A Phillips County farmer said Tuesday that he didn't mean to cause trouble when he posted a sign at a farm equipment store offering a "reward" for information about people reporting dicamba sprayers.
For a few hours Monday, the sign posted at Eldridge Supply Co. in Poplar Grove read, in all-capital letters:
"Reward offered for any information about who is reporting our local farmers to the Arkansas State Plant Board for dicamba use. If you have any information, please call the name and number below."
Vernon Joe "Bo" Smith, 59, of Poplar Grove listed his longtime nickname, "Mr. Something," and his cellphone number as contact information.
Smith said the sign hasn't elicited much useful information.
"I got way more negative calls than positives," he said. "I got a lot of texts and messages like 'you should be ashamed of yourself.'''
Smith also said he wasn't serious about the offer of a reward. "That was more of an attention-getter," he said. "I don't know, I might have bought somebody a Coke."
Smith's sign came at a time when the Plant Board, a division of the state Department of Agriculture, is considering its dicamba rules for next year. Some farmers are working through a third-straight crop season marred by alleged misuse of dicamba, an effective tool in fighting pigweed when used on dicamba-tolerant crops. Pigweed has mutated and has become resistant to glyphosate herbicides.
The board's pesticide committee met for more than three hours last week discussing ideas but made no recommendations on possible future restrictions or tighter enforcement of dicamba. The board meets again Sept. 10.
The Plant Board this year has received about 200 complaints about dicamba damage to crops and other vegetation that isn't tolerant of the herbicide, even though a ban on in-crop use of dicamba took effect May 26. There also were 200 complaints last year, when the dicamba-use cutoff date was April 15, and 1,000 complaints in 2017, when a midseason emergency ban went into effect.
Terry Fuller, a Plant Board member from Phillips County and longtime acquaintance of Smith's, said he was disappointed by the sign. "I think it shows an idea that a group of farmers think they're above the law," Fuller said.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency in late 2016 approved new formulations of dicamba that were supposed to be less likely of moving off-target, and renewed its approval last fall for another two years of dicamba use, despite thousands of dicamba complaints in Arkansas and other states.
Phillips County has accounted for 44 of the 198 dicamba complaints in Arkansas this year, second highest only to the 61 complaints in Mississippi County.
"I didn't put but the one [sign] out," Smith said, referring to the sign in Poplar Grove.
However, a copy of the sign also was on the counter Tuesday afternoon at Helena Chemical Co., a few miles away in Marvell, an employee said. He said he didn't know the sign's origins but thought it was at the store more "as a joke" rather than a company statement on a problem that has vexed farmers and regulators for the past three years.
Smith said the idea of the sign originated during coffee-shop talk among farmers. He said he posted a copy of it on the Snapchat messaging application. Images of the sign have cropped up on Twitter and Facebook, which Smith said he doesn't use. "Social media's a mess, there's no telling where that sign went," he said.
Smith, who supports a longer spraying season for dicamba, said his sign was aimed at "outsiders."
"I don't have a problem with the Plant Board doing their job," he said. "I don't have a problem with the rules. If I get something [dicamba damage] on me, I'm calling the Plant Board. If I put something [dicamba damage] on somebody, they'll call the Plant Board. That's the way it works."
Smith filed a complaint last year alleging dicamba damage to his soybeans. Like most farmers who have filed complaints since 2017, Smith didn't name a suspected farmer, in part because the source of off-target movement of dicamba is difficult to trace, unless it's by physical drift as the herbicide is being sprayed.
Smith also said he supports non-farmers being able to file complaints of possible damage to their shrubs, trees and backyard gardens.
The Plant Board's decision to extend spraying this year prompted Audubon Arkansas to recruit volunteers to monitor public areas for dicamba damage, such as in state and city parks, wildlife management areas and along county roads abutting farmland.
Smith said he didn't have the conservation group's effort specifically in mind when he made the sign but that other farmers and lawyers involved in dicamba issues have since mentioned the group. "I don't believe people in Little Rock and all these other places should be in our county taking up the Plant Board's time, which then takes up farmers' time, and turning in farmers for no reason," Smith said.
Of the 198 dicamba-related complaints this year, 59 were initiated by the Plant Board office or the Department of Agriculture's field inspectors, according to Plant Board records.
Dan Scheiman, Audubon Arkansas' bird conservation director, said in an email Tuesday that he was aware of Smith's sign, but he declined to discuss it. Scheiman has filed 20 complaints, according to agriculture department records.
Smith said he won't be posting any more signs. "I didn't mean to cause the Eldridge people any trouble. I like them. They're good people. I've done a lot of business with them over the years," Smith said.
Eldridge Supply Co. also has stores in Brinkley and Augusta. One of its owners, Chris Eldridge, didn't return telephone calls Tuesday.
A Section on 08/28/2019