his subordinates parted. Cryts pulled onto the scales and an open-air heist began, with Homer Evans, a Bunge elevator manager and farmer from Ulysses, Kan., and Corky Jones, an elevator operator and farmer from Brownsville, Neb., handling the scales, running a probe, and sampling for trash.

The grain removal centered on three of Ristine’s five Quonset huts: Peel off a sheet metal section with a railroad pinch bar, drop in a vacuum pipe, and fill each vehicle. By 5:30 p.m., with 50-plus trucks loaded, Cryts shuttered the operation until the next day, and returned to his Sikeston motel room. (The infamous pinch bar, dubbed the “Ristine Key,” was auctioned by AAM members and sold for $4,000 to a group of Texas farmers.)

A heist in motion at Ristine.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

The following morning, Cryts proceeded at Ristine. At 1:30 p.m., with loading completed, the FBI, commanded by Glenn Young, requested a final meeting with Cryts in the elevator office.

“They told me I was going to get people killed, get people arrested, get people in trouble, and it’d all be my fault,” Cryts says. “Glenn Young was playing the good cop, with his arm around me, gently telling me to stop for the good of my family, and that if I’d leave today, no arrests would be made.”

Tin peeled via the “Ristine Key” before bean removal.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Leaning in close, Young delivered an ultimatum: “This is it, Wayne. You’ve gone as far as you’re gonna go. It’s over.’”

Cryts paused. For one year he’d eaten stress by the spoonful while holding meaningless warehouse receipts, attending countless court hearings, maintaining elevator vigils, and watching crops burn in the field—all while the Ristine grain dangled in limbo and loans loomed. He was worn to the bone. The FBI agents surrounding Cryts could smell weakness.

Three days running with no sleep, hand across temples, he spoke softly to Young: “Could you please leave the room? Just give me a minute and take everyone out. Guard the door and don’t let nobody in.”

Spotting a crack in the levee, Young cleared the office room and left Cryts in silence.

Unraveling like chewed twine, Cryts fought back tears and replayed the events of past months. “No one but me and the Lord ever knew how close I came to giving up. I stayed alone in that room for what seemed like 20 minutes or more, weighing it out. I didn’t want anyone hurt or in jail. I asked myself one last time if I was willing to pay the price.”

Composure regained, Cryts knocked against the door to recall the FBI personnel.

Entering the room, Young patted Cryts on the back, and asked, “Wayne, what are you going to do?”

“Glenn, have you ever seen The Dukes of Hazzard?”

Young smashed his fist on the desk, roiled by the reference to General Lee in flight from the law: “Is that your final answer?”

“Final,” Cryts answered, walking out of the office. “And I’m going right now.”

A massive crowd of farmers, 77 trucks and 1 wheelbarrow, all loaded, awaited Cryts.

One wheelbarrow and 77 trucks: The Ristine coup.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

The Pledge of Allegiance rang out across the elevator grounds, led by Colorado producer Alvin Jenkins, an original founder of AAM. Sheet metal repair, sealing, and repainting was in the sure hands of Clarence Banfield, an 80-year-old Kansas farmer who road to Stoddard County on a Greyhound bus. Stan DeBoer, a Nebraska grower, oversaw road grating and cleanup—down to the last cigarette butt. As noted in a subsequent FBI report, Cryts and company left the Ristine Elevator in better condition than prior to their arrival.

“The people helping me were a bunch of regular Americans from across the country that had enough of government,” Cryts says. “They put their farms in jeopardy. They willingly walked into the federal crosshairs. I was acting out of desperation for my livelihood, but they had nothing to gain but upholding their own beliefs about freedom. They were the heroes.”

The FBI made no arrests. As the convoy departed Ristine, every farmer signed a scale ticket, and every farmer was photographed and plated by the FBI—including the wheelbarrow pusher.

Destination? Twenty-five miles west to the MFA Elevator in Bernie, Mo., and a high-wire game of cat-and-mouse played with soybeans.

Get Cryts

In late afternoon of Feb. 17, under clear skies and warm sunshine stroking 60 degrees, Cryts’ soybean convoy chugged into Bernie, where mayor R.B. Woods moved engines out of the firehouse and provided snacks, coffee, and shelter, along with meals from local restaurants.

The next morning, 8 a.m., with a convoy yet to unload, Cryts felt a one-two punch combo. The fix was in.

The conspirators at Bernie MFA.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Cryts called the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) office, explaining his intention to sell grain to the MFA Elevator, exchange checks at the bank for cash, and deliver the cash to ASCS toward his Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) loan.

ASCS’ response was simple and succinct: “No.”

ASCS officials declined Cryts’ payment attempt with check or cash, citing direct orders from Washington, D.C. Additionally, CCC threatened to pull MFA’s license if the grain facility accepted Cryts’ soybeans. Judge Baker piled on, threatening impounding and conspiracy charges for any elevator accepting Cryts’ grain.

Resolute: “I have many regrets in life ... But Ristine? I’d do it all again in a heartbeat,” says Cryts.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Cryts was reeling. “How could I pay off my loan? Where could I put all these beans?”

Despite the setup, Cryts slipped the noose when the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis made an emergency ruling, ordering MFA to take the grain until determination of ownership.

However, Cryts was slipping into legal hell. “That’s when I truly realized my fight with the government was only just beginning.”

FBI top agent Glenn Young, genuinely concerned after reading the tea leaves, offered sage advice on the sly, according to Cryts. “This is just starting,” Young warned. “Take everything out of your name and Sandy’s name or you will lose it. Everything. The government is going to take everything you have, Wayne. They’re coming for you.”

Get Cryts.

Bat Outta Hell

An arrest warrant was issued for Cryts three weeks after the Ristine raid. On March 6, 1981, he was arraigned in St. Louis by U.S. Magistrate William Bond on felony charges of interfering with the duties of U.S. marshals, a crime punishable by six years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

A grand jury was convened. The panel refused to indict. The judge dismissed all charges. Cryts was safe—in the short term.

Inside the ASCS office: Cryts’ payment via check or cash was denied.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Four months later, in the anvil heat of July, Cryts’ mailbox clinked with a letter from the CCC, calling in the loan: Pay up now or forfeit grain. Translated: Adios, amigo.

Almost cornered, Cryts weighed options. ASCS refused cash or check, but the technical language of the letter allowed for payment via commodity. “I was infuriated by how crazy the whole thing was,” he continues, “but at least I had a lifeline.”

(For more, listen to a podcast interview with Wayne Cryts at Farming The Countryside With Andrew McCrea )

Cryts called Eric Thompson, elevator manager at MFA Bernie, and asked for his soybeans. Thompson was in a pickle. Give Cryts access to the soybeans and face conspiracy charges, or refuse access and watch Cryts go under?

Thompson’s solution came with a heavy wink. He told Cryts that MFA would stand aside if Cryts threatened “use of force.” Following the feint, Cryts told Thompson, “Yessir, I’m willing to force my way in.”

Instantly absolved from legal responsibility, Thompson gave Cryts the green light to load soybeans—77 trucks all over again. Beans in hand, Cryts drove like a bat outta hell to the ASCS office in Bloomfield: “I’m here to pay my loan with grain. Where do you’uns want it?”

ASCS reps, strings pulled from on high, denied delivery: “We’ve been instructed not to receive your grain.”

Further stymied by a ruling from Baker deeming any purchasing elevator as part of the conspiracy, Cryts pressed the nuclear option: Bean by bean, scatter the grain to the wind. Sell, baby, sell, and pay whatever is owed to whoever will accept cash on the barrelhead.

How so? Cryts’ cohort of AAM farmers took the truckloads of soybeans and disappeared. “I told them all, ‘Boys, just go sell wherever you can and get me the money whenever you can.’”

However, Cryts’ instructions for Harley Sentell, a close farming brother in Butler County, Missouri, were precise and included a direct jab at Judge Baker via the grain elevator at Corning, Ark.—part of the bankruptcy and technically owned by Baker.

