Scientology boss David Miscavige launched Scientology TV two year ago today. Today’s programming includes a piece on potato farming in Russia. Given the very limited nature of this topic, we were expecting an historical piece on how Stalin’s efforts at collectivist farming (Коллективизация) failed diastrously in the period 1928-1940. Instead, Scientology reported on Russian Scientologists Andrey and Zoya Sinitsyny and how they used modern methods to turn around their struggling potato farm.

Spoiler Alert: Like so many modern farmers, the Sinitsyny’s use drones, thermal imaging, and GPS-equipped automated tractors to help increase their agricultural yield.

We learn that the couple’s biggest customer is Frito Lay which turns their potatoes into potato chips. Viewers further discover that the Sinitsyny’s created an Org Board for their farm so that farmhands would know what their jobs are on the potato farm. And like all other farmers in the world, the couple use statistics to measure and improve their crop yield.

Scientology TV had to stretch the content of this episode. For example, a mention of the pivot irrigation system used on the Sinitsyny farm is made. Soya Sinitsyny shares with us how she learned to drive a tractor on her father’s farm. Absent the scant Scientology content worked into this episode, this is nothing more than an entirely forgettable thirty minute program about a family-owned potato farm in Russia. Still, agriculture is a noble profession that feeds the world. We salute the farmers of the world and the Sinitsyny’s.

As for Scientology TV, the $100 million David Miscavige spent on the platform hasn’t delivered much of anything except a self-referencing and stupor-inducing 24/7 format of Scientology and more Scientology. In a search for expanded content, Scientology TV also invited independent filmmakers to broadcast their non-Scientology related films on the Scientology network.

As the Church of Scientology has perhaps only 20,000 remaining members, this episode on Russian potato farming reveals just how few “safe” Scientologists are left to profile after only a few seasons of “Meet a Scientologist” have aired. Clearly, any Scientologists that are profiled have to pass strict review. OSA must deem such people to be at a low risk of escaping from the Church, publicly speaking out, and thereby ruining entire episodes of Meet a Scientologist. This is an inherent weakness of the propaganda machine that is Scientology TV.

We note that Scientology TV’s potato farm episode glaringly omitted any mention of agricultural pioneer L. Ron Hubbard and his use of radiation to grow giant tomato plants. Likewise, Scientology TV failed to cover Founder Hubbard famously auditing a tomato plant to determine if plants felt pain:

Gentleman farmer L. Ron Hubbard did his agricultural research in a suit and tie and gloves in the greenhouse at his St. Hill mansion:

These photos of Hubbard in his greenhouse are eccentric on so many levels that they could have only come from Scientology.

Scientology TV does not take the Sinitsyny’s to task for their failure to use L. Ron Hubbard’s breakthrough agricultural technology to grow giant potatoes. Conversely, Scientology’s print website gushes over the Founder’s accomplishments:

From his greenhouse at Saint Hill Manor, England, L. Ron Hubbard had the world of horticulture riveted. As tomato plants soared eighteen feet and cucumbers grew large as watermelons, the experts agreed his research represented “a discovery of immense significance to all gardeners.” Soon the world’s press caught on, hinting at unseen dramas playing out across vegetable-covered landscapes: “Plants do worry and feel pain.” Nevertheless, they didn’t have a clue.

For the real story was a far greater tale and its roots went much deeper. From Mr. Hubbard’s re-examination of The Basic Principle of Existence (Survive!) had come a discovery he described as “so idiotically simple that you all knew it all the time.” Yet it was no less a discovery with enormous ramifications. Here, then, is a new understanding of the basic postulates that bear directly on an individual’s journey to the ultimate freedom, while concurrently opening the gates for planetary clearing. Quite literally.

Thus we learn the secret that Scientology TV missed: If you can grow giant tomatoes then you have apprehended the very secrets of the universe. The Sinitsyny’s don’t know this and so are stuck using secular agricultural technology to increase crop yields. As a consequence, the world is missing out on giant potatoes and potato chips.