One producer sent a message to a loved one while an artist is shedding light on drought conditions
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Some farmers and landowners have found different ways to use their crop fields.
In Pocahontas County, Iowa, for example, Brian Ricklefs turned a soybean field into a message board for a loved one.
Brian’s father, Tim, passed away on March 30 from heart failure.
This meant 2022 would be Brian’s first planting season without his father.
“We wanted to make it personal and with purpose, for honoring my dad,” Brian told KCCI.
From ground level, the soybean field looks like others one might see in Iowa.
But it’s from the sky where the message is clear.
Brian dedicated about 100 acres to put “Miss you dad” in the field, with a heart making up the “o” in you.
Having the message visible from above means Tim can see it.
“Somewhere up above, Tim is looking down,” Tim’s widow, Jann, told KCCI. “And it’s just using his passion and his interest to tell him how much we love him.”
In Kansas, a crop artist used a field to pay tribute to a popular TV show.
Stan Herd, an artist from Protection, Kan., created a picture of the character Eddie Munson from the show Stranger Things.
The piece shows Munson wearing a “Hellfire Club” shirt with the caption “Eddie Munson 4 Ever” underneath. Munson is smiling with his tongue out and using his fingers to create devil horns behind his head.
The piece is featured in a Netflix trailer for the show with Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” playing in the background.
Herd has created other works in fields including portraits of President Biden and John Lewis.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, a crop artist in Italy is using a field to spread a message of awareness.
Dario Gambarin, who has created pictures of the likes of Nelson Mandela, President Trump and Pope Francis, carved a message into dry corn and wheat fields in Veneto.
He carved a thermometer in the top left corner. In the middle is a water droplet surrounding the world with the word “save” above the globe. The bottom portion of the work has the word “water” carved into the field.
His works come as Italy is experiencing its worst drought in 70 years.
“The images speak for themselves,” Gambarin said in a statement, EuroNews reported.