“I told Harley, ‘Sell two loads of beans to the James Brothers headquarters in Corning. The guys there won’t know me from Shinola, so put my name on the ticket. That purchase will make Baker’s own elevator part of the conspiracy and therefore he’ll hesitate before he charges any other elevator.’”

“Harley sold Corning the grain and they never knew what hit’em,” Cryts adds. “That was just one more reason for Baker to hate me.”

Seeds of Sedition

The Ristine boomerang hit Cryts on Feb. 9, 1982. Called to appear before Judge Baker, Cryts was granted immunity and ordered to provide the names of all farmers who helped steal the Ristine soybeans. It was political chess: The government already possessed the identity of each farmer involved (photos and signed scale tickets) and didn’t need Cryts’ attestation.

Tickets and receipts from Ristine: Wayne Cryts kept them all.

(Photo by Chris Bennett)

Nonetheless, Cryts declined to allow the judge to hang the wrong horse thief: “No way would I give him a name—not even one.”

Frustrated by Cryts’ refusal to play canary, Baker tossed a pencil across the courtroom and threatened civil contempt of court. Cryts responded with disdain: “... I am so sick and tired of this forced mockery of justice and those thieving, money hungry lawyers that come into a bankrupt elevator like a bunch of vultures and milk every dollar out of the escrow account. And by the time they are finished, the farms are left with nothing. They take the assets of honest, hardworking people and get rich off them. Your Honor, I think this circus has gone on for long enough. You do whatever you have to do and let’s get on with it.”

Baker chose to lock up Cryts until the Bootheel farmer broke. On April 28, 1982, Cryts was processed at the Pope County Jail in Russellville, Ark., with Baker promising freedom upon testimony: “Cryts can be released from jail by telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth ... Cryts has planted the seeds of sedition and must harvest the bittersweet bounty of his own folly by staying in jail.”

However, Baker’s heavy hand ignited media coverage and kicked an anthill in farm country. In southeast Missouri, pickup trucks sported a common bumper sticker: ''Free Wayne, Jail The Judge.’'

Jailhouse phone lines were jammed. “Donations for my defense came pouring in, AAM hired the famous attorney F. Lee Bailey to represent me, and the news went crazy because people started realizing what the government was doing,” Cryts says. “The mayor of Russellville brought me the key to the city; high school groups came into jail to hear me speak; and all of it made Baker’s blood boil because he created a circus he couldn’t control.”

“Bill Clinton showed up at jail to visit with me, and that tells you how deep corruption ran in the bureaucracy. After this case was all over, Judge Baker suddenly got a sweet job with the Rose Law Firm. Please don’t tell me that was a coincidence.”

During incarceration, Wayne Cryts tells Bill Clinton how the cow ate the cabbage.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

In early May, Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas requested Cryts’ testimony in Washington, D.C., at a Senate bankruptcy hearing. Baker refused to let his prisoner go. (Cryts also received significant support from Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, who offered to serve a portion of Cryts’ time and petitioned Reagan for a pardon. “Hell no,” Cryts says. “I told Grassley I would never take a pardon. I didn’t do anything.”

When Baker balked at Dole’s request, DOJ provided additional encouragement. “DOJ threatened Baker and told him they were going to find him in contempt and put him in jail with me. I reckon we’d have been great cellmates. Anyhow, the judge suddenly let me go to Washington.”

Given a furlough, Cryts flew to D.C. and told the Ristine tale. Four days later, he was back behind bars in Arkansas, while a whirlwind of pressure circled Baker. On June 2, after 30-plus days in jail, Cryts was released, but Baker was not finished, recommending criminal prosecution for Cryts: “It is obvious to this court that Mr. Cryts envisions himself to be some sort of folk hero who has been called on from on high to right the wrongs inflicted upon farmers when grain elevators fail. His refusal to cooperate should be deemed criminal...”

Additionally, Baker levied a fine of $287,000 and went after Cryts’ finances, assets, and bank accounts.

“There was nothing left in our name for him to get,” Cryts reflects. “Baker even tried to seize my farm equipment, but my neighbors got there first and hid all my machinery on their ground.”

For almost two years, Cryts had walked a high wire above ruin. “The whole time, I thought proving the facts would set things straight. Turns out, the government only cared that I had dared to break its rules—truth be damned. And for that, I had to pay.”

Cargill Blinks

Paper sacks, rubber bands, and greenbacks.

As Cryts’ farming brethren sold his grain at the four corners, money flooded in, spurring Cryts to stash the cash in safety deposit boxes rented by a friend. “Guys literally walked up and handed me sandwich bags filled with bills, no questions asked. I started paying off all the people I owed. I sure as hell didn’t want to use that system, but my hand was forced.”

In response, Baker issued an order to over 100 Bootheel banks to confiscate any money deposited by Cryts. The Internal Revenue Service knocked next in a sequence of curious timing, demanding payment for overdue taxes.

Cryts drove to the IRS office in St. Louis and asked if he could pay via asset seizure.

All over again: Loading soybeans out of Bernie.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

“I’m sitting there with this IRS agent, and I asked him if I could pay in beans. He says, ‘I think so. Just let me make certain with my supervisor.’”

“The supervisor comes in, and I explained the situation all over again. All of a sudden, the supervisor sat up in his chair: ‘Wait. Wait,’ he said, as everything dawned on him. ‘You’re that soybean guy? You’re that Cryts guy? No way. We’re not doing it.”

“That’s the level of government collusion I was up against,” Cryts says. “Courts, agencies, departments, and career bureaucrats were madder than hell, all because their lifetime power was threatened.”

In the fall of 1982, in legal limbo, Cryts began harvesting and hauling grain to Cargill in New Madrid. Baker issued a grain confiscation order to Cargill.

Cryts went on-site to Cargill’s concrete elevators and spoke plainly, warning of a Ristine repeat. “Give me back my grain or give me cash. It’ll be tough busting in one of your elevators, and I don’t know right now how to do it, but I’ll get my grain out. I promise to do the least amount of damage I can, and I’ll pay for repairs when I’m done.”

Cryts addresses a media swarm.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Cargill blinked. However, the New Madrid facility was barge-only and had no load-out for trucks. “They told me I could go inland and get my grain from another elevator. I went to Dexter and got my grain, and then drove it to MFA Bernie and sold it. That marked the event where the government gave up on confiscations.”

The feds may have grown tired of chasing Cryts’ grain, but the government exchanged its grip on Cryts’ soybeans for a better handle on his collar. As in, a 20-year stay in the penitentiary. “Guilt or innocence was out the window,” Cryts exclaims. “They weren’t turning loose of me no matter what.”

Rat on a Cheeto.

A Cold Day In Hell

The home phone rang at all hours with calls from farmers, agriculture organizations, and mayors across the nation, asking for a Cryts appearance or speech. “It became a way of saying thanks and I never asked or wanted a penny in return,” Cryts describes. “Sometimes my expenses were paid; sometimes not. I made it to every event possible out of gratitude.”

In August 1982, Cryts took a call from the northwest corner of Arkansas and the tiny town of Gravette, just under the state line, roughly an hour south of Springfield, Mo. On the horn was Bob Pigott, chamber of commerce president, asking Cryts to speak at the Eighty-Ninth Annual Gravette Day Celebration and serve as grand marshal of the parade.

Wash, rinse, repeat. At home, Cryts unloads a portion of beans from Bernie.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

Bud Shell, owner of the Ford dealership in Dexter, Mo., stepped up and provided Cryts with a blue travel van, a repeat gesture by Shell. On the morning prior to the Gravette festivities, as Cryts sat in Pigott’s clothing store, the office phone rattled with a call from a familiar and trusted voice—U.S. marshal George Welch, a highly-respected presence at the Ristine affair.

“Wayne, they’re coming for you,” Welch stated. “This is a setup. There is a federal marshal tracking you and they’re going to find a way to arrest you. I know this because they tried to get me to do it and I told them to go to hell.”

Welch was preaching gospel. At 9 a.m. the following day, as Cryst again sat inside Pigott’s store, a team of U.S. marshals surrounded the building. Chuck Papachio, a U.S. marshal from Brooklyn, NYC, entered the premises and handed Pigott a writ garnishing any payment planned for Cryts. (However, the Chamber did not pay Cryts.)

