On a cloudless afternoon last week, Dan Tronchetti stood amid a field of leafy soybeans and struck a scarecrow pose.

The 66-year-old farmer was trying to ward off what he considered an invader.

While his wife, Susan, fixed her camera on him, Tronchetti, wearing a gray Carhartt T-shirt and a red mesh-back hat, held his arms out straight to either side to indicate where a developer wanted to route a pipeline through the 1,500 acres that his family farms in northwest Iowa. He hoped that illustrating just how close to his home the pipeline would run might catch a reporters attention.

He rejected Summit Carbon Solutions offer of $90,000 for the right to build there last December, but the Ames-based company would not accept no. After months of what Tronchetti described as harassing calls and emails, the firm asked state regulators last week to seize portions of his land through eminent domain. The last time a controversial pipeline wanted to take private farmland from unwilling sellers, the powerful Iowa Utilities Board approved.

I wish I would have become a political activist sooner and helped fight the Dakota Access Pipeline, Tronchetti said by phone. I think the Iowa Utilities Board is going to try to use that as a precedent.