2013 was a hard year to be a farmer in Missouri. Land was parched by drought, and, that summer, some farmers in Southwest Missouri started to notice some of their cattle had gone missing.
Joann Pipkin and her husband, Jim, have owned Clearwater Farm, just outside Springfield, for the past 30 years. In 2013, while working with the Joplin Stockyards, she said she attended press briefings about livestock theft.
And then her own farm got caught up in a theft ring…