Papachio turned to Cryts: “Do you have any valuables on you?”

“I’ve got my watch, wedding ring, boots, and about $150 in cash,” Cryts answered.

Papachio requested turnover of said valuables. Cryts refused.

During the verbal exchange, Papachio’s men were covering the rear exit, pistols drawn. Cryts only found out about Papachio’s backdoor coverage at trial, months later. “When I heard during testimony that the government was locked and loaded that day, I have to ask if they were hoping I’d resist. I’ll always wonder if I’d have run out the back door whether they were going to shoot me dead. It shows you an outrageous level of government overkill.”

If lizard-skin could talk: Cryts’ Justin boots have a tale to tell.

(Photo by Chris Bennett)

As the confrontation continued between Papachio and Cryts, a bystander hollered, “Wayne, the marshals are outside taking your van.”

Cryts raced to the street and stepped off the curb, blocking a tow truck from van access. Papachio warned Cryts to move or face arrest. “I can accept being arrested,” Cryts answered, “but I can’t accept you stealing this van.”

Cryts maintained calm and told Papachio. “I’m not going to be a problem. Just let me be the grand marshal and as soon as the parade ends, do your thing if you want to arrest me that bad.”

Fearing an unruly Gravette citizenry, Papachio acquiesced, but his hesitation almost went sideways. After the parade concluded, Papachio cuffed Cryts and placed him in a county patrol vehicle. The crowd erupted, tearing off the antennae and kicking in the doors before the car picked up speed. “It got wild,” Cryts remembers. “People were rocking the car back and forth, and the officers were bad shook up.”

Processed at the Sebastian County jailhouse in Fort Smith, Cryts traded his jean jacket and Levi’s for blue-and-white stripes. He was fingerprinted, photographed for a mugshot, issued a tin cup, and deposited in a cell with eight Cubans. “These were genuine criminals dumped by Castro in his 1980 prison cleanout, and I was scared to death. I had no options but to act tough and be ready to fight, bite, whatever it took. Helluva night: I ended up killing 280 cockroaches.”

Two days later, Cryts posted bond and was released until trial. “My van,” he recalls. “They kept my damn van.”

Jack Lewis holds the “Ristine key” sold at auction for $4,000.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

In October 1982, in Fayetteville, Ark., Cryts’ trial process began on charges of interference with a federal marshal, with a potential sentence of 20 years in federal prison. His attorney, Bill Wilson, pushed for a guilty plea, Cryts recalls.

“Wayne, plead or you’re looking at a couple decades of hard time in maximum security. Baker issued you a court order not to remove the grain, and you violated that order, but the marshals and FBI officers refused to back Baker and stop you. Basically, you stripped Baker naked of his power and you’re a threat to the entire system. They’re going to make an example of you one way or another. Plead guilty now.”

Undaunted, Cryts insisted on a jury trial.

Federal Magistrate Judge Franklin McWaters presided in Fayetteville.

“The prosecutor spouted all kinds of crap to the jury,” Cryts contends. “He said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, don’t get on a cruise ship with Wayne Cryts. He’ll take the lifeboats and leave the women and children behind. He wants notoriety. He wants fame. He wants power.’”

Cryts took the stand, looking as guilty as the boy who burned down the barn. “I told them I did it. I hid nothing. The prosecution said I refused a direct order from a federal marshal, and I told the jury that was true.”

After Cryts exited the stand, Bill Wilson put head to hands and whispered, “Wayne, you’re the best witness the prosecution has had.”

After closing statements, Judge McWaters put a thumb on the scales: I want to tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury one thing. If you come back with anything other than a guilty verdict, we might as well throw our laws out the window, everybody strap on a six-gun, and go down the street shooting.

“Can you imagine how that felt,” Cryts says. “I’m up for 20 years and the judge tells the jury they sure as hell better find me guilty. Literally, those were the last words heard by the jury.”

Seated at the defense table, Cryts was lost, unable to read blank expressions worn by the jury as they shuffled out. No smiles. No frowns.

Retreating to a hallway, Cryts collapsed on the floor, and waited for the inevitable. Three hours later, the jury returned, again filing in with faces set in stone.

The bailiff handed the decision to Judge McWaters, who read in silence, then peered down at the jury: “Is this unanimous?”

McWaters then tossed the decision on the courtroom floor. The bailiff picked up the paperwork and read aloud: “Not guilty.”

The prosecutor scrambled out of his chair and demanded a jury poll. Each juror rose, stated a name, and sounded off.

McWaters rapped the gavel. Court dismissed.

Knees to jelly and adrenaline gone, Cryts wept.

As McWaters exited the room in a fury, Bill Wilson hollered out: “Your honor, what about Mr. Cryts’ van? Your honor?”

McWaters turned about for one final pause: “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I release that van.”

Mysterious Corn Cob

Double jeopardy? Triple jeopardy? The government took another bite at the Cryts apple.

“They were going to change up the charges and put me on trial until they got their guilty verdict,” Cryts insists. “When Ristine didn’t work, they just tried something else.”

Ristine relief: “It wasn’t years ago,” says Cryts. “It was yesterday. I’ll die with a debt for those farmers who stood with me.”

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

In June 1983, throwing in the towel on Ristine, federal judge Thomas Eisele rang up Cryts on charges of criminal contempt for removing his soybeans from the MFA Elevator at Bernie.

Mirroring his previous trial, Cryts refused to plead guilty, and a jury was seated in a Little Rock courtroom.

Prosecutors subpoenaed Cryts’ father, William, but the move backfired on the witness stand. William claimed a mysteriously cloudy recall of the grain removal at MFA due to his perpetually poor memory sustained in a farm accident as a child after a fall from a loft when struck by a “wet corn cob.”

The jury deliberated for 30 minutes, voting unanimously for acquittal. Eisele was incensed.

“He cussed and criticized the jury. He openly told them he disagreed with their decision,” Cryts explains.

“Since the jury acquitted me, Eisele did what he could to make my life miserable. He charged with me with civil contempt and fined me $341,000. To this day, I reckon it’s compounded to millions of dollars. I never paid.”

“If Ristine hadn’t happened, you’d have never heard of me,” says Cryts.

(Photo courtesy of AAM)

In less than two years, Cryts had faced a grand jury that refused to indict, and two trial juries that voted not guilty. Yet, the government was not finished.

“That’s how the bureaucracy and deep state work in unison,” he says. “Make no mistake: There were going to keep trying me, but the story had caught too much media attention, and they couldn’t sneak it past the American people. Instead, they came for my guns.”

Hands Down

With federal fines sitting on Cryts’ shoulder, his assets were at risk. The courts grabbed his guns.

“I didn’t have hardly anything in my name they could get, so they sent me notice of gun confiscation.”

Cryts didn’t cotton to dead lion status. “I’d come too far,” he says. “I fought over beans, but I wasn’t going to fight over guns because I knew how this episode would have ended, and I didn’t want it to turn into a Ruby Ridge situation like we saw some years later. The government would have eventually taken my guns by force.”

He broke down his rifles, shotguns, and pistols, placed the parts in the backseat and floorboards of the family sedan, and drove the firearms to law enforcement.

On the steps of the Cape Girardeau courthouse, Cryts’ guns were auctioned by the government. Significantly, there were no bids beyond the raised hands of Cryts’ neighbors. Excluding Cryts’ farming brethren, the crowd was silent. “Like so many other times, the people around me were the heroes,” he says. “I got my guns back, bought and returned to me by my neighbors.”

Ristine Dreams

Forty-three years past Ristine, Cryts is a satisfied man, grateful for a quiet life in a modest home perched on a rise off gravel, surrounded by corn, cotton, rice, and soybeans in every direction.

Looking backward at the Ristine raid, would Cryts do it again?

“I have many regrets in life. I wish I’d have married Sandy earlier; 60 years is not enough with her. I wish I’d have not been short with my words with people many times; I’d take back speaking harshly at different points. Those are genuine regrets. But Ristine? I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”

“In the end, Ristine drew attention to major problems in elevator bankruptcies, and some states changes made real changes in their laws—some didn’t.”

