Some farmers east of Ottawa are trying to figure out why someone would deliberately sabotage their fields by sticking steel bars into the ground.
It has cost them time and money after the rebar damaged their combines.
So far, farmers in Bourget and Plantagenet, about 40 minutes east of Ottawa, have reported the incidents to provincial police.
Farmers expect to hit a few stones as they cut down their crop; but a two foot piece of steel?
And not just one, but several, hammered into the ground and hidden among the corn rows.
Thomas Wahler, who farms near Bourget, was combining the last of his corn crop last week when he hit a chunk of metal. It went through the back tire of his combine.
“We had this one punctured with pipe we found in the field,” says Wahler, as he points to the back tire on his combine, “and we had to remove it and bring it to repair shop.”
But it wasn't the only one he and his father found in that field.
“We found this rebar that someone hammered into the ground in between the corn rows,” Wahler says, showing CTV Ottawa the rebar he has collected over the last few days. There are 3 to be precise and another piece taped to a corn stalk and sharpened to a point.
“It's very frustrating to us,” says Wahler, “with having to deal with all the other issues we deal with and on top of that, someone doing this for no apparent reason.”
The Wahlers posted on Facebook what had happened to them. Now two other farmers have come forward with similar complaints.
“This was done on purpose, for sure,” says Tracy Koch. She and her family farm about 20 minutes further east of the Wahlers, in Plantagenet.
Koch shows CTV Ottawa how she uses her metal detector to find any more rebar, after her father hit a chunk of metal last month.
“I went out there with the metal detector and I was walking around for quite a while before I noticed the rebar sticking out of the ground,” she says.
Kosh decided to videotape her father pulling the rebar out of the ground as evidence for police. It is buried at an angle, about a foot below the surface of the soil. She has no idea why anyone would do this.
“I don't know if there's a reason, if we're on the road and bothering people. But this is our job, farmers feed cities,” says Kosh.
The farmers have contacted the Ontario Provincial Police. OPP have started an investigation and have asked the farmers to keep whatever spikes they find and to keep a look out for any others.”
Another farmer has also found rebar in his wheat field. Wahler only hopes whoever is doing this now realizes just harmful his or her actions are.
“Now I wonder if it's somebody that just doesn't like farmers in general,” says Wahler, “or maybe someone who just wants to do damage, that's possible too.”
