- Todd Brown's farm in southern Utah sustained crop damage caused by social media influencers this week.
- One influencer's video led to continued trespassing and destruction of harvestable oats, he said.
- Local law enforcement issued citations; Brown urges respect for private property.
HURRICANE, Washington County — A farmer says "TikTokers" have damaged his crops over the past several days and he hopes that speaking out will prevent others from doing the same.
Todd Brown manages a farm in Hurricane that harvests many crops, including hay and oats. This past Sunday, he noticed tire tracks in his oat plants, with much of the crop "entirely ruined."
"Everywhere they drove their trucks, mashing down the crop is all crop-loss," Brown told KSL Thursday. "It's all dead and won't come back. I can't harvest that."
He was alerted to the trespassers by his nephew, who showed him a series of TikTok videos posted online.
"My nephew took screenshots and sent them to me and was like, 'Hey, these guys are out in your field,'" Brown said.
Brown said he waited several days, hoping it would stop, and when he kept seeing "$80,000 trucks roll in" and seeing them take videos in his crops, he decided to involve police.
"I was coming out every evening watching my fields and watching people pull into my field," he said. "I'd called the cops and they'd come out and issue citations. It just kept happening every single night."
He said the incidents began after a diesel truck event in southern Utah over the weekend, when a social media influencer posted a video of his truck in Brown's field. This, Brown said, led to an influx of people coming to the field and taking similar photos, causing even more damage.
"Emerson Nix ... is the first one that went out there and put #farmersgonnahate, and was just disrespectful with the whole deal," Brown said. "I asked police to talk to Emerson and see if he would post a video apologizing. ... He took no accountability and just said there were no trespassing signs and that he thought it was an unharvestable crop."
In a social media post, Nix says he was at Southwest Truck Fest in St. George when he saw a big grass field and thought it would "look sick" with his truck in it. He admitted that he pulled his truck "10 to 15 feet" into the field and took some photos.
Nix also said there were no private property or trespassing signs, adding that he thought it was grass and "didn't think it was harvestable," adding that it was an "honest mistake." The video was a follow-up to Nix's initial post showing his truck on the Hurricane farm.
Everywhere they drove their trucks, mashing down the crop, is a total loss.
–Todd Brown
"My field has three fences all the way around three sides, and the only way to even access my field is through the construction site," Brown said. "They went and did a bunch of TikToks in the construction site, and then they went out in my field. Apparently, you can tag the location, and all of his followers saw that location and started coming out every night at the golden hours, so they had the light just right for their pictures. It just kept happening, and I didn't know what to do."
Brown posted his own video on Facebook to ask for help from the surrounding community and alert the public to what happened. He also said he reached out to local law enforcement, who he said have been very helpful in issuing citations. He said he wants this to be a lesson not to trespass on private property and added a little tidbit about the damaged crop.
"I want people to be aware that actions have consequences — and don't touch stuff that isn't yours," he said. "An oat plant has a hollow stem, and so if you bend them or break the stem, the plant dies. Everywhere they drove their trucks, mashing down the crop, is a total loss. As you can see, the trucks are all parked in a very harvestable crop."
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