Beyond bankruptcy law changes, Cryts contends Ristine exposed the extremes of the bureaucracy. Process was punishment.

“There was always one thing the government didn’t understand,” says Cryts. “When they took everything I had, there was nothing left for me to lose.”

(Photo by Chris Bennett)

“You may or may not agree with what I did, or how I did it. I understand. But if you’ll look at how the government came after me, with charge after charge, just to get something—anything—to stick, then you can see what laws the bureaucracy is willing to abuse once the ball gets rolling and how they work in unison. I call it the deep state.”

(For more, listen to a podcast interview with Wayne Cryts at Farming The Countryside With Andrew McCrea )

Two years shy of 80, almost 55 years removed from the Great Soybean Raid, Cryts often vividly dreams of Ristine, surrounded by hundreds of farmers loading grain in truck after truck. “It wasn’t years ago,” he says. “It was yesterday. I’ll die with a debt for those farmers who stood with me.”

“I’m so blessed today,” he adds. “I don’t have much, but I have all the things I truly need. Here I am in Puxico, Missouri. The government knows where to find me. Come get me.”

For more articles from Chris Bennett ( cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

American Pie Reborn: How An Iowa Farmer Saved Buddy Holly

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Power vs. Privacy: Landowner Sues Game Wardens, Challenges Property Intrusion

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

Meat Madness: How American Farmers Almost Became Hippo Ranchers

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 18:41:22 GMT

Noah’s Ark crashed into American agriculture—almost. In what ranks among the wildest plans ever hatched by the federal government, hippos were once on the cusp of introduction to U.S. rivers, lakes, and farmland. Simply, hippopotamus farming almost became a reality.

In 1910, fighting an invasive species plague and meat crisis, a congressman and a USDA official teamed up with a solution for the ages: Import hippos from Africa, along with a menagerie of other large mammals, and loose the beasts across the country.

The hippos would eat the invasives, the masses would eat the hippos, the backwoods of America would turn into a zoo, and the Beef Trust would take a crunching kick to the sack when at least 1 million pounds of hippo steak per year hit the market.

All that was needed was $250,000 in funding and a vote of confirmation for House Resolution 23261, the American Hippo Bill. Backed by Theodore Roosevelt, multiple politicians, USDA, and big media, what could go wrong with releasing herds of Africa’s big game from Mississippi to Montana?

Welcome to a Faustian deal in the madhouse of agriculture history.

The Devil You Know

Blame it on the Japanese and their gift that kept on giving.

Sandwiched between the introduction of kudzu in 1876 and the notorious invasive arrival of fire ants in 1918, the 1884 World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans featured a door prize from hell. A delegation from Japan handed out booth samples of a peculiarly prolific freshwater, free-floating plant from the Amazon—water hyacinth. Eager recipients rushed home with the botanical version of a gremlin and tossed the plants into backyard gardens or ponds.

Water hyacinth removal in 1939: The Corps deployed machinery scoopers, grabbers, choppers, shredders, rake-wielding manpower, sprays, and oil burns.

(Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)

The result was a near-otherworldly explosion in growth from an alien-like organism that had no natural enemies, reproduced asexually, could double in coverage area every 30 days, and shed seeds that remained viable for over a decade. By the early 1890s, hundreds of thousands of acres in the Southeast’s water world, from Florida to Louisiana and Mississippi, were covered in green floating mats topped by spikes of purple flowers. Despite their beauty, the giant rafts of water hyacinth spanned rivers from bank to bank, grew 100’ wide in unbroken chains several miles long, blocked river traffic, and wrecked the fishing industry.

The clogs of water hyacinth reached phenomenal mass, at roughly 30-50 tons per acre. Initially viewed as a godsend by many in the livestock industry, producers carted away piles of free fodder, but soon realized the feed source was detrimental to cattle health—particularly as cows began dying after consuming chemical-tainted hyacinth when the Army Corp of Engineers began spraying as a control measure. (For more, see Engineers vs Florida’s Green Menace .)

The Corps deployed machinery scoopers, grabbers, choppers, shredders, rake-wielding manpower, sprays, and oil burns—all to no long-term avail. In 1899, Congress threw $75,000 at the hyacinth menace and began searching for an answer. (The botanical battle still rages. Louisiana, for example, currently spends $2 million per year fighting hyacinth.)

Backed by major media, what could go wrong with releasing herds of Africa’s big game from Mississippi to Montana?

(Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)

With no herbicide or mechanical solution at hand, the water hyacinth debacle triggered the exchange of floral invasive for a mammalian invasive, i.e., hyacinth for hippo.

Beware: Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

Boiled Dog

In 1910, the Philadelphia Athletics won the World Series in five, the Tommy Gun was invented, Mark Twain kicked the bucket at 74, 300-plus lb. President William Taft roamed the White House—and America was knee-deep in a meat shortage attributed to overgrazing, herd diminishment, meat monopolies, logistic snags, and population pressure.

Up 21% from 76 million in 1900, the 1910 census tallied a U.S. population of 92 million pining for city life and departing the farm as never before. (Only a decade later, the 1920 census marked the first time in which most Americans lived in urban locations.)

Theodore Roosevelt, pictured in a 1910 big game hunt, backed efforts to bring hippos to U.S. farms.

(Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)

Emblematic of city clamor and looming meat issues, horse flesh at 15 cents per pound (three times less than beef or pork) became a consideration for some, writes Zachary Crockett at Priceonomics: The mindset toward horse consumption began to shift — partly in thanks to a changing culinary landscape. Between 1900 and 1910, the number of food and dairy cattle in the US decreased by nearly 10% ... With the introduction of the 1908 Model-T and the widespread use of the automobile, horses also began to lose their luster a bit as man’s faithful companions; this eased apprehension about putting them on the table with a side of potatoes.

“No longer will the worn-out horse find his way to the boneyard,” declared Ernst Lederle, New York City Health Commissioner. “Instead, he will be fattened up in order to give the thrifty another source of food supply.”

In Chicago, Health Commissioner W. A. Evans moved from equine to canine, championing dog meat in 1910. “To the man who sees nothing disgusting in eating canine flesh, it should prove just as good eating as other forms of meat.”

Aye caramba. Hippo steaks over boiled dog, anyone? Anyone?

Lake Cow Bacon

In January 1909, William Irwin, a fruit researcher at USDA, took the podium at the American Breeder’s Association in Columbia, Mo., and rattled cages with the delivery of an industry-shattering paper: “Animals That Should Be Introduced And Bred For Economic And Profitable Meat Production.”

Irwin advocated for the immediate importation of African mammals to the U.S., starting with hippos in the Southeast to raise 1 million pounds of meat—lake cow bacon—at a yearly value of $100 million. Irwin also recommended the Southeast as a farm home for African buffalo, bushbuck, and reedbuck.

A farmer’s son, and showman to the core, Robert “Cousin Bob” Broussard tried to import a meat zoo to America.

(Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)

Further, Irwin insisted rhinos and giraffes would have “abundant room” in a South-to-West belt. For the Midwest and North, he suggested multiple antelope species, including the red duiker, blue duiker, and dik-dik.

In all, Irwin tagged 100 African mammals as ideal transfers to America: “Because these animals have not been introduced is not a sound reason why they should not be. Seriously, we need every additional species whose flesh is both palatable and nutritious we can find a place somewhere in our great country that will be adapted to the successful propagation of each. Our people will never accept kindly the conditions that according to press reports exist now in Germany, where during 19078 there were slaughtered and the meat sold for food 38,000 horses and 14,000 dogs.”

Neck-deep in water hyacinth, 750 miles south of Columbia, in New Iberia, La., Congressman Robert Broussard heard Irwin’s clarion call: new meat for the masses. Son of a Cajun farmer and showman to the core known as “Cousin Bob” to his constituents, Broussard began cooking up a bill to bring Irwin’s zoo to America.

Cousin Bob’s solution to the meat crisis and water hyacinth constipation? Pods of hippos—lake cow bacon.

