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Deere & Busch Light Raise Money for Farmers in Crisis

John Deere

John Deere is teaming up with Anheuser-Busch to raise money for farmers in crisis. Through July, both companies will donate to a foundation called Farm Rescue, based on sales of Busch Light beer.

Matt Blaylock, Deere's Manager of Sponsorship, Activation, and Events, says the limited edition beer cans are green, of course, and feature a Deere tractor - the 8RX model with tracks instead of wheels.

"Because it represents modern agriculture, agriculture in the midwest, in the areas in which we are. And also gives more to the general public, lets them see the technology and how modern agriculture is done."

Deere has supported Farm Rescue since it was founded in 2005, and since then he says it's helped more than 850 farm families in need.

"When you've got planting to be done or harvesting to be done, and in a lot of farm families there's a main person and if they have an illness or something goes wrong you only have a small window to go ahead and get a crop in the ground."

In fact, several Deere retirees from the Quad Cities are now helping Farm Rescue plant crops for farmers in North Dakota and western Iowa.

Deere and Anheuser-Busch will each donate one dollar for each case of Busch Light sold, up to a total of 200,000 dollars.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois. While a graduate student in the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield (then known as Sangamon State University), he got his first taste of public radio, covering Illinois state government for WUIS. Here in the Quad Cities, Herb worked for WHBF Radio before coming to WVIK in 1987. Herb also produces the weekly public affairs feature Midwest Week – covering the news behind the news by interviewing reporters about the stories they cover.