Inventor promising rain to farmers for 50k denies "preying" on the desperate
An inventor has been accused of “preying” on vulnerable farmers by promising his device can change the weather and make it rain to where they need it most.
However, David Miles from Miles Research has insisted “there’s no way we want to con anyone”.
Miles is currently offering a three-month rain contract to farmers in Victoria’s grain belt for $50,000 on a “success basis”.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has slammed this, saying that farmers should not do business with Miles, but they are powerless to stop him.
“It’s preying on people’s desperation,” Australian Competition and Consumer Commission deputy chairman Mick Keogh told ABC Radio on Wednesday.
“If you wanted to prosecute a court requires you to prove essentially that there’s no basis for the claims being made and that is a very difficult thing to do. By far the very best defence against them is widespread consumer education. It’s up to individuals obviously to make their own mind up. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.”
Miles has denied the allegations, saying that the ACCC are defaming him.
“How can they do that without looking at our contracts? We’re success based, if we don’t deliver rain we don’t get paid,” he said to news.com.au.
“I think the ACCC probably jumped the gun in making that comment. They’ve never seen the contracts, they haven’t spoken with me. We don’t mind scepticism, but the Government needs to be careful not to defame us as they did in 2006.”
What Miles is referring to is that he has been operating weather modification technology for nearly two decades under a different business name of Aquiess. The Victorian Government highly criticised the business back in 2006.
Miles has said a “small private group” of farmers has seen results from the program.
“They signed the agreement that if by the end of June they’d received 100mm, they pay $50,000, if they only receive 50mm, they would only pay $25,000. Anything under half we don’t want to be paid,” he said.
One farmer vouched for the device, saying that he’s seen results.
“I got involved because it sounded good, the fact you can control weather, because as a farmer rainfall is everything,” he told the broadcaster.
“I think the evidence is out there, you look at the forecast what’s meant to come and all of a sudden it increases dramatically. You know that he’s behind it and I reckon I haven’t seen such good crops in this district ever, everywhere.”
Image credit: Miles Research Whitepaper
Miles is keeping his technology under wraps as he fears it could be stolen by competitors or “weaponised” by the government.
“There’s no way we want to con anyone,” he said. “Our best approach at the moment is to put up a risk-free model, so the farmers can get some rain and we can get some income to get a facility. We’ve been able to make adjustments to approaching weather and we want to be able to offer that to the rest of Australia.”
On Miles’ website, since deleted, he claimed the technology uses “electromagnetic scalar waves”.
“Electromagnetic scalar waves don’t exist,” University of Melbourne associate professor of physics Martin Sevior told ABC Radio. “There’s no such thing. He’s taken a few words and put them together and made them sound somewhat scientific but it’s meaningless.”
Miles has also not patented the technology, as this would involve exposing how it works.
“We were advised against patenting because it’s basically exposing how it works. There are a lot of big companies that invest in trawling through patents. We thought it’s probably right to go down the lines of Coca-Cola,” he said.
“I understand the scepticism, the only other way is to fully prove up our science and physics and peer review. If we did that, we’ll lose it, it will be taken up as a national security interest and it’ll then be weaponised.”