Four-legged Danger

Who could Cousin Bob find to gin up support for delivery of thousands of beasts from sub-Saharan Africa to Mississippi or Montana or Minnesota, along with a chain of packing plants beyond the Beef Trust’s reach? How ‘bout a trio of wild boys pulled straight from central casting.

Rugged Theodore Roosevelt, never one to run low on ammo during safaris and never shy to wade into controversy; Frederick Russell Burnham, 5’4”, but with a lengthy shadow as military scout, legendary hunter, veteran of countless wars, and partial inspiration 70 years later for Indiana Jones; and Fritz Duquesne, native of South Africa, classic outdoorsman, soldier, scoundrel, and arch enemy of Burnham.

A 1910 image of a hippo kill from Theodore’s Roosevelt’s big game expedition.

(Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)

On March 24, 1910, bolstered by the combined wildlife knowledge and experience of Burnham and Duquesne, and the scientific gravitas of USDA’s Irwin, Cousin Bob requested $250,000 (just under $10 million in modern currency) for the import of “wild and domestic animals into the United States,” and offered the U.S. government a meat proposal for the ages: House Resolution 23261—the American Hippo Bill.

The House Agriculture Committee, chaired by Rep. Charles Scott, who grew up on a family farm in Allen County, Kansas, sat in rapt attention at 10:30 a.m. Cousin Bob marched in Irwin, Burnham, and Duquesne to tell Congress an animal capable of reaching 5,000 lb. and running in short bursts at speeds of 20 mph was an ideal fit for domestication on and around U.S. farms.

Despite the trio’s insistence on the docile nature of hippos, they were recommending the import of the most dangerous four-legged creature on the planet: Hippos kill 500-3,000 people per year.

American Rhino

Irwin spoke first: “There is not any reason why we cannot raise meat for every person, if we will get at it and get the right animals here.”

His presentation was riveting—and surreal.

Farm by farm, Irwin recommended fencing off sections of land beside waterways, inserting hippos, and pulling in water hyacinth for free fodder. (No matter that hippos generally graze on land and would not have consumed water hyacinth in significant quantity.)

“My idea is that in the South we have the greatest undeveloped resources in the water courses there and in the lakes and ponds there, where I think it is easily possible to add 1 million tons of meat a year to our supply if we will get the right animals.”

Charles Scott, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, was assured that hippos would be an ideal animal for domestication.

(Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)

“The feed (water hyacinth) is there now, going to waste. It is alarming the people in that country. It is giving them great inconvenience through stopping up their waterways, their navigable streams, and I believe there is a gold mine there if we will adopt the right measures to utilize the value of it.”

Irwin suggested hippos for the South, and a litany of animals for the West, although he conceded rhino domestication might prove tricky. “There is not any reason why we cannot find a place in the United States for every one of the more than 100 species of animals that are in existence today and not domesticated ... I don’t not think there is any question about the certainty of our domesticating any of these great animals. Probably the rhinoceros would be the most difficult of all.”

Charles Scott, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, asked Irwin about potential dangers of hippo domestication. Without skipping a beat, Irwin, the USDA expert, offered assurance: “The people who have handled them tell me they are very easily tamed and become very much attached to man.”

Rep. Joseph Howell of Utah, reflecting on meat potential for his home state, asked Irwin if any animals would be a fit for the Great Salt Lake. Irwin’s answer took the presentation to heights beyond hippos and rhinos: “I suppose the manatee might live there if it is not too cold for it.”

Whether dumbfounded, bewildered, or intrigued by Irwin’s manatee advice, Howell’s response is lost to history.

Skill and Brains

Next up at the plate was swashbuckling Fritz Duquesne, who echoed Irwin regarding hippo safety issues: “It is absolutely not dangerous.”

Duquesne assured the committee on the delightful flavor of hippo flesh, and advocated for agriculture industry income based on hippo skin, ivory, and fat production.

Beyond hippos, Duquesne cited giraffes, elephants, cape buffalo, springbok, camels, and wart hogs as creatures that could be “easily introduced into this country.”

Frederick Russell Burnham, legendary hunter, veteran of countless wars, and partial inspiration for Indiana Jones.

(Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)

Francis Burnham, grizzled adventurer and living legend, spoke last, anchoring the testimonials.

“We must not make the mistake of taking one pair of animals and expecting that they will population the whole territory. But with reasonable care and skill and brains, and with the Department of Agriculture having charge of the matter, I do not see any reason why we cannot have great success,” explained Burnham, who was in the process of putting his beliefs into action by transplanting wild pigs and whitetails from Mexico onto his ranch in eastern California.

Fritz Duquesne, classic outdoorsman, soldier, scoundrel, and spy.

(Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)

Burnham’s rationale was grounded in success. At different points in history, European animals had thrived in North America: pig, cow, goat, and horse. And in Burnham’s lifetime, successes and failures ranged from reindeer importation from Siberia to Alaska in 1891; camels from multiple Mediterranean ports to several Western states in 1856; and ring-necked pheasants from China to Oregon in 1881.

However, big game from Africa was a wildly different bone to chew.

Just Plain Critters

The Agriculture Committee didn’t bite on The American Hippo Bill.

Broussard reshuffled the deck and prepared to resubmit the bill the next year. Burnham would go to Africa to nail down logisitcs and Duquesne would go to Louisiana to eyeball the sloughs and swamps. However, the American hippo movement had slipped its moment. (For more, see Jon Mooallem’s superb account, American Hippopotamus .)

Irwin, USDA’s true believer, held out hope, telling The Washington Post: “I hope to live long enough to see herds of these broad-backed beasts wallowing in the Southern marshes and rivers, fattening on the millions of tons of food which awaits their arrival; to see great droves of white rhinoceri … roaming over the semiarid desert wastes, fattening on the sparse herbage which these lands offer; to see herds of the delicate giraffe, the flesh of which is the purest and sweetest of any known animal, browsing on the buds and shoots of young trees in preparation for the butchers block.”

Thirty years after pushing hippo farming, Fritz Duquesne (upper right corner) found infamy as a Nazi agent in the biggest spy ring bust in U.S. history.

(Library of Congress)

Dreams of a perpetual American safari faded with a whimper. Irwin died in 1911; Cousin Bob won a Senate seat and died in 1918; Burnham continued adventuring, building his legend until heart failure in 1946; and Fritz Duquesne careened through incessant escapades, finding infamy after arrest in 1942 as a Nazi agent in the biggest spy ring bust in U.S. history (Duquesne Spy Ring, 33 arrests). Duquesne was released from a federal penitentiary in 1954 due to poor health; he died in 1956 at 78.

Ironically, the largest present population of hippos in proximity to the U.S. Gulf States is in South America. At the height of Pablo Escobar’s drug empire, he imported three females and one male to his private zoo in Colombia. After Escobar’s death, the “Cocaine Hippos” escaped and proliferated. Currently, roughly 170 hippos live in the rivers around Escobar’s former estate, Hacienda Napoles.

As a bizarre sidenote, roughly 2,000 miles south of Cousin Bob’s Louisiana, approximately 170 hippos reside today in Colombia as escapes from Pablo Escobar’s personal zoo.

(Photo by Nasser Halaweh, CC)

In the end, the American Hippo movement withered before it could provide meat for the masses. There are no herds of rhinos in New Mexico or Arizona. There are no pods of manatees in Utah. And there are no rice and soybean farmers in Louisiana or Mississippi raising hippos on the back-40 bayou.

However, there remains a curious appeal in the madcap movement to give Mother Nature a bit of hippo help. As summed by Cousin Bob to the New York Daily Tribune: “We need more critters in this country. Just plain critters.”

For more articles from Chris Bennett ( cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

American Pie Reborn: How An Iowa Farmer Saved Buddy Holly

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Power vs. Privacy: Landowner Sues Game Wardens, Challenges Property Intrusion

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

Crop Gangsters: Million-Dollar Farm Ponzi Collapses Under Flood of Fish

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 16:39:06 GMT

Sell, baby, sell. In 2015, two Oklahoma con artists baked a towering layer cake of tilapia, quail, penny stocks, Arabian sheikhs, cruise ships, diamonds, oil wells, copper mines, and Costco, and then stole the savings of farmers across Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri.

