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The Ontario government-commissioned report was supposed to depict an idealized sustainable farm in the Ontario of 2050. And for some reason, it features highway equipment mercilessly destroying a field of harvest-ready lettuce.

Apparently mistaking the machine for a tractor, the report’s authors equipped the farm with a road grader — a piece of heavy equipment used to create level surfaces for roads.

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“Notice the road grader tilling the crops,” read a Monday tweet by John Deere instructor Justus Hickey. He added the note “not a clue.”

The image originally appeared in a report detailing Ontario’s five-year climate change action plan. Included in the 85-page report are plans to increase recycling on farms and find a way to sequester carbon in agricultural soil.

Photo by John Lucas/Edmonton Journal

The report was published in 2016, and its poor grader literacy was mocked at the time. But again this week the error was revived by opposition MPPs — and by farmers using it to claim that Toronto is out of touch with rural folk.

As of Monday afternoon, the image had been altered and the fictional farm is now grader-free.

Photo by Government of Ontario

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