Plant Board pick has ‘explaining’ to do for approval

As expected, when the Arkansas Supreme Court tossed off all the farm industry appointees who were serving in the Arkansas State Plant Board, some of the old influences of insider dealings, outright omissions of facts and double-dealing have come to light with Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s latest pick for the Plant Board.

Travis H. Senter, 43, of Osceola (Mississippi County), is stuttering under sharp questions from several state senators questioning his previous associations with groups that have sued the state of Arkansas and the board Senter now wants to be placed upon.

Leading the charge to properly question Senter is state Senator Ronald Caldwell, R-Wynne, who has row-crop farmers as a main constituency in eastern Arkansas. Senter may be asked to meet with a senate committee soon.

And for all the environmentalists out there, Senter is an advocate for the herbicide/poison dicamba that have destroyed over 100,000 acres of soybeans, countless trees and shrubs, from its toxic drift and is actually being considered as illegal by the State Plant Board – the same board Senter now wants a seat at the table.

Not the best appointment, but, as they TV pitchmen say, “there is more.”

Senter has acknowledged he has resigned from FarmVoice, an advocacy group that has been so opposed to the state Plant Board dragging its feet on dicamba rules it sued the state over the make-up of the members of the Plant Board.

Senter, in an interview with the state’s largest newspaper, says he has resigned his board of directors’ seat on FarmVoice.

And he also admits on his application and through the process of seeking the appointment from the Hutchinson administration, he “forgot” to bring it up in the vetting process.

For the record, Senter has been a FarmVoice director since 2020 on incorporation filings with the Secretary of State’s office.

Senter told the newspaper, he “didn’t talk to the governor’s office about his relationship with FarmVoice

and the governor’s office didn’t bring up the matter.”

But others on the state Plant Board, like Matthew Marsh of Little Rock, Plant Board chairman and also a Hutchinson appointee to represent rice growers, said he “wasn’t aware of Senter’s role as a founder of FarmVoice.”

Marsh also told the state’s media: “It seems like it would be [a potential conflict of interest]. If he resigned [as a director], maybe by doing that, he’s trying to take himself away from FarmVoice and just represent the Plant Board, but that, at some point, might present a conflict, being a founding member.”

FarmVoice was formed, at least in part, with the rise in usage of the dicamba herbicide, which has been linked to thousands of complaints of damage to crops and vegetation in nearly two dozen soybean-producing states, including some 1,600 complaints in Arkansas since 2016. Primarily through social media, FarmVoice has favored a longer spray season for dicamba since at least 2019. The incorporation papers listing Senter as a director were filed in August 2020.

Senter took issue with the idea that FarmVoice was formed because of dicamba and pesticide regulations that go before the Plant Board.

Asked if he is still a member of FarmVoice, Senter said, “A member as in donating to FarmVoice, yes, I guess you could consider me a member.”

Senter, who farms 7,500 acres of cotton, soybeans, rice and corn, is the third

generation in his family to farm.

He says he sprays dicamba on his dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybeans, and abides by any restrictions placed on its usage, including adhering to any buffers near state agriculture research stations. He said he farms about 300 acres adjacent to the UA Division of Agriculture’s Northeast Research and Extension Center at Keiser (Mississippi County). The research station has reported dicamba damage to its research plots about every year since dicamba’s usage increased in 2016.

Uh oh, maybe Senter didn’t know about that damage as well.

A bad appointment Governor Hutchinson, ask Senter to step off, quickly.

And ask him to quit using dicamba.

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Maylon Rice is a former journalist who worked for several northwest Arkansas publications. He can be reached via email at maylontrice@yahoo.com. Opinions expressed are those of the author.