The flimflam duo reeled in $1 million and hoped to stack the Ponzi far higher—until the scheme collapsed under a flood of fish. Welcome to one of the most outrageous scams in agriculture and business history.

Digging Holes

Seated in a booth at the Golden Corral on Kansas Expressway, a stone’s throw off I-44 in Springfield, Mo., Terry Bollinger was enraged. Over $200,000 in the hole, along with a steady bleed of $2,500 per month in barn electricity, he was swamped with near-biblical loads of fish. No pickup. No payment. No propriety.

“I was furious past words,” Bollinger recalls. “I was close to going vigilante on the pair responsible—two predator criminals of the lowest kind, Jerrold (Jerry) Wayne Myers and Gary Warlick.”

Myers, 78, and Warlick, 55, entered the restaurant doors, slid into the booth, rattled off a litany of saccharine explanations, and offered Bollinger a purported lifebuoy. In reality, they tossed him a brick.

“Jerry and Gary pulled out a bunch of paperwork and offered to compensate me with fake stock options as real as the rest of their bulls***, and it all went down at the Golden Corral. It was one shell game on top of another.”

On a since-deleted Facebook account, Warlick was listed as “worship director” of the Country Gospel Music Association International.

(Facebook photo)

Hovering just within earshot, Bollinger noted three men—wide and thick-necked—watching the exchange. “Muscle. They brought along muscle in case things got out of hand,” he explains. “They were thinking I might dig a hole and bury them in it. They were right.”

“People know some crazy stories, but they’ve never heard nothing like Jerry and Gary,” Bollinger adds. “They were going nationwide with their scheme until the whole deal blew up because of one overlooked detail: We crashed their plan with too many fish.”

Barrel of Hooks

Starting roughly in April 2015, two no-frills advertisements began running in electric co-op magazines and agriculture periodicals, and on rural-related websites. Although the ads contained no pictures or graphics, they were neck-snappers—proclaiming the possibility of $100,000-plus in side-stream income.

The first ad championed fish farming: BREEDERS/GROWERS NEEDED NOW. Manna Source Sustainable, a Premere Resources Corp company, needs breeders/growers for our sustainable living operation. Raise organic tilapia fish and aquaponic vegetables-fruits in the fish water for sustainable living perhaps progressing to six figure income according to capabilities and desires. Use the unused buildings on your property for production. We provide all equipment, tanks, organic feed and stock. You provide facility with utilities, hands on effort, and small investment/deposit for desired level of income. We buy all production under our Breeder/Grower agreement. Free Sustainable Living Workshop at our Bartlesville Oklahoma facility. (Manna’s claim of “organic tilapia fish” was part of the hoodwink. USDA organic certification for fish is a fantasy; it does not exist.)

“It blows my mind,” says producer Ed Weaver. “Gary and Jerry stole $1 million at a minimum, but there were no criminal consequences. In this country, if you play it right, you can knowingly lie and steal and never be prosecuted.”

(Photo by Leosfarm.com, Creative Commons)

The second ad, almost a repeat of the first, changed the fish focus to fowl: QUAIL EGGERS NEEDED NOW! … Raise quail eggs for us perhaps progressing to six figure income according to capabilities and desires ... We supply all cages, stock, and feed. Breeder supplies buy-in amount for desired level of income, indoor facility with heat for the winter, and we buy all egg production under our egger agreement.

On its face, the Manna Source Sustainable premise was simple. A potential grower paid an upfront fee and provided a barn/building/housing unit. In return, the grower received equipment, setup, training, pickup every 35 days, perpetual buyback of fish and quail eggs, and a shot at “six figure income.”

The tiny ads, each less than 100 words, caught eyeballs in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Illinois. In a matter of weeks, dozens of Midwest farmers and rural property owners made the drive to Bartlesville, Okla., where entrepreneurial guru Jerrold Wayne Myers and silver-tongued Gary Warlick showed plenty of leg.

First, according to Myers and Warlick, the Saudis and the Emiratis of Dubai couldn’t get enough fish, i.e., the Arabian appetite for Oklahoma tilapia was insatiable. Second, Carnival Cruise Line passengers were scarfing quail eggs at a prodigious rate and creating a market void that demanded a daily supply.

Buy-in farmers were told quail egg contracts were signed with Carnival Cruise Line.

(Photo by Mashkawat, Creative Commons)

Myers and Warlick assured all comers that tilapia contracts were sealed with Saudi Arabia and Dubai: A landing strip was purchased and both countries would send airplanes to pick up weekly loads of fish in Bartlesville. Additional million-pound tilapia contracts, Myers and Warlick noted, were secured with Costco, Kroger, and Whole Foods. Further, quail contracts were signed with Carnival Cruise Line, with eggs destined for the haute cuisine of buffet salad bars.

Despite its shining promises, Manna Source Sustainable was crooked as a barrel of fishhooks. It was a lie from crop to table.

Reap the Whirlwind

At 41, Terry Bollinger led a rural lifestyle in in southeast Missouri’s Iron County. He was an old-school grinder—blue-collar, straight-shooter, hardworking to the bone, and willing to pour buckets of sweat equity into his work. He made his bones in concrete, but Bollinger had a keen eye for the countryside, often selling tracts and timber.

When Bollinger’s barn bulged with tens of thousands of tilapia, Myers and Warlick never came for the fish. Not a single pickup. Ever.

(Photo by Rose Davies, Creative Commons)

In 2015, he caught wind of Manna Source Sustainable after a friend in Iron County bought into the con. In mid-summer, Bollinger drove across southern Missouri, six hours on I-44, and into the parking lot of Manna Source Sustainable headquarters—a nondescript warehouse in Bartlesville.

“It was a metal building with lots of tanks and fish. I walked into an office room on the side and met Jerry and Gary. Neither had a distinct accent, and they came across as average joes, dressed in jeans and boots—nothing beyond ordinary in Oklahoma. Jerry was shifty, a red flag in hindsight, but he was contrasted by Gary, who seemed like a good old boy and did most of the talking.”

Myers and Warlick touted themselves to Bollinger as conservative businessmen with company ties to oil drilling, gas wells, and copper mines. Simple fellas that walked a straight line and feared the Lord. No flash. No cash knots wedged in a boot top. No Cadillacs.

“They talked up their experience with oil,” Bollinger remembers. “Bartlesville is a historical oil town and they presented themselves as part of that regular crowd.”

Out of the gate, Warlick laid out the buy-in tilapia package: four levels of investment from $10,000-$100,000, with a “Jumbo Upper Level” projected to return an astounding $548,000 per year.

Next, Warlick mapped the buy-in quail package: four levels of investment from $1,500-$50,000, with a “Higher End Setup” annually tallying $115,200.

“People lost tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars even beyond their investment because many of them built facilities and paid for extra upkeep,” says Patty LaBarthe, director of enforcement for the Oklahoma Department of Securities.

(ODS)

“They claimed that for each dollar you spent on tilapia, they’d set you up with breeders, tanks, and buy back the fry at 10-12 cents apiece. We were basically going to be a co-op and the customer contracts were already in place. Gary said Whole Foods and Kroger were ready, and that the government in Dubai was buying our product. He also wanted us to invest in quail and he said they were selling the eggs in contracts to cruise ships.”

For approximately two hours, Bollinger listened to the Manna sales pitch, which careened beyond tilapia and quail to stock options and vegetables. “They tried to sell me on aquaponics—growing vegetables in or under or above the fish. Then they tried to get me to buy stock that Jerry promised was certain to go up in value.”

Myers claimed ownership of “HXPN” and offered stock in the company at 2 cents a share, sweetened by the projection that HXPN shares would jump to $1 by late 2015, and $3 by March 2016.

Listening to four whirlwind propositions in less than two hours, Bollinger bought into the fish. In good faith, he invested with Manna’s tilapia setup at the $100,000 “Jumbo” level. Additionally, he spent another $100,000 on a specialized, 40’ x 80’ metal barn to hold a projected 100 breeder tanks and 10 fry tanks.

