oh New York times you got taken for a ride honey

Anytime you're writing an article about a topic that's new for you

(for example, farm equipment fires)

it's really good to google it first! It can be illuminating!

It takes 0.52 seconds to find out combine fires are so commonplace, there's half a billion (with a B!) hits.

Combines are rolling fire traps. They have to be carefully maintained so they DON'T spontaneously ignite.

They can start fires in a lot of ways, even when they're not operating: just sitting there in a field!

-Dried-up bits of crop gets lodged inside in contact with hot engine parts &/or exposed wiring

-(There shouldn't BE exposed wiring. But if you don't clean out your combine regularly, it turns into a rodent playground & they chew up your wires. see @woofpickle's entire feed lol)

-Tire friction can create static. (This is the same thing that happens with cars & can sometimes cause sparks -> explosions at gas stations).

Combines are supposed to have a chain dragging on the ground to, well, ground the combine.

But if the chain snaps/falls off? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

-And my personal favorite, "You just finished driving the combine all day. Then you parked it over tall crop stubble while the engine was still hot. That lit the field on fire, and that in turn lit the rest of your equipment on fire, you absolute buffoon."

This dude literally violated rule #1 in AgFax's handy 12-step guide in "how to not light your combine on fire"

but he just knows in his heart it was antifa

sure thing, pal

https://agfax.com/2019/10/01/12-tips-to-avoid-contain-combine-fires-during-harvest/

What's going on here looks an awful lot like insurance fraud.

If you can set a narrative that your dipshit accident was actually arson, it can help your insurance payout and/or future premiums.

Farmers do this ALL THE TIME. Insurance fraud is a way of life LOL

Don't believe me? Read "Heartl*nd" by Sarah Sm*rsh, noted purveyor of farmer respectability, carefully.

She details exactly how her family ran an insurance fraud to get extra payouts for an "accidental" fire that they lit themselves.

Like, she lays it right out. It's a thing.

A careful reader might wonder "Wait, does this mean the local press & the farmers rolling out to help

know this is a scam?"

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

I would say a fair number are credulous enough to fall for it. And a fair number would also smell exactly what this guy's cooking.

There's a combined sense in farm country of "we're the biggest victims in the world" & also that the public that buys food are not so much customers, as we are marks to be played.

NYT fell right into it lmaoooooo

Beautiful fraud assist there, NYT. Beautiful.

Not only does this family have insurance to cover their losses, like any business does

they've also raised $132K on their gofundme

when, again, this situation has a lot of red flags for fraud.

This is exactly why the farmer-as-victim narrative is so important to the farm community.

It gets them BIG MONEY.

It gets them sympathetic coverage in the New York Times, bc the NYT really wants farmers to think it's cool for some misbegotten reason.

It's also led to the last 3 years having the highest profits in US farm history

while the rest of America drifts deeper & deeper into hunger & food insecurity.

Because nearly all the funding for the food system goes straight to farmers, & NONE to the hungry themselves.

The US farm economy is fraud all the way down

and well-meaning but absolutely ignorant, bleeding-heart coverage like this is a big part of why.

"He won't speculate on a motive for what he believes was arson"

I'm sorry, did I just have a stroke or is this entire article not a stenographer's report of how he's running around telling everyone "it was definitely because of my Trump flags"

Had this article actually TALKED to any Nebraska antifa they would have been able to come up with an interesting counterfactual.

IME Nebraska far-leftists are so far up farmers' ass

that if you're a farmworker who dares talk openly about experiences getting harangued, financially screwed, & outright physically harmed by farmers

they actually yell at you for being an "condescending urban asshole" lmaooo

Hand-wringing articles on "farmer victimization" that don't hit the following are malpractice:

-median farm household incomes have exceeded non-farmers' every year since 1996

-farmers have 10x the median net worth of non-farmers

-pls read the report https://www.heritage.org/agriculture/report/addressing-risk-agriculture

In closing: Major press outlets, for the love of god, if you're going to write on farm country you better hire people who know what they're looking at.

Here are some suggestions!

@sarah_k_mock

@the_meat_lady

@MegRaeB

@SylvanaquaFarms

@apihtawikosisan

@_beccaharrison

This is starting to do the numbers, so:

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Getting farmers in the replies w their buns chapped about "don't u know the engine's way off the ground"

If y'all are out there driving combines you oughta know the engine's not the only hot spot. Got moving parts/friction & static discharge elsewhere. https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1323297147266256896

Not to mention chaff can still get caught up around the engine & start fires. And once the combine's on fire it spreads to the rest of the parked equipment via the stubble.

"But but but the engine's all the way up thur" isn't the own you think it is

don't stop a few lil facts from blowing up your fun tho boys

this is just like that time when ag twitter yelled "IT'S COW BURPS NOT FARTS" for 3 days straight & everyone really got so flustered that they stopped talking about cattle & climate change

I like to imagine 100% of those guys were planning to torch their own combines for insurance after harvest & now they're mad that they need a new cover story

you can't make ag twitter up