BUSINESS
In a phenomenally audacious raid, Henry Wickham gathered, pilfered, and delivered 70,000 seeds of monopoly.
“It doesn’t take a data center or a solar farm to take farm ground out of production. All it takes is local government with a bad idea.”
“I’m just a farmer in their way,” says Georgia producer Jeff Melin. “Force me to sell, take my land, and fly in the billionaires and big companies.”
Using crop diversity, conservation tillage and a contract-first mindset, the Ruddenklau family works to keep their operation moving forward.
Robbing crop seed or smuggling pathogens, the most devastating raid of ag tech in U.S. history continues at a blistering pace.
Against all odds, John Gregory stood up to a utility colossus intent on splitting his farm—and won.
A family faces bankruptcy and almost $1 million in H-2A fines, with no proof of wrongdoing beyond the walls of a single agency.
“This is one of the saddest things I’ve seen in American agriculture in my lifetime,” says Bill Peter. “It ends with glass and metal covering millions of acres.”