However, after he slapped cash on the barrelhead, it took Myers and Warlick almost two months to deliver a single piece of equipment to Bollinger’s countryside property in Missouri. And when a sketchy Manna crew finally arrived on-site in Iron County with aquaculture equipment, the façade fell away from the scam.

“The Manna crew guys looked like they came straight out of prison,” Bollinger explains. “They had no idea how to do the plumbing; they had no idea how to do anything. They started arguing and ended up in a fistfight on my property.”

Bollinger’s nightmare kicked into gear. For $200,000, he received a jumble of tank parts, a load of tiny fish, and two former convicts throwing haymakers and rolling around in the dust of his yard.

Despite a total lack of training and assistance from Manna, Bollinger bootstrapped the tanks and connected the plumbing. Simply, he turned Manna’s chaos into a highly efficient fish factory. “Everything and every word they told me was wrong, whether it was about temperature, filtration, feed, or bacterial control. On my own, I started producing fry at an incredible rate, and six months later, I was overrun with fish.”

By 2016, Myers was a tilapia baron. However, 100 farmers and small business owners were growing restless as hellfire.

(Photo by FDA)

Bollinger called Warlick for pickup, anxious for ROI and alleviation of a $2,500 per month heating and lighting bill. “Gary told me over and over a truck was coming around to get my fish. No truck came. He knew there was no truck coming. He knew my fish had nowhere to go. He knew they’d stolen my money. He knew they never paid me a dime. And he knew he was telling me one lie after another.”

As Bollinger’s barn bulged with tens of thousands of tilapia, Myers and Warlick never came for the fish. Not a single pickup. Ever.

And while Bollinger bled from a $200,000 gash, Myers and Warlick built the Manna Ponzi pyramid ever higher, dangling more buy-ins to unsuspecting clients. Sell. Sell. Sell.

Diamond Jerry

Neither Bollinger, nor any of Manna’s grower clients, knew that Jerrold Wayne Myers was low enough to steal a widow’s ax. The Manna scheme was not Myers’ first rodeo. In 2004, he was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison and $532,510 in restitution for fraudulently selling diamond investments in Texas.

After getting nabbed by the feds, Jerry Wayne Myers switched from diamonds to tilapia.

(Photo by Jerry Cone, Wikimedia Commons)

Translated: Myers was a convicted grifter. From 1998 to 2000, he was a partner in Third Day, a Texas-based company specializing in precious stones. (Significantly, “Third Day” was an aptly chosen biblical reference, as was Myers’ title choice of “Manna” when pushing tilapia.) At Third Day, Myers tapped lawyers, doctors, and other high-end clientele to invest in the buying and selling of diamonds, specifically a “fancy colored” collection” valued at $40,000,000.

Yet, Myers had no background or training in diamonds. Zero. After being pinched by the feds, Myers switched from diamonds to tilapia—a shift down the ladder that although far less lucrative, carried much less risk of incarceration.

By 2016, Myers was a tilapia baron. However, 100 farmers and small business owners were growing restless as hellfire.

Bizzaro World

In 2016, on his farm in central Missouri’s Audrain County, livestock producer Matt Van Schyndel scanned the pages of a co-op magazine and spotted Manna’s alluring tilapia advertisement. Several weeks later, Van Schyndel, who was among Manna’s first investors, walked into an office suite at a Bartlesville motel for a dog-and-pony show conducted by Warlick.

“Jerry and Gary were both there,” Van Schyndel recalls. “Jerry was the mastermind and Gary was the puppet. Jerry was crooked to the bone and Gary was hapless, and the two of them together were twisted.”

“Gary said they’d buy our fry and put them into their own grow-outs, and then ship the fish in big numbers to overseas markets in Arabia,” Van Schyndel continues. “Gary said, ‘More and more people want tilapia overseas—more than you can shake a stick at.’”

Van Schyndel went down the tilapia hole with a $25,000 investment, but he got a glyphosate shock when the Manna crew showed up in Audrain County. “The setup guy they sent brought a bunch of IBC totes that he claimed were food-grade. I tore the front off one of them and saw ‘Roundup’ stamped on it. They set up 40 other legit tanks, but the Roundup tote was the sign of things to come.”

Six months later, Van Schyndel was awash in tilapia. He called Bartlesville for pickup and Warlick sent a truck to Audrain County, but the loading process was chaotic, according to Van Schyndel. “All the fish died on the way back to Oklahoma,” he says. “Warlick appeared to have never done this before and the truck’s air pumps didn’t work.”

Myers and Warlick told buy-in farmers that tilapia contracts were sealed with Dubai and Saudi Arabia.

(Photo by Yasmina, Unsplash)

“They made three total pickups at my place, but we only got paid a tiny percent of our investment,” Van Schyndel adds. “Things got increasingly bizarre.”

Bizarre, indeed. Myers and Warlick had no grow-out facilities and no market for the fish. “They actually had asked me to put a grow-out facility on my farm,” Van Schyndel explains, “and wanted me to fork over the money for it. No way. What were they really doing with the fish? I have no clue, but I do know that we all started growing fish faster than Myers calculated, and that’s what crashed their plans. The very last investors never even received their tanks.”

Frozen Fish

In 2016, in northwest Arkansas’s Carroll County, Robert Fairweather had access to several idle, family poultry barns. After observing Manna tilapia production on a friend’s property, Fairweather drove north to Bartlesville.

“Jerry was introduced to me as the primary shareholder. He hovered in the background and Gary did the talking, giving off a used car salesman or televangelist vibe.”

“Gary was really interested in our poultry barns and sold us hard on quail. He said they’d install nesting boxes and every egg would go straight to a cruise ship. He said he had all the licenses to deliver quail across state lines and all the breeder permits. Finally, he gave up on quail and tried to rope us into buying stock. Hour and a half of talking—and he pitched three different pyramids.”

“Jerry was the mastermind and Gary was the puppet,” says Matt Van Schyndel. “Jerry was crooked to the bone and Gary was hapless, and the two of them together were twisted.”

(Photo by Eskeifotos, Creative Commons)

Fairweather was solely drawn to tilapia, but rather than buy in at the minimal $10,000 level, he balked and insisted on a $1,200 good-faith payment, with the remainder due in increments, provided Manna fulfilled its duties. Warlick snatched the $1,200.

Weeks later, Manna tanks and equipment were delivered, as promised, to Fairweather’s barns in Arkansas, but problems began immediately.

“Nothing worked,” Fairweather says. “The tanks leaked right away. The filters were jacked up. The wiring was screwed. They didn’t deliver feed. I was upset, but Gary didn’t answer calls. He was running.”

All the while, Fairweather paid utilities, put in manhours, and bought feed from Amazon. After months of frustration, along with recognition of Warlick’s duplicity, Fairweather threw in the towel during a winter storm.

“I was in Fayetteville and the power went out at our place with temperatures about 10 degrees. My wife called and said, ‘What should I do about the fish?’”

“What the hell were we supposed to do? The fish froze and died.”

Made in America

Patty Labarthe investigates deceptive investment schemes for a living. As director of enforcement for the Oklahoma Department of Securities (ODS), with dual jurisdiction over securities and business opportunities, Labarthe has seen a wide spectrum of violations across a 38-year-career.

However, the Manna case is unforgettable, she says. “They preyed on average, hardworking people, but no one could ever make this story up because it’s so far over the line. People lost tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars even beyond their investment because many of them built facilities and paid for extra upkeep.”

Producers paid an upfront fee and received equipment, setup, training, pickup, perpetual buyback of eggs, and a shot at “six figure income.”

(Photo by Didriks, Creative Commons)

In 2015, ODS received a whistleblower complaint from a concerned citizen about Myers and Warlick. As the investigation proceeded, the scheme became clear.

“The investors were a cross-section of America: farmers, blue collar workers, and retirees,” Labarthe explains. “On the one hand, the Manna presentation seemed farfetched, but on the other, Myers and Warlick had a receptive audience because they were promoting a made-in-America, or at least, grown-in-America, opportunity.”

