We Never Know

June 12, 2020

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of a healthy farm economy and prosperous rural
America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary –

When you are farming, you are faced with a lot of unknowns - What will the weather be
like? Will these low prices ever recover? Our corn and soybeans are planted on my Illinois
farm. They are up and it is time to spray to kill weeds. We are ready. But just last week the
Ninth U.S. Circuit Court ruled that herbicides whose active ingredient is dicamba cannot be
used. We already paid for that weed killer. We have been using chemical Roundup for years.
Suddenly out of nowhere, we were unsure about what to do. Suddenly, Monday evening this
week, EPA announced farmers can still spray dicamba on our crops. The weed killer can only be
used until July 31.

For the Court to throw a wrench into the works just when we needed to spray was the ultimate of
inconsideration. Thank God and the EPA – we will be spraying this weed killer unless another
roadblock is thrown up. If you are in the business of farming, you never know what your next
challenge will be.

That is true with a lot of small family businesses you see them on television where their stores
have been destroyed and looted by rioters. Who would have ever expected this? Peaceful
protests are fine. I read an article about an Idaho city. Many heavily armed citizens came out to
support peaceful protesters and protect local businesses and citizens against shipped in ANTIFA
members, but when they saw the local defense, they did not cause any trouble. They knew that
looting and destruction would not be tolerated. A local citizen, Brett Surplus drove into the city
and here is what he saw-

“Wall to wall with armed citizens walking the streets and sidewalks making their powerful
presence known. Good guys with guns keep bad guys with evil intent away.” I know this kind of
defense could work in rural America but in our big cities – not a chance. I know that the
message is out that there are some bad cops, but the vast majority are great. More than 70% of
our citizens think our police do a good job. The far left is demanding that we “defund the
police”. That would result in more crime.

The debate goes on. Stores are opening and the crops are in God’s hands now.

Until next week, this John Block reporting from Washington, D.C. If you would like to review my radio shows going back more than 20 years, just go on-line to www.johnblockreports.com.