“At the time, Myers and Warlick promoted the opportunity by claiming that tilapia were being imported from overseas where they were grown in dirty waters,” she continues. “Manna promoted US-grown tilapia produced in clean waters. Myers and Warlick stepped in and said, ‘No more dirty fish from foreign markets.’”

“Investors were strung along,” Labarthe adds. “When the tilapia con ran low on steam, they pushed investors to quail investments. Investors could trade out their tilapia opportunity for quail. Or they could trade out for stock. Finally, they were dodging clients offering a vegetable or aquaponics buy-in.”

In February 2017, ODS filed a civil petition against Manna, tracking a massive siphoning of dollars in a year and a half: Defendants accepted One Million Fifty-Two Thousand Ninety Dollars ($1,052,090) from Purchasers beginning in February 2015 through approximately August 2016.

“Cease and desist is good, but we wanted to get money back for the investors,” Labarthe notes. “We filed in district court and went after restitution—but there was almost no money to get back.”

Ride With An Outlaw

Myers and Warlick skated. Despite the diligence of the ODS, no criminal prosecution was initiated.

Warlick professed innocence, claiming Myers was the sole fiend behind the Manna fraud. However, the victims say otherwise.

According to Jerry Wayne Myers, Carnival Cruise Line passengers created a market void that demanded a daily supply of quail eggs.

(Photo by Brook Ward, Creative Commons)

“There’s no doubt in my mind, Warlick was in on it,” Terry Bollinger says. “He told me so many things that were lies that he knew were lies. Whether he got in straight, I don’t know. But as it went on, he became part of the scam as the money got big. He never, never said he was sorry. Not a word.”

Ride with an outlaw, die with an outlaw, says Ed Weaver, 46, a farmer in Cedar County, Missouri, with cattle, sheep, and layers barns, who invested $50,000 with Manna. “One time, on the phone, Gary Warlick told me he’d been suckered by Myers, but I believe he was just a good actor. If he wasn’t a crook at the beginning, then he chose to become one. He crossed the line and didn’t come back. And there sure were never any apologies.”

“Investors were strung along,” Labarthe adds. “When the tilapia con ran low on steam, they pushed investors to quail investments. Investors could trade out their tilapia opportunity for quail ... Finally, they were dodging clients offering a vegetable or aquaponics buy-in.”

(Photo by David Cline, Alabama Extension)

Oklahoman Jim Miller of Pottawatomie County had 24 270-gallon tanks filled with tilapia and lost $25,000 to the charade. “Jerry and Gary didn’t deliver feed; they didn’t answer calls; they didn’t do anything but steal. Gary was hard to read and I don’t know his level of involvement, but I know he used Christianity and his involvement in the Church to get in good with people.”

Robert Fairweather insists Myers and Warlick were in the know from soup to nuts. “They came up with this scheme together. Jerry provided the upfront money and Gary was the pusher. We’re talking about an unreal amount of paperwork, legwork, and phone calls that Gary was right in the middle of, and he’d have to be a severe idiot not to know. Bottom line, I believe both men were sociopaths.”

Fish Fertilizer

What became of the millions of tilapia?

The fish couldn’t be legally sold or dumped into lakes. “I destroyed all of mine—thousands,” Jim Miller says. “I couldn’t sell, process, or turn them loose.”

Ed Weaver grasped at straws: “I researched for something to do with my fish, and I sold a few privately. I tried to market, but I was out of options. I cleaned and froze what I could—and used the rest for fertilizer.”

Terry Bollinger speaks plainly: “I always thought they tasted like hell. Dumped’em all.”

Frontier Justice

On a Facebook account active until at least 2023, Warlick described himself as “Former General Manager at Manna Source Sustainable” from Jan. 1, 2015-Sept. 1, 2017. The Facebook page noted his actions at Manna: “Did the founding promotional startup of this division of Premere Resources Corporation bringing it from $0 to $1.2 million in one years span.”

The irony is stunning, Weaver says. “It blows my mind. Gary and Jerry stole $1 million at a minimum, but there were no criminal consequences. In this country, if you play it right, you can knowingly lie and steal and never be prosecuted.”

“People know some crazy stories, but they’ve never heard nothing like Jerry and Gary,” says Terry Bollinger.

(Facebook photo)

“Neither of them got jail time,” Fairweather echoes. “How could they hurt and steal from this many people, but get off with no penalty?”

In the end, ODC clawed back 2 cents on the dollar. Bollinger, despite a $200,000 hit, received a $2,000 restitution check. “People think this is about financial damage, but its far deeper and raw. The emotional damage is tough to put into words,” Bollinger concludes.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, but Bollinger leaves the reckoning to Providence. “My anger drove me for a good while and I considered delivering frontier justice for all of us that had been taken advantage of. But I knew I’d end up as the one in trouble with the law and hurt my own family. It was the ultimate frustration to hold back because I also knew the law would do nothing to the real criminals. I was right.”

For more articles from Chris Bennett ( cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

American Pie Reborn: How An Iowa Farmer Saved Buddy Holly

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud

Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic

Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market

Power vs. Privacy: Landowner Sues Game Wardens, Challenges Property Intrusion

Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.

Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years

While America Slept, China Stole the Farm

Ag Lender Encourages Farmers To Make Financial Decisions Based On Numbers, Not Emotions

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 16:05:17 GMT

The financial stress in agriculture this year looms large for farmers, many of whom are modifying input decisions and making other adjustments that might help them pencil out a return-on-investment with their 2024 crops.

“Farmers that are looking at their numbers on an accrual adjusted basis are becoming aware of the challenges, candidly, more quickly than the folks that are just focusing solely on cash basis profitability,” says Alan Hoskins, president and national sales director at American Farm Mortgage and Financial Services.

Over the past six to nine months, Hoskins says he has seen farmers do some “course corrections” in order to give their operations a firmer financial footing. He told AgriTalk Host Chip Flory on Tuesday that some of the modifications, though not all, can still be made today.

“There are three prevalent things I’ve seen farmers do,” he told Flory. They include:

1. Lock-in loan rates. Hoskins has seen farmers work with their lenders to get variable interest rates locked in. In some cases, Hoskins adds, the lender has been able to provide flexibility so growers could take advantage of those cases where loan interest rates decreased.

2. Consider equipment needs. “Some operations have done a good job of looking at how they might be able to pare down some equipment that’s not needed as much as it might have been at one time,” he told Flory.

Farmers have then turned around and used those dollars as a working capital supplement or for debt reduction, Hoskin says.

3. Reduce use of inputs. One option Hoskins cites is where soil test evaluations have indicated nutrient reductions could be made in a field or parts of a field without financially negative impacts on crop yields resulting.

None of the three decisions is easy, Hoskins adds, and he encourages farmers to look at their cost-reduction options from a numerical perspective rather than making an emotional response to their financial situation.

“It’s easier to adjust projections using numbers,” Hoskins says. “What I find is people make better decisions for their farm when they can see the potential ramification of their decision, rather than when they’re just concerned about spending additional dollars on the crop because of where the markets are.”

Economic Pressure On Lenders

Flory said he has heard that some banks are calling in farm loans early for some Iowa operations.

Hoskins says he has not heard of any specific instances this year.

“Please understand, I’m not sitting here saying there aren’t potentially specific instances of what you’re saying is true. But I don’t know of any personally,” Hoskins told Flory.

Hoskins adds there can be multiple reasons a bank might call a loan early.

“It might be the result of a discussion the lender had with a borrower, especially if performance wasn’t meeting a certain threshold that had been discussed previously, usually multiple years ahead of time,” Hoskin says.

He adds another scenario that occurs sometimes is an individual loan will be called in if the institution is electing to exit from a specific area of the lending marketplace.

“So, with each individual circumstance, there can be a different reason that the loan was called in,” Hoskin says.

Flory asked Hoskins what his thoughts are on how to “keep 2024 from stinking” following 2022 and 2023, which were more financially positive for U.S. agriculture overall.

Hoskins says he encourages farmers to keep their outlook on making sound financial decisions in 2024 that will help them stay in business beyond this year.

“If I’m a producer, I’m thinking about how to use my assets to most effectively work for me, and I’m keeping a long-term focus, not a 2024-only focus,” he says.

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